Book Title: History of Indian Philosophy
Author(s): Surendranath Dasgupta
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

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Page 1048
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492
The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-gitā
[CH.
The person who has his prajñā fixed is not troubled in sorrows and is not eager to gain pleasures, he has no attachment, no fear and no anger1. He is indifferent in prosperity and in adversity and neither desires anything nor shuns anything2. He alone can obtain peace who, like the sea receiving all the rivers in it, absorbs all his desires within himself; not so the man who is always busy in satisfying his desires. The man who has given up all his desires and is unattached to anything is not bound to anything, has no vanity and attains true peace. When a man can purge his mind of attachments and antipathies and can take to sense-objects after purifying his senses and keeping them in full control, he attains contentment (prasāda). When such contentment is attained, all sorrows vanish and his mind becomes fixed (buddhiḥ paryavatisthate). Thus sense-control, on the one hand, makes the mind unruffled, fixed, at peace with itself and filled with contentment, and on the other hand, by making the mind steady and fixed, it makes communion with God possible. Sense-control is the indispensable precondition of communion with God; when once this has been attained, it is possible to link oneself with God by continued efforts. Thus sense-control, by producing steadiness of the will and thought, results in contentment and peace on the one hand, and on the other makes the mind fit for entering into communion with God.
One thing that strikes us in reading the Gita is that the object of sense-control in the Gitā is not the attainment of a state of emancipated oneness or the absolute cessation of all mental processes, but the more intelligible and common-sense ideal of the attainment of steadiness of mind, contentment and the power of entering into touch with God. This view of the object of selfcontrol is therefore entirely different from that praised in the philosophic systems of Patanjali and others. The Gita wants us to control our senses and mind and to approach sense-objects with such a controlled mind and senses, because it is by this means alone that we can perform our duties with a peaceful and contented mind and turn to God with a clean and unruffled heart5. The main emphasis of this sense-control is not on the mere external control of volitional activities and the control of motor propensities
2 Ibid. 11. 57.
1 Gītā, II. 56.
5
3 Ibid. 11. 65; see also II. 58, 64, 68, 70, 71. raga-dveṣa-vimuktais tu vişayan indriyais caran atma-vasyair vidheyātmā prasādam adhigacchati.
• Ibid. VI. 36.
Ibid. 11. 64.

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