{"id":1370,"date":"2013-07-13T01:34:22","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1370"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:34:22","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:22","slug":"41-the-three-purushas-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13\/41-the-three-purushas-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","title":{"rendered":"-41_The Three Purushas.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nFIFTEEN<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/font> <\/font>The Three Purushas<\/span>*<\/font><\/b> <\/font>   <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/font>HE<\/font> doctrine of
\nthe Gita from the beginning to the end converges on all its lines and through
\nall the flexibility of its turns towards one central thought, and to that it is
\narriving in all its balancing and reconciliation of the disagreements of
\nvarious philosophic systems and its careful synthetising<\/span>
\nof the truths of spiritual experience, lights often conflicting or at least divergent
\nwhen taken separately and exclusively pursued along their outer arc and curve
\nof radiation, but here brought together into one focus of grouping vision. This
\ncentral thought is the idea of a triple consciousness, three and yet one, present
\nin the whole scale of existence.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>There is a spirit here at work in the world
\nthat is one in innumerable appearances. It is the developer of birth and
\naction, the moving power of life, the inhabiting and associating consciousness
\nin the myriad mutabilities<\/span> of Nature; it is the constituting
\nreality of all this stir in Time and Space; it is itself Time and Space and
\nCircumstance. It is this multitude of souls in the worlds; it is the gods and
\nmen and creatures and things and forces and qualities and quantities and powers
\nand presences. It is Nature, which is power of the Spirit, and objects, which
\nare its phenomena of name and idea and form, and existences, who are portions
\nand births and becomings<\/span> of this single self-existent
\nspiritual entity, the One, the Eternal. But what we see obviously at work
\nbefore us is not this Eternal and his conscious Shakti, but a Nature which in
\nthe blind stress of her operations is ignorant of the spirit within her action.
\nHer work is a confused, ignorant and limiting play of certain fundamental
\nmodes, qualities, principles of force in mechanical operation and the fixity or
\nthe flux of their consequences. And whatever soul comes to the surface in her
\naction, is itself in appearance ignorant, suffering, bound to <\/p>\n

*Gita, XV.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 421<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\n\u00a0<\/span>the incomplete and unsatisfying play of this
\ninferior Nature. The inherent Power in her is yet other than what it thus seems
\nto be; for, hidden in its truth, manifest in its appearances, it is the Kshara<\/span>, the universal Soul, the spirit in the mutability of
\ncosmic phenomenon and becoming, one with the Immutable and the Supreme. We have
\nto arrive at the hidden truth behind its manifest appearances; we have to discover
\nthe Spirit behind these veils and to see all as the One, vāsudevah<\/i><\/span> sarvam<\/i><\/span> iti<\/span>, individual, universal, transcendent. But this is a
\nthing impossible to achieve with any completeness of inner reality, so long as
\nwe live concentrated in the inferior Nature. For in this lesser movement Nature
\nis an ignorance, a Maya; she shelters the Divine within its folds and conceals
\nhim from herself and her creatures. The Godhead is hidden by the Maya of his
\nown all-creating Yoga, the Eternal figured in transience, Being absorbed and
\ncovered up by its own manifesting phenomena. In the Kshara<\/span>
\ntaken alone as a thing in itself, the mutable universal apart from the
\nundivided Immutable and the Transcendent, there is no completeness of knowledge,
\nno completeness of our being and therefore no liberation. <\/span>
\n <\/p>\n

But then there
\nis another spirit of whom we become aware and who is none of these things, but
\nself and self only. This Spirit is eternal, always the same, never changed or
\naffected by manifestation, the one, the stable, a self-existence undivided and
\nnot even seemingly divided by the division of things and powers in Nature,
\ninactive in her action, immobile in her motion. It is the Self of all and yet
\nunmoved, indifferent, intangible, as if all these things which depend upon it
\nwere not-self, not its own results and powers and consequences, but a drama of
\naction developed before the eye of an unmoved unparticipating<\/span>
\nspectator. For the mind that stages and shares in the drama is other than the
\nSelf which indifferently contains the action. This spirit is timeless, though
\nwe see it in Time; it is unextended<\/span> in space, though
\nwe see it as if pervading space. We become aware of it in proportion as we draw
\nback from out inward, or look behind the action and motion for something that is
\neternal and stable, or get away from time and its creation to the uncreated,
\naway from phenomenon to being, from the personal to impersonality, from
\nbecoming to <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 422<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

unalterable self-existence. This
\nis the Akshara<\/span>, the immutable in the mutable, the
\nimmobile in the mobile, the imperishable in things perishable. Or rather, since
\nthere is only an appearance of pervasion, it is the immutable, immobile and
\nimperishable in which proceeds all the mobility of mutable and perishable things.\n<\/p>\n

