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God and Man
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is foolish, an unbeliever, and full of doubts, is destroyed. He who is always doubting has neither this world, nor the other, nor does he enjoy any happiness. Even the worst sinner can hope to cross the sea of sins in the boat of knowledge1. In the Gītā, IV. 42, Kṛṣṇa says to Arjuna, "Therefore, having destroyed the ignorance of your heart by the sword of knowledge, and having cut asunder all doubts, raise yourself up." But what is this knowledge? In the Gita, IV. 36, in the same context, this knowledge is defined to be that view of things by which all beings are perceived in this self or God. The true knowledge of God destroys all karma in the sense that he who has perceived and realized the true nature of all things in God cannot be attached to his passions and desires as an ignorant man would be. In another passage, already referred to, it is said that the roots of the worldly Aśvattha tree are to be cut by the sword of unattachment. The confusion into which Arjuna falls in the Gita, III. 1 and 2, regarding the relative excellence of the path of karma and the path of knowledge is wholly unfounded. Kṛṣṇa points out in the Gitā, III. 3, that there are two paths, the path of knowledge and the path of duties (jñāna-yoga and karma-yoga). The confusion had arisen from the fact that Kṛṣṇa had described the immortality of soul and the undesirability of Vedic actions done with a motive, and had also asked Arjuna to fight and yet remain unattached and perform his duty for the sake of duty. The purpose of the Gita was to bring about a reconciliation between these two paths, and to show that the path of knowledge leads to the path of duties by liberating it from the bonds of attachment; for all attachment is due to ignorance, and ignorance is removed by true knowledge. But the true knowledge of God may be of a twofold nature. One may attain a knowledge of God in His transcendence as Brahman, and attain the philosophic wisdom of the foundation of all things in Brahman as the ultimate substance and source of all manifestation and appearance. There is another way of clinging to God as a super-person, in a personal relation of intimacy, friendship and dependence. The Gītā admits that both these ways may lead us to the attainment of our highest realization. But it is the latter which the Gita prefers and considers easier. Thus the Gītā says (XII. 3-5) that those who adore the indefinable, unchangeable, omnipresent, unthinkable, and the unmanifested, controlling all their senses, with equal eyes for all
1 Gitā, IV. 37-41.
