{"id":1234,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:27","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1234"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:27","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:27","slug":"18-the-liberation-of-the-spirit-vol-21-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/21-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-21\/18-the-liberation-of-the-spirit-vol-21-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-21","title":{"rendered":"-18_The Liberation of the Spirit.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nChapter VIII<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font>The
\nLiberation of the Spirit<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/font><\/b>HE<\/font>
\npurification of the mental being and the psychic Prana, \u2013 we will leave aside
\nfor the time the question of the physical purification, that of the body and
\nphysical prana, though that too is necessary to an integral perfection, \u2013 prepares
\nthe ground for a spiritual liberation. Śuddhi<\/i><\/span> is the condition for mukti<\/i>. All purification is a release, a delivery; for it is a
\nthrowing away of limiting, binding, obscuring imperfections and confusions:
\npurification from desire brings the freedom of the psychic prana, purification
\nfrom wrong emotions and troubling reactions the freedom of the heart,
\npurification from the obscuring limited thought of the sense mind the freedom
\nof the intelligence, purification from mere intellectuality the freedom of the
\ngnosis. But all this is an instrumental liberation. The freedom of the soul, mukti<\/i>, is of a larger and more essential
\ncharacter; it is an opening out of mortal limitation into the illimitable
\nimmortality of the Spirit.<\/p>\n

For certain
\nways of thinking liberation is a throwing off of all nature, a silent state of
\npure being, a nirvana or extinction, a dissolution of the natural existence
\ninto some indefinable Absolute, mokşa<\/i><\/span>. But an absorbed and immersed bliss, a wideness
\nof actionless<\/span> peace, a release of self-extinction or
\na self-drowning in the Absolute is not our aim. We shall give to the idea of
\nliberation, mukti<\/i>, only the
\nconnotation of that inner change which is common to all experience of this
\nkind, essential to perfection and indispensable to spiritual freedom. We shall
\nfind that it then implies always two things, a rejection and an assumption, a
\nnegative and a positive side; the negative movement of freedom is a liberation
\nfrom the principal bonds, the master-knots of the lower soul-nature, the
\npositive side an opening or growth into the higher spiritual existence. But
\nwhat are these master-knots \u2013 other and deeper twistings<\/span>
\nthan the
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 647<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

instrumental knots of the mind,
\nheart, psychic life-force? We find them pointed out for us and insisted on with
\ngreat force and a constant emphatic repetition in the Gita; they are four,
\ndesire, ego, the dualities and the three gunas of Nature; for to be desireless<\/span>, ego-less, equal of mind and soul and spirit and
\nnistraiguņya<\/i><\/span>,
\nis in the idea of the Gita to be free, mukta<\/span>. We may
\naccept this description; for everything essential is covered by its amplitude.
\nOn the other hand, the positive sense of freedom is to be universal in soul,
\ntranscendently one in spirit with God, possessed of the highest divine nature,
\n\u2013 as we may say, like to God, or one with him in the law of our being. This is
\nthe whole and full sense of liberation and this is the integral freedom of the spirit.<\/p>\n

We have already
\nhad to speak of purification from the psychic desire of which the craving of
\nthe prana is the evolutionary or, as we may put it, the practical basis. But
\nthis is in the mental and psychic nature; spiritual desirelessness<\/span>
\nhas a wider and more essential meaning: for desire has a double knot, a lower
\nknot in the prana, which is a craving in the instruments, and a very subtle
\nknot in the soul itself with the buddhi as its first support or pratişţhā<\/i><\/span>,
\nwhich is the inmost origin of this mesh of our bondage. When we look from
\nbelow, desire presents itself to us as a craving of the life force which subtilises<\/span> in the emotions into a craving of the heart and
\nis farther subtilised<\/span> in the intelligence into a
\ncraving, preference, passion of the aesthetic, ethical, dynamic or rational
\nturn of the buddhi. This desire is essential to the ordinary man; he cannot
\nlive or act as an individual without knotting up all his action into the
\nservice of some kind of lower or higher craving, preference or passion. But
\nwhen we are able to look at desire from above, we see that what supports this instrumental
\ndesire is a will of the spirit. There is a will, tapas<\/i><\/span>, śakti<\/span><\/i>, by which the secret spirit
\nimposes on its outer members all their action and draws from it an active
\ndelight of its being, an Ananda, in which they very obscurely and imperfectly,
\nif at all consciously, partake. This Tapas is the will of the transcendent
\nspirit who creates the universal movement, of the universal spirit who supports
\nand informs it, of the free individual spirit who is the soul centre of its multiplicities.\n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 648<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

