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682
GITA-RAHASYA OR KARMA-YOGA
Action is the sign and the result of Destruction of Desire, since (i) Abandonment of Action is totally unnecessary for destroying Desire, or after Desire has been destroyed, and (ii). the fact whether Desire has been destroyed or not, can be proved by nothing so well as by Actions performed desirelessly for the benefit of others, Deussen has laid down the proposition that, Desirelessness of the Mind, is the root of proper behaviour and of Morality; and he has at the end of his argument quoted the verse“ tasmād asaktah satatam kāryam karma samācara" (Gi. 3. 19), * which shows that he must have thought of this argument by reading the Gitä. Whatever may be the truth, the fact that these ideas were universally current in our country long before Deussen, Green, Schopenhauer, and Kant, and even possibly hundreds of years before Aristotle, is not a small matter. Many persons are now-a-days under the impression that Vedānta means giving up family life and entering the dry process of acquiring Release; but this idea is not correct. Vedānta philosophy has come into existence for considering as scientifically as possible such deep and difficult questions as, (i) going beyond whatever can be actually seen in the world and determining who man is, (ii) determining what the Principle at the bottom of the universe is, (iii) defining the relation between man and that Principle, and what the highest ideal of man in this world is, having regard to that relation ; (iv) finding out the mode of life which must be adopted by man in order to reach that ideal, or (v) in what way, which ideal can be reached etc. etc.; and strictly speaking, the whole of Ethics, or the consideration of how men should behave towards each other in worldly life, will be seen to be a part of that profound philosophy. Therefore, Karma-Yoga has to be justified on the basis of Vedānta; and whatever the followers of the Path of Renunciation may say, Vedānta philosophy undoubtedly falls into the two divisions of Pure Vedānta and Moral or Practical Vedānta, in the same way as Mathematics is divided into Pure Mathematics and Applied Mathematics. Kant even says that the moot questions about the 'Parameśvara' (the Highest Ātman), 'Immortality,' and 'Freedom (of Will)'
*See Deussen's Elements of Metaphysics, Eng. Trans., 1909 P. 304.