The Kshara<\/span> spirit visible to us as all natural existence and
\nthe totality of all existences moves and acts pervadingly<\/span>
\nin the immobile and eternal Akshara<\/span>. This mobile
\nPower of Self acts in that fundamental stability of Self, as the second
\nprinciple of material Nature, Vayu<\/span>, with its contactual<\/span> force of aggregation and separation, attraction
\nand repulsion, supporting the formative force of the fiery (radiant, gaseous
\nand electric) and other elemental movements, ranges pervadingly<\/span>
\nin the subtly massive stability of ether. This Akshara<\/span>
\nis the self higher than the Buddhi<\/span> \u2014 it exceeds even
\nthat highest subjective principle of Nature in our being, the liberating
\nintelligence, through which man returning beyond his restless mobile mental to
\nhis calm eternal spiritual self is at last free from the persistence of birth
\nand the long chain of action, of Karma. This self in its highest status, param<\/i><\/span> dhāma<\/i><\/span>, is an
\nunmanifest<\/span> beyond even the unmanifest<\/span>
\nprinciple of the original cosmic Prakriti<\/span>, Avyakta<\/span>, and, if the soul turns to this Immutable, the hold
\nof cosmos and Nature falls away from it and it passes beyond birth to an unchanging
\neternal existence. These two then are the two spirits we see in the world; one
\nemerges in front in its action, the other remains behind it steadfast in that
\nperpetual silence from which the action comes and in which all actions cease
\nand disappear into timeless being, Nirvana. Dvāvimau<\/i><\/span> purusau<\/i><\/span> loke<\/i><\/span> ksaraś<\/i><\/span> cāksara<\/i><\/span> eva<\/i><\/span> ca<\/i>. <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The difficulty which baffles our intelligence
\nis that these two seem to be irreconcilable opposites with no real nexus between
\nthem or any transition from the one to the other except by an intolerant
\nmovement of separation. The Kshara<\/span> acts, or at least
\nmotives action, separately in the Akshara<\/span>; the Akshara<\/span> stands apart, self-centred<\/span>,
\nseparate in its inactivity from the Kshara<\/span>. At first
\nsight it would almost seem better, more logical, more easy of comprehension, if
\nwe admitted with the Sankhyas<\/span> an original and eternal
\nduality of Purusha<\/span> and Prakriti<\/span>,
\nif not even <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 423<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