It is one will, free in all these
\nat once, comprehensive, harmonious, unified; we find it, when we live and act
\nin the spirit, to be an effortless and desireless<\/span>, a
\nspontaneous and illumined, a self-fulfilling and self-possessing, a satisfied
\nand blissful will of the spiritual delight of being. <\/p>\n

But the moment
\nthe individual soul leans away from the universal and transcendent truth of its
\nbeing, leans towards ego, tries to make this will a thing of its own, a
\nseparate personal energy, that will changes its character: it becomes an
\neffort, a straining, a heat of force which may have its fiery joys of
\neffectuation and of possession, but has also its afflicting recoils and pain of
\nlabour. It is this that turns in each instrument into an intellectual,
\nemotional, dynamic, sensational or vital will of desire, wish, craving. Even
\nwhen the instruments per se are purified of their own apparent initiative and
\nparticular kind of desire, this imperfect Tapas may still remain, and so long
\nas it conceals the source or deforms the type of the inner action, the soul has
\nnot the bliss of liberty, or can only have it by refraining from all action;
\neven, if allowed to persist, it will rekindle the pranic or other desires or at
\nleast throw a reminiscent shadow of them on the being. This spiritual seed or
\nbeginning of desire too must be expelled, renounced, cast away: the sadhaka
\nmust either choose an active peace and complete inner silence or lose
\nindividual initiation, saņkalpārambha<\/i><\/span>,
\nin a unity with the universal will, the Tapas of the divine Shakti. The passive
\nway is to be inwardly immobile, without effort, wish, expectation or any turn
\nto action, niśceşţa<\/i><\/span>, anīha<\/span>, nirapekşa<\/span>, nivŗtta<\/span><\/i>;
\nthe active way is to be thus immobile and impersonal in the mind, but to allow
\nthe supreme Will in its spiritual purity to act through the purified
\ninstruments. Then, if the soul abides on the level of the spiritualised
\nmentality, it becomes an instrument only, but is itself without initiative or
\naction, nişkriya<\/i><\/span>,
\nsarvārambha-parityāgī<\/i><\/span>.
\nBut if it rises to the gnosis, it is at once an instrument and a participant in
\nthe bliss of the divine action and the bliss of the divine Ananda; it unifies
\nin itself the prakŗti<\/i><\/span>
\nand the puruşa<\/i><\/span>.\n<\/p>\n

The ego turn,
\nthe separative turn of the being, is the fulcrum of the whole embarrassed
\nlabour of the ignorance and the
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 649<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

bondage. So
\nlong as one is not free from the ego sense, there can be no real freedom. The
\nseat of the ego is said to be in the buddhi; it is an ignorance of the
\ndiscriminating mind and reason which discriminate wrongly and take the
\nindividuation of mind, life and body for a truth of separative existence and are
\nturned away from the greater reconciling truth of the oneness of all existence.
\nAt any rate in man it is the ego idea which chiefly supports the falsehood of a
\nseparative existence; to get rid of this idea, to dwell on the opposite idea of
\nunity, of the one self, the one spirit, the one being of nature is therefore an
\neffective remedy; but it is not by itself absolutely effective. For the ego,
\nthough it supports itself by this ego idea, aham<\/i><\/span>-buddhi<\/i>, finds its most powerful means for a certain obstinacy or
\npassion of persistence in the normal action of the sense-mind, the prana and
\nthe body. To cast out of us the ego idea is not entirely possible or not
\nentirely effective until these instruments have undergone purification; for,
\ntheir action being persistently egoistic and separative, the Buddhi is carried
\naway by them, \u2013 as a boat by winds on the sea, says the Gita, \u2013 the knowledge
\nin the intelligence is being constantly obscured or lost temporarily and has to
\nbe restored again, a very labour of Sisyphus. But if the lower instruments have
\nbeen purified of egoistic desire, wish, will, egoistic passion, egoistic emotion
\nand the buddhi itself of egoistic idea and preference, then the knowledge of
\nthe spiritual truth of oneness can find a firm foundation. Till then, the ego
\ntakes all sorts of subtle forms and we imagine ourselves to be free from it,
\nwhen we are really acting as its instruments and all we have attained is a
\ncertain intellectual poise which is not the true spiritual liberation. Moreover,
\nto throw away the active sense of ego is not enough; that may merely bring an
\ninactive state of the mentality, a certain passive inert quietude of separate
\nbeing may take the place of the kinetic egoism, which is also not the true liberation.
\nThe ego sense must be replaced by a oneness with the transcendental Divine and
\nwith universal being.<\/p>\n

