Talks on the Gita by Acarya Vinoba Bhave.pdf

Talks on the Gita

Written by: Vinoba Bhave

Price: Rs. 70/-

"Talks on the Gita" is the story of my life, and it is also my message.

- Vinoba

Published by:

Dr. Parag Cholkar

Paramdham Prakashan, (Gram-seva Mandal),

Pavnar, Wardha - 442 111, India.

Talks on the Gita

INTRODUCTION

Jayaprakash Narayan

The Bhagavad-Gita is no stranger to the West. Nor is Vinoba Bhave, the author

of these talks on the 'Song Celestial'. Since the death of Gandhi, one name that

has sent, if not a wave, a ripple of hope throughout this frightened world is

that of Vinoba.

During Gandhi's life Vinoba's name was not much known even in India. Today,

however, the remotest villages resound with the words 'Vinoba' and Bhoodan .

Even outside India, well-informed circles have sat up to take notice of the

'walking saint' and his land-gift mission. Many thinkers in the West have seen in

Vinoba's message a solvent for that war of ideologies that has become the

despair of the human race.

Vinoba was born in a Brahmin family of Maharashtra (India) in September 1895.

From his childhood he showed a remarkable lack of interest in worldly affairs. A

brilliant undergraduate, he gave up college because that sort of education was

not what his soul craved for. The idea of utilizing his education in order to

make money never entered his head. So, he went to Banaras (VaranasiÐIndia's

holiest city and acknowledged as the premier seat of Sanskrit scholarship) to

study Sanskrit and Philosophy and to live a life of contemplation and

brahmacharya (self-discipline in the most comprehensive sense).

Through he gave up college, Vinoba has remained a student all his life. Unlike

Gandhi, he is an erudite pundit of Sanskrit, Philosophy and the religious

literature of the world. He has studied the Koran in Arabic, which language he

learnt only to be able to read that holy book in the original. He knows the Bible

and Christian religious literature as well perhaps as a Doctor of Divinity.

I shall not forget the occasion when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, the leader

of the Montgomery, Alabama movement of non-violent resistance to racial

segregation, met Vinoba with his wife. Jim Bristol of the Quaker Centre, Delhi,

it was, I think, who in introducing Mrs. King spoke of her proficiency in music

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and suggested that she might sing some hymns and Negro spirituals for Vinoba.

Everyone was delighted at the suggestion. I looked at Vinoba and wondered

loudly if he knew what the Negro spirituals were. We were all startled, most of

all the Americans, when Vinoba, as if in answer, raised his ever-downcast eyes

towards Mrs. King and intoned softly, 'Were you there, Were you there, When

they crucified my Lord?' When Mrs. King sang that spiritual, it had an added

poignancy for us.

Vinoba is a linguist. Besides Sanskrit, Pali and Arabic, he knows English well;

reads French; was recently learning German; knows all the major Indian

languages. He loves Mathematics. His quest for knowledge is insatiable. But it is

not knowledge as ordinarily understood. Most knowledge he regards as

superficial and is interested in seeking after the fundamental truths of life. He

has an uncanny capacity for separating the chaff from the grain and going to

the root of a question. I have not met another person with as keen, razor-like a

mind as Vinoba's.

'Vinoba literature', i.e. the collection of his writings and speeches, is already a

voluminous affair and is ever-growing. It deals mostly with Philosophy and the

theory and practice of non-violence.

To go back to his early days again. There were from the beginning two urges, or

rather two tributaries of a single stream of urge, that impelled Vinoba onward.

The one came from his identification with his fellow-creatures and impelled

him, naturally, to work for the freedom of his country. Due to this urge he felt

strongly attracted by the courage, dedication, sincerity and spirit of self-

immolation of the revolutionaries of Bengal (whom the British unjustly called

'terrorists').

The other urge pulled him towards the HimalayasÐthe traditional home of

spiritual seekersÐfor a life of meditation and spiritual fulfillment. While torn

between these urges (whose essential unity was not yet clear to him), Vinoba

came in touch with Gandhi, who seemed to synthesize beautifully the two urges

in his own life. Therefore, he threw in his lot with that newcomer from South

Africa who was saying strange things and doing what was even stranger. That

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was way back in 1916. Vinoba was among the first to join Gandhi's Sabarmati

Ashram, near the textile city of Ahmedabad. It was from there that Gandhi

directed the freedom movement till the beginning of the famous salt

satyagraha of 1930.

From that first day of contact Vinoba remained steadfast in his loyalty and

devotion to his chosen master, though it would be doing an injustice to him to

regard him as a disciple in any narrow sense of the term. It was clear to those

who came to know him even during Gandhi's lifetime that he possessed a mind

and character, an originality, and above all, a spiritual quality, that were

destined to take him beyond the limits of a mere followerÐno matter how

brilliantÐand make him a master in his own right. Those who have followed

closely Vinoba's work and thought, know how great have been his own

'experiments with truth' and how significant his contribution to human thought.

Particularly significant has been his development of the theory and practice of

satyagraha beyond the stage where Gandhi left them.

When Gandhi was assassinated at the beginning of 1948, he was about to launch

upon an even greater undertaking than the winning of India's freedom. Gandhi

had his own vision of the future India and, as he used to say jokingly, he

wanted to live till the age of 125 years in order to make that vision a reality.

That vision was of a new social orderÐdifferent from the capitalist, socialist,

communist orders of society; a non-violent society, a society based on love and

human values, a decentralized, self-governing, non-exploitative, co-operative

society. Gandhi gave that society the name of Sarvodaya Ðliterally, the rise of

all, i.e. a society in which the good of all is achieved.

To bring about this grand social revolution, Gandhi had conceived of different

means from those followed in historyÐthe means of love. He had used the same

means in his struggle against the British. But Gandhi did not live to put his

concept into practice. Nothing was more natural than that the task should have

devolved upon Vinoba.

This is not the place to write about the Bhoodan movement. But this much must

be said, that it is the first attempt in history to bring about a social revolution

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and reconstruction by the means of love. Vinoba is doing a path-finding job in

this field. The results of his experiment may have a far-reaching impact on a

world that is so torn with hatred and charged with violence.

One final word about Vinoba is essential so that he may be truly understood.

Vinoba is not a politician, not a social reformer, nor a revolutionary. He is first

and last a man of God. Service of man is to him nothing but an effort to unite

with God. He endeavours every second to blot himself out, to make himself

empty so that God may fill him up and make him His instrument.

The talks of such a man of self-realization on one of the profoundest spiritual

works of all times should be of inestimable value to allÐirrespective of race,

creed or nationality.

Specially written for the foreign edition of the 'Talks on the Gita' published by George

Allen and Unwin Ltd., London

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