Action with Knowledge

We all would have heard about the story of the woodcutter & his axe.

Two woodcutters are competing to see who cuts more wood in a certain time.

Mr A keeps constantly cutting. Mr B stops after an hour for 10 minutes and sharpens his axe. Mr A thinks what a waste of time & cuts another tree. Next time when Mr B stops to sharpen his axe, Mr A still keeps cutting. without lifting his head. At the end of the day though Mr B was cutting for less time as he kept sharpening his axe, he had cut much more than Mr A. Simply because he always had a sharp axe that made him effective.

Knowing when to stop to sharpen the axe for efficiency was the lesson here.

There is another one.....

There was a man in the village who could run very fast. Once a robber came & stole cash from his home. His wife said go run after the thief. So he ran after the robber. Robber ran faster and this man ran faster too. After a few hours he returned. His wife asked where is the thief & the stolen cash ??? His response was - you asked me to run & I ran faster than the robber & he was far behind within 20 minutes!!!! So he ran with little purpose & knowledge.

So action with out knowledge does not get us there. Acting with knowledge ( sharpening axe, knowing why I am running!) is the purpose of life. Gita helps us with the knowledge and its up to us to act with the knowledge.