 an eternal
\nplurality of souls. Our experience of the Akshara<\/span>
\nwould then be simply the withdrawal of each Purusha<\/span>
\ninto himself, his turning away from Nature and therefore from all contact with
\nother souls in the relations of existence; for each is self-sufficient and
\ninfinite and complete in his own essence. But after all the final experience is
\nthat of a unity of all beings which is not merely a community of experience, a
\ncommon subjection to one force of Nature, but a oneness in the spirit, a vast
\nidentity of conscious being beyond all this endless variety of determination,
\nbehind all this apparent separativism<\/span> of relative
\nexistence. The Gita takes its stand in that highest spiritual experience. It
\nappears indeed to admit an eternal plurality of souls subject to and sustained
\nby their eternal unity, for cosmos is for ever and manifestation goes on in
\nunending cycles; nor does it affirm anywhere or use any expression that would
\nindicate an absolute disappearance, laya<\/i><\/span>, the annullation<\/span> of the
\nindividual soul in the Infinite. But at the same time it affirms with a strong
\ninsistence that the Akshara<\/span> is the one self of all
\nthese many souls, and it is therefore evident that these two spirits are a dual
\nstatus of one eternal and universal existence. That is a very ancient doctrine;
\nit is the whole basis of the largest vision of the Upanishads,\u2014 as when the Isha<\/span> tells us that Brahman is both the mobile and the
\nimmobile, is the One and the Many, is the Self and all existences, ātman<\/i><\/span>, sarvabhūtāni<\/i><\/span>,
\nis the Knowledge and the Ignorance, is the eternal unborn status and also the
\nbirth of existences, and that to dwell only on one of these things to the
\nrejection of its eternal counterpart is a darkness of exclusive knowledge or a
\ndarkness of ignorance. It too insists like the Gita that man must know and must
\nembrace both and learn of the Supreme in his entirety \u2014 samagram<\/i><\/span> mām<\/i><\/span>, as the Gita puts it\u2014in
\norder to enjoy immortality and live in the Eternal. The teaching of the Gita and
\nthis side of the teaching of the Upanishads are so far at one; for they look at
\nand admit both sides of the reality and still arrive at identity as the
\nconclusion and the highest truth of existence.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>But this greater knowledge and experience,
\nhowever true and however powerful in its appeal to our highest seeing, has
\nstill to get rid of a very real and pressing difficulty, a practical as well as
\na logical contradiction which seems at first sight to persist
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 424<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/span>up to the highest heights of
\nspiritual experience. The Eternal is other than this mobile subjective and
\nobjective experience, there is a greater consciousness, na<\/i><\/span> idam<\/i><\/span> yad<\/i><\/span> upāsate<\/i>1<\/sup>: and yet at the same time all this is the
\nEternal, all this is the perennial self-seeing of the Self, sarvam<\/i><\/span> khalu<\/i><\/span> idam<\/i><\/span> brahma<\/i>,2<\/sup> \u00a0<\/span>ayam<\/i><\/span> ātmā<\/span>
\nbrahma<\/i>.3 <\/sup>The eternal has become all existences, ātmā<\/i><\/span> abhūt<\/i><\/span> sarvabhūtani<\/i>;4<\/sup> as the Swetatara<\/span> puts it, \u201c<\/i>Thou
\nart this boy and yonder girl and that old man walking supported on his staff,\u201d
\n\u2013 even as in the Gita the Divine says that he is Krishna\u00a0 <\/span>and Arjunna<\/span> and Vyasa<\/span> and Ushanas<\/span>, and the lion
\nand the Ashwattha<\/span> tree, and consciousness and
\nintelligence and all qualities and the self of all qualities and the self of
\nall creatures. But how are these two the same, when they seem not only so opposite
\nin nature,but<\/span> so difficult to unify in experience?
\nFor when we live in the mobilityof<\/span> the becoming, we
\nmay be aware of but hardly live in the immortality of timeless being, Time and
\nSpace and circumstance fall away from us and begin\u00a0 <\/span>to appear as a trouble dream in the infinite.
\nThe most persuasive conclusion\u00a0 <\/span>would be,
\nat first sight, that the mobile of the spirit in Nature\u00a0 <\/span>is an illusion, a thing real only when we
\nlive in it, but not real in essence, and that is why, when we go back into
\nself, it falls away from our incorruptible essence. That is the familiar
\ncutting of the knot of the riddle, brahma<\/i><\/span> satyam<\/i> jagan<\/i><\/span> mithyā<\/i><\/span>.<\/i>\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The Gita does not take refuge in this
\nexplanation which has enormous difficulties of its own, besides its failure to account
\nfor the illusion,\u2014 for it only says that it is all a mysterious and
\nincomprehensible Maya, and then we might just as well say that it is all a
\nmysterious and incomprehensible double reality, spirit concealing itself from
\nspirit. The Gita speaks of Maya, but only as a bewildering partial
\nconsciousness which loses hold of the complete reality, lives in the phenomenon
\nof mobile Nature and has no sight of the Spirit of which she is the active
\nPower, me prakrtih<\/i><\/span>.
\nWhen we transcend this Maya, the world does not disappear, it only changes its
\nwhole heart of meaning. In the <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/span><\/sup>Kena\u00a0 <\/span>2<\/sup>Upanishad.
\nChhandogya<\/span> Upanishad: Verily all this that is is<\/span> the Brahman.<\/span><\/p>\n

3<\/span><\/sup> Mandukya<\/span> Upanishad: The
\nSelf is the Brahman. \u00a0<\/span>4<\/sup>Isha
\nUpanishad.<\/span> <\/p>\n

