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no efforts is ever lost; and even a little movement in this direction is of momentous significance.20 What the Gītā wishes us to say is this that man should cultivate the habit of thinking about social goods without the involvement of personal interests. The more we forget about our selfish interests, the more we become happy, and those whose self-interests tend to be zero are persons who tend to be perfectly happy. Our primary concern should be social good and this will be achieved only in proportion to the diminishing of personal interests. Thus the ordinary man can accomplish social beneficence only partially whereas the ideal man can do so completely. But in both cases the social action is teleological, and this social action may be political, economic, moral and religious according to their dispositions. To say that the ideal man will not involve himself in political and economic struggles is to narrow the meaning of the words. Lokasamgraha and Sarvabhūtahiterataḥ. No doubt, his involvement in these struggles will not be narrowly oriented. He will think and do in terms of mankind, nay, in terms of all living beings. Thus at his level narrowism in social action is abandoned and he transcends the boundaries of countriesnations and cultures, and the Gītā supports this without any inconsistency, though comprehensively and not in a detailed way. The treatises like the Gītā can do so only comprehensively, leaving the detailed programmes to the person concerned. Here I do not say, I may mention in passing, that such a man will never err in the choice of social goals, but this error will not be, because of personal considerations. It may be due to improper calculation of social consequences affecting mankind at large.
It is on account of the fact, that, the ideal man is engaged in social action without any iota of egoism that he is equanimous in praise and censure, honour and dishonour, success and failure and in those who call him friend or foe.21 Besides, such a man neither rejoices nor hates, neither, grieves nor desires, and is not disturbed by the hot or cold weather, and is content with anything that comes.22 All these dualities effect only that man who is egoistically disposed. He who is prone to social action only is not perturbed by these dualities. The test that a man is exclusively socially oriented is that he remains unruffled, in the social situation of praise and blame, honour and dishonour and
Jaina Mysticism and other essays
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