III:26

Chapter 3, Verse 26

"The wise do not unsettle
The minds of the ignorant
Who are attached to action.
The wise show by example
How work is holy
When the heart of the worker
Is fixed on the highest."

Sri Krishna Prem:

"At the beginning of the path, students may be filled with despair at the thought of the joyless life which awaits them when all the desires which make life seem worth living are slain. This is an illusion to be dispelled. The glow which accompanies the desire-prompted actions of the worldly, the enthusiasm of youth and the tireless energy of the ambitious, are to be preserved and transmuted into something higher and not allowed to drain away into desert sands.

The wise are not dull, dried-up, 'holy' persons of the type that make the very name of religion a thing of nausea to so many, but rather they are tireless fountains of joyful and inspired life based on the eternal joy of the Lord which overflows into creation out of its own inherent fullness. This is the charter of action: the whole cosmos is established on the principle of worship, not on formal acts of ceremonial offering alone but on that of which all these are but the outward symbol of that great act of worship in which God offers himself into the world."

Sri Aurobindo:

"All individual and social action, all the work of intellect, heart and body still accompany the wise, no longer for their own separate sakes, but rather for the sake of God in the world and of God in all beings so that those beings may progress by the path of action towards the divine within themselves. Outwardly, the actions of the wise will not differ from the others. Battle and rule as well as teaching and thought and all the commerce of others with each other will fall into their range; but the spirit in which they accomplish them will be very different. It is this spirit which by its influence shall be the great magnet drawing others upward. It is the great lever lifting the peoples higher in their ascent."