Essays on the Gita

IVThe Core of the TeachingWE KNOW the divine Teacher, we see the human disciple;it remains to form a clear conception of thedoctrine. A clear conception fastening upon the essentialidea, the central heart of the teaching is especially necessaryhere because the Gita with its rich and many-sided thought, itssynthetical grasp of different aspects of the spiritual life andthe fluent winding motion of its argument lends itself, evenmore than other scriptures, to one-sided misrepresentations bornof a partisan intellectuality. The unconscious or half-consciouswresting of fact and word and idea to suit a preconceived notionor the doctrine or principle of one’s preference is recognised byIndian logicians as one of the most fruitful sources of fallacy;and it is perhaps the one which it is most difficult for eventhe most conscientious thinker to avoid. For the human reasonis incapable of always playing the detective upon itself in thisrespect; it is its very nature to seize upon some partial conclusion,idea, principle, become its partisan and make it the key toall truth, and it has an infinite faculty of doubling upon itselfso as to avoid detecting in its operations this necessary andcherished weakness. The Gita lends itself easily to this kind oferror, because it is easy, by throwing particular emphasis on oneof its aspects or even on some salient and emphatic text andputting all the rest of the eighteen chapters into the backgroundor making them a subordinate and auxiliary teaching, to turn itinto a partisan of our own doctrine or dogma.Thus, there are those who make the Gita teach, not worksat all, but a discipline of preparation for renouncing life andworks: the indifferent performance of prescribed actions or ofwhatever task may lie ready to the hands, becomes the means,the discipline; the final renunciation of life and works is the solereal object. It is quite easy to justify this view by citations from