Tilak: Gita Was Tilak's Spiritual Anchor  

By M N CHATTERJEE  

Tilak: Gita Was Tilak's Spiritual Anchor  

Lokmanya Balgangadhar Tilak was a freedom fighter whose convictions stemmed from a deep and intricate understanding of Indian culture. He wrote a scholarly commentary on the Bhagavad Gita in his magnum opus, Gita-Rahasya and he lived its message in every sphere of his life.

As a child, Tilak was often told by some of his elders that the religious and philosophic life was incompatible with humdrum everyday existence. The only path to moksha or liberation, the highest attainable goal, was the renunciation of desires and material attachments, they said: "One could not serve two masters, the world and God."

Tilak was curious as to how his religion could expect him to give up the world in order to attain 'the perfection of manhood', because, he was also told that the Bhagavad Gita was universally recognised as the fountainhead of Hindu philosophy and faith, and a source of inspiration for seekers.

Tilak, therefore, started reading the Gita and subsequently propounded what he thought to be the real import of the divine message. Tilak believed that there is a fundamental unity underlying God, man and the world. The world is in existence because the divine power has willed it so and it is His will, which holds it together. Man, he averred, strives to gain union with God. But, when this union is achieved and the individual is united with the Universal Will, should the individual cease to act?

Tilak protested that, "Shri Krishna himself says that there is nothing in all the three worlds that He need acquire, and still he acts, because if he did not, the world will be ruined."

It follows that if man seeks unity with the Godhead, he must necessarily reconcile this with other common worldly interests. If he does not, the unity is not perfect, because, as Tilak reasoned, there is a union of two elements - man and God, but the third element, the world, is left out. Serving the world is doing His willing and serving His will is the surest way to salvation.

Karma yoga, according to Tilak, is as important as gyana yoga or knowledge and bhakti yoga or devotion. The duty enjoined by one's station in life is of paramount importance. The requisite action is necessary to "keep the world going by the right path of evolution which the Creator has destined the world to follow. It must be done with the aim of helping His purpose, and without any attachment to the result. This I hold is the lesson of the Gita," he wrote.

He felt that different paths to salvation are equally important: "If the Gita was preached to despondent Arjuna to make him ready for the fight - for the action - how can it be said that the ultimate lesson of the great book is bhakti or gyana alone? In fact, there is a blending of all the yogas in the Gita ."

Advaita Vedanta claims that the jivatman or personal atman and the paramatman or the supreme atman are fundamentally identical. But those who do not accept this non-dualistic doctrine claim that this power of the jivatman is not its own power, but is received by it from the Parameswara .

In order to acquire this power, jivatman must make the necessary effort, as per the principle enunciated in the Rig Veda that "the gods do not help any one except the man who makes effort, until he is tired". When the Gita speaks of renunciation, it is therefore renunciation in action, of attachments, and not renunciation of action itself, he concluded.

Tilak started the annual Ganesh Puja and Sivaji Jayanti festivals in an effort to promote an appreciation of our spiritual and historical heritage and to consolidate a sense of national identity. He lived the relevance of his message, that religion can and does serve a useful social purpose.

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More from same author see: M N CHATTERJEE  

See also: Tilak, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)