THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

172 The Harmony of VirtueAnd even the man who has risen to the heights of the initiationmust cleave for the good of society to the pursuits andduties of his order; for, if he does not, the world which instinctivelyis swayed by the examples of its greatest will follow in hisfootsteps; the bonds of society will then crumble asunder andchaos come again; mankind will be baulked of its destiny. SriKrishna illustrates this by his own example, the example of Godin his manifest form.“Looking also to the maintenance of order in the worldthou shouldst act: for whatever the best practises, that othermen practise; for the standard set by him is followed by thewhole world. In all the Universe there is for Me no necessaryaction, for I have nothing I do not possess or wish to possess,and I abide always doing. For if I so abide not at all doingaction vigilantly, men would altogether follow in my path, Oson of Pritha; these worlds would sink if I did not actions, andI should be the author of confusion (literally, illegitimacy, theworst and primal confusion, for it disorders the family whichis the fundamental unit of society) and the destroyer of thepeoples. What the ignorant do, O Bharata, with their mindsenslaved to the work, that the wise man should do with a freemind to maintain the order of the world; the wise man shouldnot upset the mind of the ignorant who are slaves of their deeds,but should apply himself to all works doing customary thingswith a mind in Yoga.” 1It is accordingly not by airy didactic teaching so much asin the example of Krishna — and this is the true epic method —that Vyasa develops his higher ethic which is the morality of theliberated mind. But this is too wide a subject to be dealt with inthe limits I have at my command. I have dwelt on Vyasa's ethicalstandpoint because it is of the utmost importance in the presentday. Before the Bhagavadgita with its great epic commentary,the Mahabharata of Vyasa, had time deeply to influence thenational mind, the heresy of Buddhism seized hold of it. Buddhismwith its exaggerated emphasis on quiescence and the1Bhagavadgita, III. 20-26.