Page \u2013 425<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

 spiritual vision we find not that
\nall this does not really exist, but rather that all is, but with a sense quite
\nother than its present mistaken significance: all is self and soul and nature
\nof the Godhead, all is Vasudeva<\/span>. The world for the
\nGita is real, a creation of the Lord, a power of the Eternal, a manifestation
\nfrom the Parabrahman<\/span>, and even this lower nature of
\nthe triple Maya is a derivation from the supreme divine Nature. Nor can we take
\nrefuge altogether in this distinction that there is a double, an inferior
\nactive and temporal and a superior calm, still and eternal reality beyond
\naction and that our liberation is to pass from this partiality to that
\ngreatness, from the action to the silence. For the Gita insists that we can and
\nshould, while we live, be conscious in the self and its silence and yet act
\nwith power in the world of Nature. And it gives the example of the Divine
\nhimself who is not bound by necessity of birth, but free, superior to the
\ncosmos, and yet abides eternally in action, varta<\/i><\/span> eva<\/i><\/span> ca<\/i> karmani<\/i><\/span>.
\nTherefore it is by putting on a likeness of the divine nature in its
\ncompleteness that the unity of this double experience becomes entirely possible.
\nBut what is the principle of that oneness? <\/p>\n

The Gita finds
\nit in its supreme vision of the Purushottama<\/span>; for
\nthat is the type, according to its doctrine, of the complete and the highest
\nexperience, it is the knowledge of the whole-knowers<\/span>,
\nkrtsnavidah<\/i><\/span>.
\nThe Akshara<\/span> is para<\/i><\/span>, supreme<\/i> in relation to the elements and action of cosmic Nature. It
\nis the immutable Self of all, and the immutable Self of all is the Purushottama<\/span>. The Akshara<\/span> is he
\nin the freedom of his self-existence unaffected by the action of his own power
\nin Nature, not impinged on by the urge of his own becoming, undisturbed by the
\nplay of his own qualities. But this is only one aspect though a great aspect of
\nthe integral knowledge. The Purushottama<\/span> is at the
\nsame time greater than the Akshara<\/span>, because he is
\nmore than this immutability and he is not limited even by the highest eternal
\nstatus of his being, param<\/i><\/span> dhāma<\/span><\/i>.
\nStill, it is through whatever is immutable and eternal in us that we arrive at
\nthat highest status from which there is no returning to birth, and that was the
\nliberation which was sought by the wise of old, the ancient sages. But when
\npursued through the Akshara<\/span> alone, this attempt at
\nliberation becomes the seeking of the Indefinable, a thing hard for our na<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 426<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

ture<\/span> embodied
\nas we are here in Matter. The Indefinable, to which the Akshara<\/span>,
\nthe pure intangible self here in us rises in its separative<\/span>
\nurge, is some supreme Unmanifest<\/span>, parah<\/span>
\navyaktah<\/i><\/span>,
\nand that highest unmanifest<\/span> Akshara<\/span>
\nis still the Purushottama<\/span>. Therefore, the Gita has
\nsaid, those also who follow after the Indefinable, come to me, the eternal
\nGodhead. But yet is he more even than a highest unmanifest<\/span>
\nAkshara<\/span>, more than any negative Absolute, neti<\/i><\/span> neti<\/span><\/i>, because
\nhe is to be known also as the supreme Purusha<\/span> who
\nextends this whole universe in his own existence. He is a supreme mysterious
\nAll, an ineffable positive Absolute of all things here. He is the Lord in the Kshara<\/span>, Purushottama<\/span> not only
\nthere, but here in the heart of every creature, Ishwara<\/span>.
\nAnd there too even in his highest eternal status, parah<\/i><\/span> avyaktah<\/span><\/i>, he is the supreme Lord, Parameshwara<\/span>, no aloof and unrelated Indefinable, but the
\norigin and father and mother and first foundation and eternal abode of self and
\ncosmos and Master of all existences and enjoyer of askesis<\/span>
\nand sacrifice. It is by knowing him at once in the Akshara<\/span>
\nand the Kshara<\/span>, it is by knowing him as the Unborn
\nwho partially manifests himself in all birth and even himself descends as the
\nconstant Avatar, it is by knowing him in his entirety, samagram<\/i><\/span> mām<\/span><\/i>, that the soul is easily
\nreleased from the appearances of the lower Nature and returns by a vast sudden
\ngrowth and broad immeasurable ascension into the divine being and supreme
\nNature. For the truth of the Kshara<\/span> too is a truth of
\nthe Purushottama<\/span>. The Purushottama<\/span>
\nis in the heart of every creature and is manifested in his countless Vibhutis<\/span>; the Purushottama<\/span> is the
\ncosmic spirit in Time and it is he that gives the command to the divine action
\nof the liberated human spirit. He is both Akshara<\/span> and
\nKshara<\/span>, and yet he is other because he is more and
\ngreater than either of these opposites. Uttamah<\/i><\/span> purusas<\/span> tvanyah<\/span> paramātmetyudāhrtah<\/span>, yo<\/span>
\nlokatrayam<\/span> āviśya<\/span><\/i>,
\n\u201cBut other than these two is that highest spirit called the supreme Self, who
\nenters the three worlds and upbears<\/span> them, the
\nimperishable Lord.\u201d This verse is the keyword of the Gita’s<\/span>
\nreconciliation of these two apparently opposite aspects of our existence.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The idea of the Purushottama<\/span>
\nhas been prepared, alluded to, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 427<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