This necessity
\narises from the fact that the buddhi is only a pratiţhā<\/i><\/span> or chief
\nsupport of the ego-sense in its manifold play, ahaņkāra<\/i><\/span>; but in its
\nsource it is a degradation or deforma<\/span>– <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 650<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

tion<\/span> of
\na truth of our spiritual being. The truth of being is that there is a
\ntranscendent existence, supreme self or spirit, a timeless soul of existence,
\nan eternal, a Divine, or even we may speak of it in relation to current mental
\nideas of the Godhead as a supra-Divine, which is here immanent, all-embracing,
\nall-initiating and all-governing, a great universal Spirit; and the individual
\nis a conscious power of being of the Eternal, capable eternally of relations
\nwith him, but one with him too in the very core of reality of its own eternal
\nexistence. This is a truth which the intelligence can apprehend, can, when once
\npurified, reflect, transmit, hold in a derivative fashion, but it can only be
\nentirely realised, lived and made effective in the spirit. When we live in the
\nspirit, then we not only know, but are this truth of our being. The individual
\nthen enjoys in the spirit, in the bliss of the spirit, his oneness with the
\nuniversal existence, his oneness with the timeless Divine and his oneness with
\nall other beings and that is the essential sense of a spiritual liberation from
\nthe ego. But the moment the soul leans towards the mental limitation, there is
\na certain sense of spiritual separativeness which has its joys, but may at any
\nmoment lapse into the entire ego-sense, ignorance, oblivion of oneness. To get
\nrid of this separativeness an attempt is made to absorb oneself in the idea and
\nrealisation of the Divine, and this takes in certain forms of spiritual askesis<\/span> the turn of a strain towards the abolition of all
\nindividual being and a casting away, in the trance of immersion, of all
\nindividual or universal relations with the Divine, in others it becomes an
\nabsorbed dwelling in him and not in this world or a continual absorbed or
\nintent living in his presence, sāyujya<\/i><\/span>, sālokya<\/span>, sāmīpya<\/span>
\nmukti<\/i>. The way proposed for the integral Yoga is a lifting up and surrender
\nof the whole being to him, by which not only do we become one with him in our
\nspiritual existence, but dwell too in him and he in us, so that the whole
\nnature is full of his presence and changed into the divine nature; we become
\none spirit and consciousness and life and substance with the Divine and at the
\nsame time we live and move in and have a various joy of that oneness. This
\nintegral liberation from the ego into the divine spirit and nature can only be
\nrelatively complete on our present level, but it begins to become absolute as
\nwe open to
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 651<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

and mount into the gnosis. This
\nis the liberated perfection.<\/p>\n

The liberation
\nfrom ego, the liberation from desire together found the central spiritual
\nfreedom. The sense, the idea, the experience that I am a separately
\nself-existent being in the universe, and the forming of consciousness and force
\nof being into the mould of that experience are the root of all suffering,
\nignorance and evil. And it is so because that falsifies both in practice and in
\ncognition the whole real truth of things; it limits the being, limits the
\nconsciousness, limits the power of our being, limits the bliss of being; this
\nlimitation again produces a wrong way of existence, wrong way of consciousness,
\nwrong way of using the power of our being and consciousness, and wrong,
\nperverse and contrary forms of the delight of existence. The soul limited in
\nbeing and self-isolated in its environment feels itself no longer in unity and
\nharmony with its Self, with God, with the universe, with all around it; but
\nrather it finds itself at odds with the universe, in conflict and disaccord
\nwith other beings who are its other selves, but whom it treats as not-self; and
\nso long as this disaccord and disagreement last, it cannot possess its world
\nand it cannot enjoy the universal life, but is full of unease, fear,
\nafflictions of all kinds, in a painful struggle to preserve and increase itself
\nand possess its surroundings, \u2013 for to possess its world is the nature of
\ninfinite spirit and the necessary urge in all being. The satisfactions it gets
\nfrom this labour and effort are of a stinted, perverse and unsatisfying kind:
\nfor the one real satisfaction it has is that of growth, of an increasing return
\ntowards itself, of some realisation of accord and harmony, of successful
\nself-creation and self-realisation, but the little of these things that it can achieve
\non the basis of ego-consciousness is always limited, insecure, imperfect,
\ntransitory. It is at war too with its own self, \u2013 first because, since it is no
\nlonger in possession of the central harmonising truth of its own being, it
\ncannot properly control its natural members or accord their tendencies, powers
\nand demands; it has not the secret of harmony, because it has not the secret of
\nits own unity and self-possession; and, secondly, not being in possession of
\nits highest self, it has to struggle towards that, is not allowed to be at
\npeace till it is in possession of its own true highest being. All this means
\nthat it is not at one with God; for to be at one with
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 652<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

