Page:Essays On The Gita - Ghose - 1922.djvu/191

Rh a wheel of the ignorance binding the” soul to continual birth by the impulse of desire and action until at last that is exhausted or cast away ? Not only desire, but action also must be flung away; seated in the silent self the soul will then pass away into the motionless, actionless, imperturbable, absolute Brahman. To this objection of the impersonalising quietist the Gita is at more pains to answer than to that of the man of the world, the kinetic individual. For this quietism having hold of a higher and more powerful truth which is yet not the whole or the highest truth, its promulgation as the universal, complete, highest ideal of human life is likely to be more confusing and disastrous to the advance of the human race towards its goal than the error of an exclusive kinetism. A strong onesided truth; when set forth as the whole truth, creates a strong light but also a strong confusion ; for the very strength of its element of truth increases the strength of its element of error. The error of the kinetic ideal can only prolong the ignorance and retard the human advance by setting it in search of perfection where perfection cannot be found; but the error of the quietistic ideal contains in itself the very principle of world-destruction. Were 1 to act upon it, says Krishna, 1 should destroy the peoples and be the author of confusion ; and though the error of an indivi- dual human being, even though a nearly divine man, cannot destroy the whole race, it may produce a widespread confusion which may be in its nature des- tructive of the principle of human life and disturbing to the settled line of its advance.

Therefore th quietistic tendency in man must be got to recognise its own incompleteness and admit on