adumbrated, assumed even from the
\nbeginning, but it is only now in the fifteenth chapter that it is expressly
\nstated and the distinction illuminated by a name. And it is instructive to see
\nhow it is immediately approached and developed. To ascend into the divine
\nnature, we have been told, one must first fix oneself in a perfect spiritual
\nequality and rise above the lower nature of the three gunas<\/span>.
\nThus transcending the lower Prakriti<\/span> we fix ourselves
\nin the impersonality, the imperturbable superiority to all action, the purity
\nfrom all definition and limitation by quality which is one side of the
\nmanifested nature of the Purushottama<\/span>, his manifestation
\nas the eternity and unity of the self, the Akshara<\/span>.
\nBut there is also an ineffable eternal multiplicity of the Purushottama<\/span>,
\na highest truest truth behind the primal mystery of soul manifestation. The
\nInfinite has an eternal power, an unbeginning<\/span> and
\nunending action of his divine Nature, and in that action the miracle of soul
\npersonality emerges from a play of apparently impersonal forces, prakrtir<\/i><\/span> jīvabhūtā<\/span><\/i>.
\nThis is possible because personality too is a character of the Divine and finds
\nin the Infinite its highest spiritual truth and meaning. But the Person in the
\nInfinite is not the egoistic, separative<\/span>, oblivious
\npersonality of the lower Prakriti<\/span>; it is something
\nexalted, universal and transcendent, immortal and divine. That mystery of the
\nsupreme Person is the secret of love and devotion. The spiritual person, purusa<\/i><\/span>, the
\neternal soul in us offers itself and all it has and is to the eternal Divine,
\nthe supreme Person and Godhead of whom it is a portion, amśa<\/i><\/span>. The completeness of
\nknowledge finds itself in this self-offering, this uplifting of our personal
\nnature by love and adoration to the ineffable Master of our personality and its
\nacts; the sacrifice of works receives by it its consummation and perfect sanction.
\nIt is then through these things that the soul of man fulfils itself most
\ncompletely in this other and dynamic secret, this other great and intimate
\naspect of the divine nature and possesses by that fulfilment the foundation of
\nimmortality, the supreme felicity and the eternal Dharma. And having so stated
\nthis double requisite, equality in the one self, adoration of the one Lord, at
\nfirst separately as if they were two different ways of arriving at the Brahmic<\/span> status, brahma<\/i><\/span> bhūyāya<\/span><\/i>,\u2014one taking the form of quietistic<\/span> sannyāsa<\/i><\/span>, the other a form of divine love and <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 428<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