God is to be at one with oneself,
\nat one with the universe and at one with all beings. This oneness is the secret
\nof a right and a divine existence. But the ego cannot have it, because it is in
\nits very nature separative and because even with regard to ourselves, to our
\nown psychological existence it is a false centre of unity; for it tries to find
\nthe unity of our being in an identification with a shifting mental, vital, physical
\npersonality, not with the eternal self of our total existence. Only in the
\nspiritual self can we possess the true unity; for there the individual enlarges
\nto his own total being and finds himself one with universal existence and with
\nthe transcending Divinity.<\/p>\n

All the trouble
\nand suffering of the soul proceeds from this wrong egoistic and separative way
\nof existence. The soul not in possession of its free self-existence, anātmavān<\/i><\/span>,
\nbecause it is limited in its consciousness, is limited in knowledge; and this
\nlimited knowledge takes the form of a falsifying knowledge. The struggle to
\nreturn to a true knowing is imposed upon it, but the ego in the separative mind
\nis satisfied with shows and fragments of knowledge which it pieces together
\ninto some false or some imperfect total or governing notion, and this knowledge
\nfails it and has to be abandoned for a fresh pursuit of the one thing to be
\nknown. That one thing is the Divine, the Self, the Spirit in whom universal and
\nindividual being find at last their right foundation and their right harmonies.
\nAgain, because it is limited in force, the ego-prisoned<\/span>
\nsoul is full of many incapacities; wrong knowledge is accompanied by wrong will,
\nwrong tendencies and impulses of the being, and the acute sense of this
\nwrongness is the root of the human consciousness of sin. This deficiency of its
\nnature it tries to set right by standards of conduct which will help it to
\nremove the egoistic consciousness and satisfactions of sin by the egoistic consciousness
\nand self-satisfaction of virtue, the rajasic by the sattwic egoism. But the
\noriginal sin has to be cured, the separation of its being and will from the
\ndivine Being and the divine Will; when it returns to unity with the divine Will
\nand Being, it rises beyond sin and virtue to the infinite self-existent purity
\nand the security of its own divine nature. Its incapacities it tries to set
\nright by organising its imperfect knowledge and disciplining its
\nhalf-enlightened will and force and directing
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 653<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

them by some systematic effort of
\nthe reason; but the result must always be a limited, uncertain, mutable and stumbling
\nway and standard of capacity in action. Only when it returns again to the large
\nunity of the free spirit, bhūmā<\/i><\/span>, can the action of its nature move perfectly
\nas the instrument of the infinite Spirit and in the steps of the Right and
\nTruth and Power which belong to the free soul acting from the supreme centre of
\nits existence. Again, because it is limited in the delight of being, it is
\nunable to lay hold on the secure, self-existent perfect bliss of the spirit or
\nthe delight, the Ananda of the universe which keeps the world in motion, but is
\nonly able to move in a mixed and shifting succession of pleasures and pains, joys
\nand sorrows, or must take refuge in some conscient<\/span>
\ninconscience or neutral indifference. The ego mind cannot do otherwise, and the
\nsoul which has externalised<\/span> itself in ego, is
\nsubjected to this unsatisfactory, secondary, imperfect, often perverse,
\ntroubled or annulled enjoyment of existence; yet all the time the spiritual and
\nuniversal Ananda is within, in the self, in the spirit, in its secret unity
\nwith God and existence. To cast away the chain of ego and go back to free self,
\nimmortal spiritual being is the soul’s return to its own eternal divinity.<\/p>\n

The will to the
\nimperfect separative being, that wrong Tapas which makes the soul in Nature
\nattempt to individualise itself, to individualise its being, consciousness,
\nforce of being, delight of existence in a separative sense, to have these
\nthings as its own, in its own right, and not in the right of God and of the
\nuniversal oneness, is that which brings about this wrong turn and creates the
\nego. To turn from this original desire is therefore essential, to get back to
\nthe will without desire whose whole enjoyment of being and whole will in being
\nis that of a free universal and unifying Ananda. These two things are one, liberation
\nfrom the will that is of the nature of desire and liberation from the ego, and
\nthe oneness which is brought about by the happy loss of the will of desire and
\nthe ego, is the essence of Mukti. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 654<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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