divine action,\u2014the Gita proceeds
\nnow to unite the personal and the impersonal in the Purushottama<\/span>
\nand to define their relations. For the object of the Gita is to get rid of
\nexclusions and separative<\/span> exaggerations and fuse
\nthese two sides of knowledge and spiritual experience into a single and perfect
\nway to the supreme perfection.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>First there comes a description of cosmic
\nexistence in the Vedantic image of the aswattha<\/span> tree.
\nThis tree of cosmic existence has no beginning and no end, nānto<\/i><\/span> na<\/span> cādih<\/span><\/i>,
\nin space or in time; for it is eternal and imperishable, avyaya<\/span>.
\nThe real form of it cannot be perceived by us in this material world of man’s
\nembodiment, nor has it any apparent lasting foundation here; it is an infinite
\nmovement and its foundation is above in the supreme of the Infinite. Its
\nprinciple is the ancient sempiternal<\/span> urge to action, pravrtti<\/i><\/span>, which
\nfor ever proceeds without beginning or end from the original Soul of all existence,
\nādyam<\/i><\/span> purusam<\/span> yatah<\/span> pravrttih<\/span> prasrtā<\/span> purānī<\/span><\/i>.
\nTherefore its original source is above, beyond Time in the Eternal, but its
\nbranches stretch down below and it extends and plunges its other roots,
\nwell-fixed and clinging roots of attachment and desire with their consequences
\nof more and more desire and an endlessly developing action, plunges them downward
\nhere into the world of men. The hymns of the Veda are compared to its leaves
\nand the man who knows this tree of the cosmos is the Veda-knower. And here we
\nsee the sense of that rather disparaging view of the Veda or at least of the Vedavada<\/span>, which we had to notice at the beginning. For the
\nknowledge the Veda gives us is a knowledge of the gods, of the principles and
\npowers of the cosmos, and its fruits are the fruits of a sacrifice which is
\noffered with desire, fruits of<\/p>\n

enjoyment and lordship in the
\nnature of the three worlds, in earth and heaven and the world between earth and
\nheaven. The branches of this cosmic tree extend both below and above, below in the
\nmaterial, above in the supraphysical<\/span> planes; they
\ngrow by the gunas<\/span> of Nature, for the triple guna<\/span> is all the subject of the Vedas, traigunya-visayā<\/i><\/span> vedāh<\/span><\/i>.
\nThe Vedic rhythms, chandāmsi<\/i><\/span>,
\nare the leaves and the sensible objects of desire supremely gained by a right
\ndoing of sacrifice are the constant budding of the foliage. Man, therefore, so
\nlong as he enjoys the play of the gunas<\/span> and is
\nattached to desire, is held in the coils of Pravritti<\/span>,
\nin the move- <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 429<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\nment<\/span> of
\nbirth and action, turns about constantly between the earth and the middle
\nplanes and the heavens and is unable to get back to his supreme spiritual infinitudes.
\nThis was perceived by the sages. To achieve liberation they followed the path
\nof Nivritti<\/span> or cessation from the original urge to
\naction, and the consummation of this way is the cessation of birth itself and a
\ntranscendent status in the highest supracosmic<\/span> reach
\nof the Eternal. But for this purpose it is necessary to cut these long-fixed
\nroots of desire by the strong sword of detachment and then to seek for that
\nhighest goal whence, once having reached it, there is no compulsion of return
\nto mortal life. To be free from the bewilderment of this lower Maya, without
\negoism, the great fault of attachment conquered, all desires stilled, the
\nduality of joy and grief cast away, always to be fixed in wide equality, always
\nto be firm in a pure spiritual consciousness, these are the steps of the way to
\nthat supreme Infinite. There we find the timeless being which is not illumined
\nby sun or moon or fire, but is itself the light of the presence of the eternal Purusha<\/span>. I turn away, says the Vedantic verse, to seek that
\noriginal Soul alone and to reach him in the great passage. That is the highest
\nstatus of the Purushottama<\/span>, his supracosmic<\/span>
\nexistence.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>But it would seem that this can be attained
\nvery well, best even, pre-eminently, directly, by the quiescence of Sannyasa<\/span>. Its appointed path would seem to be the way of
\nthe Akshara<\/span>, a complete renunciation of works and
\nlife, an ascetic seclusion, an ascetic inaction. Where is the room here, or at least
\nwhere is the call, the necessity, for the command to action, and what has all
\nthis to do with the maintenance of the cosmic existence, lokasangraha<\/i><\/span>, the slaughter of Kurukshetra<\/span>, the ways of the Spirit in Time, the vision of
\nthe million-bodied Lord and his high-voiced bidding, \u201cArise, slay the foe,
\nenjoy a wealthy kingdom\u201d? And what then is this soul in Nature? This spirit
\ntoo, this Kshara<\/span>, this enjoyer of our mutable
\nexistence, is the Purushottama<\/span>; it is he in his
\neternal multiplicity, that is the Gita’s<\/span> answer. \u201cIt
\nis an eternal portion of me that becomes the Jiva<\/span> in
\na world of Jivas<\/span>.\u201d This is an epithet, a statement of
\nimmense bearing and consequence. For it means that each soul, each being in its
\nspiritual reality is the very Divine, however partial its actual manifestation
\nof him in Nature. And it means too, if words have any sense, that each
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 430<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

 manifesting spirit, each of the many,
\nis an eternal individual, an eternal unborn and undying power of the one
\nExistence. We call this manifesting spirit the Jiva<\/span>,
\nbecause it appears here as if a living creature in a world of living creatures,
\nand we speak of this spirit in man as the human soul and think of it in the
\nterms of humanity only. But in truth it is something greater than its present appearance
\nand not bound to its humanity: it was a lesser manifestation than the human in
\nits past, it can become something much greater than mental man in its future.
\nAnd when this soul rises above all ignorant limitation, then it puts on its
\ndivine nature of which its humanity is only a temporary veil, a thing of
\npartial and incomplete significance. The individual spirit exists and ever existed
\nbeyond in the Eternal, for it is itself everlasting, sanātana<\/i><\/span>. It is evidently
\nthis idea of the eternal individual which leads the Gita to avoid any
\nexpression at all suggestive of a complete dissolution, laya<\/span>,
\nand to speak rather of the highest state of the soul as a dwelling in the Purushottama<\/span>, nivasisyasi<\/i><\/span> mayyeva<\/span><\/i>. If when speaking of the one Self of all it
\nseems to use the language of Adwaita, yet this enduring truth of the eternal
\nindividual, mamāmśah<\/i><\/span>
\nsanātanah<\/i><\/span>,
\nadds something which brings in a qualification and appears almost to accept the
\nseeing of the Visishtadwaita<\/span>,\u2014though we must not
\ntherefore leap at once to the conclusion that that alone is the Gita’s<\/span> philosophy or that its doctrine is identical with
\nthe later doctrine of Ramanuja<\/span>. Still this much is
\nclear that there is an eternal, a real and not only an illusive principle of
\nmultiplicity in the spiritual being of the one divine Existence.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>This eternal individual is not other than or
\nin any way really separate from the Divine Purusha<\/span>.
\nIt is the Lord himself, the Ishwara<\/span> who by virtue of
\nthe eternal multiplicity of his oneness\u2014is not all existence a rendering of
\nthat truth of the Infinite?\u2014exists for ever as the immortal soul within us and
\nhas taken up this body and goes forth from the transient framework when it is
\ncast away to disappear into the elements of Nature. He brings in with him and
\ncultivates for the enjoyment of the objects of mind and sense the subjective
\npowers of Prakriti<\/span>, mind and the five senses, and in
\nhis going forth too he goes taking them as the wind takes the perfumes from a
\nvase. But the identity of the Lord and
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 431<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

the soul in mutable Nature is
\nhidden from us by outward appearance and lost in the crowding mobile deceptions
\nof that Nature. And those who allow themselves to be governed by the figures of
\nNature, the figure of humanity or any other form, will never see it, but will ignore
\nand despise the Divine lodged in the human body. Their ignorance cannot
\nperceive him in his coming in and his going forth or in his staying and
\nenjoying and assumption of quality, but sees only what is there visible to the
\nmind and senses, not the greater truth which can only be glimpsed by the eye of
\nknowledge. Never can they have sight of him, even if they strive to do so,
\nuntil they learn to put away the limitations of the outward consciousness and
\nbuild in themselves their spiritual being, create for it, as it were, a form in
\ntheir nature. Man, to know himself, must be krtātmā<\/i><\/span>, formed and
\ncomplete in the spiritual mould, enlightened in the spiritual vision. The Yogins<\/span> who have this eye of knowledge, see the Divine Being
\nwe are in their own endless reality, their own eternity of spirit. Illumined,
\nthey see the Lord in themselves and are delivered from the crude material
\nlimitation, from the form of mental personality, from the transient life
\nformulation: they dwell immortal in the truth of the self and spirit. But they
\nsee him too not only in themselves, but in all the cosmos. In the light of the
\nsun that illumines all this world they witness the light of the Godhead which
\nis in us; the light in the moon and in fire is the light of the Divine. It is
\nthe Divine who has entered into this form of earth and is the spirit of its material
\nforce and sustains by his might these multitudes. The Divine is the godhead of
\nSoma who by the rasa<\/i><\/span>,
\nthe sap in the Earth-mother, nourishes the plants and trees that clothe her
\nsurface. The Divine and no other is the flame of life that sustains the physical
\nbody of living creatures and turns its food into sustenance of their vital
\nforce. He is lodged in the heart of every breathing thing; from him are memory
\nand knowledge and the debates of the reason. He is that which is known by all
\nthe Vedas and by all forms of knowing; he is the knower of Veda and the maker
\nof Vedanta. In other words, the Divine is at once the Soul of matter and the
\nSoul of life and the Soul of mind as well as the Soul of the supramental light
\nthat is beyond mind and its limited reasoning intelligence. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 432<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

Thus the Divine
\nis manifest in a double soul of his mystery, a twofold power, dvāvimau<\/i><\/span> purusau<\/span><\/i>; he
\nsupports at once the spirit of mutable things that is all these existences, ksarah<\/i><\/span> sarvāni<\/span> bhūtāni<\/span><\/i>, and the immutable spirit that stands
\nabove them in his imperturbable immobility of eternal silence and calm. And it
\nis by the force of the Divine in them that the mind and heart and will of man
\nare so powerfully drawn in different directions by these two spirits as if by
\nopposing and incompatible attractions one insistent to annul the other. But the
\nDivine is neither wholly the Kshara<\/span>, nor wholly the Akshara<\/span>. He is greater than the immutable Self and he is
\nmuch greater than the Soul of mutable things. If he is capable of being both at
\nonce, it is because he is other than they, anyah<\/i><\/span>, the Purushottama<\/span>
\nabove all cosmos and yet extended in the world and extended in the Veda, in
\nself-knowledge and in cosmic experience. And whoever thus knows and sees him as
\nthe Purushottama<\/span>, is no longer bewildered whether by
\nthe world-appearance or by the separate attraction of these two apparent contraries.
\nThese at first confront each other here in him as a positive of the cosmic
\naction and as its negative in the Self who has no part in an action that
\nbelongs or seems to belong entirely to the ignorance of Nature. Or again they
\nchallenge his consciousness as a positive of pure, indeterminable, stable,
\neternal self-existence and as its negative of a world of elusive determinations
\nand relations, ideas and forms, perpetual unstable becoming and the creating
\nand uncreating<\/span> tangle of action and evolution, birth and
\ndeath, appearance and disappearance. He embraces and escapes them, overcomes
\ntheir opposition and becomes all-knowing, sarvavid<\/span>, a
\nwhole-knower. He sees the entire sense both of the self and of things; he
\nrestores the integral reality of the Divine;1<\/sup>he unites the Kshara<\/span> and the Akshara<\/span> in the Purushottama<\/span>. He loves, worships, cleaves to and adores the
\nsupreme Self of his and all existence, the one Lord of his and all energies,
\nthe close and far-off Eternal in and beyond the world. And he does this too
\nwith no single side or portion of himself, exclusive spiritualised<\/span>
\nmind, blinding light of the heart intense but divorced from largeness, or sole
\naspiration of the will in works, but in all the perfectly illumined ways of his
\nbeing and his becoming, his soul and his nature. Divine in the equality of <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/sup>samagram mām<\/span>.<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 433<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

his imperturbable self-existence,
\none in it with all objects and creatures, he brings that boundless equality,
\nthat deep oneness down into his mind and heart and life and body and founds on it
\nin an indivisible integrality the trinity of divine love, divine works and
\ndivine knowledge. This is the Gita’s<\/span> way of
\nsalvation. <\/p>\n

And is that not
\ntoo after all the real Adwaita which makes no least scission in the one eternal
\nExistence? This utmost undividing<\/span> Monism sees the one
\nas the one even in the multiplicities of Nature, in all aspects, as much in the
\nreality of self and of cosmos as in that greatest reality of the supracosmic<\/span> which is the source of self and the truth of
\nthe cosmos and is not bound either by any affirmation of universal becoming or
\nby any universal or absolute negation. That at least is the Adwaita of the
\nGita. This is the most secret Shastra<\/span>, says the
\nTeacher to Arjuna<\/span>; this is the supreme teaching and
\nscience which leads us into the heart of the highest mystery of existence.
\nAbsolutely to know it, to seize it in knowledge and feeling and force and
\nexperience is to be perfected in the transformed understanding, divinely
\nsatisfied in heart and successful in the supreme sense and objective of all
\nwill and action and works. It is the way to be immortal, to rise towards the
\nhighest divine nature and to assume the eternal Dharma. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 434<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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