{"id":1374,"date":"2013-07-13T01:34:24","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1374"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:34:24","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:24","slug":"30-the-secret-of-secrets-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\/30-the-secret-of-secrets-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","title":{"rendered":"-30_The Secret of Secrets.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\n
\nFOUR<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>The Secret of Secrets<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nA<\/font><\/span><\/b>LL<\/font> the truth that has developed itself at this length step
\nby step, each bringing forward a fresh aspect of the integral knowledge and
\nfounding on it some result of spiritual state and action, has now to take a
\nturn of immense importance. The Teacher therefore takes care first to draw
\nattention to the decisive character of what he is about to say, so that the
\nmind of Arjuna may be awakened and attentive. For he is going to open his mind
\nto the knowledge and sight of the integral Divinity and lead up to the vision
\nof the eleventh book, by which the warrior of Kurukshetra becomes conscious of
\nthe author and upholder of his being and action and mission, the Godhead in man
\nand the world, whom nothing in man and the world limits or binds, because all
\nproceeds from him, is a movement in his infinite being, continues and is
\nsupported by his will, is justified in his divine self-knowledge, has him
\nalways for its origin, substance and end. Arjuna is to become aware of himself
\nas existing only in God and as acting only by the power within him, his
\nworkings only an instrumentality of the divine action, his egoistic
\nconsciousness only a veil and to his ignorance a misrepresentation of the real
\nbeing within him which is an immortal spark and portion of the supreme Godhead.\n<\/p>\n

This vision is
\nto remove whatever doubt may still remain within his mind; it is to make him
\nstrong for the action from which he has shrunk, but to which he is irrevocably
\ncommanded and can no more recoil from it, \u2013 for to recoil would be the negation
\nand denial of the divine will and sanction within him already expressed in his
\nindividual consciousness but soon to assume the appearance of the greater
\ncosmic sanction. For now the world Being appears to him as the body of God ensouled
\nby the eternal Time-spirit and with its majestic and dreadful voice missions
\nhim to the crash of the battle. He is called by it to<\/p>\n

  Page 287<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

 the liberation of his spirit, to
\nthe fulfilment of his action in the cosmic mystery, and the two \u2013 liberation
\nand action \u2013 are to be one movement. His intellectual doubts are clearing away
\nas a greater light of self-knowledge and the knowledge of God and Nature is
\nbeing unfolded before him. But intellectual clarity is not enough; he must see
\nwith the inner sight illumining his blind outward human vision, so that he may
\nact with the consent of his whole being, with a perfect faith in all his
\nmembers, śraddhā<\/i>, with a
\nperfect devotion to the Self of his self and the Master of his being and to the
\nsame Self of the world and Master of all being in the universe. <\/p>\n

All that has
\ngone before laid the foundations of the knowledge or prepared its first
\nnecessary materials or scaffolding, but now the full frame of the structure is
\nto be placed before his unsealed vision. All that is to come after will have
\nits great importance because it will analyse parts of this frame, show in what
\nthis or that in it consists; but in substance the integral knowledge of the
\nBeing who is speaking to him is to be now unveiled to his eyes so that he
\ncannot choose but see. What has gone before showed him that he is not bound
\nfatally to the knot of the ignorance and egoistic action in which he had hitherto
\nremained contented till its partial solutions sufficed no longer to satisfy his
\nmind bewildered by the conflict of opposite appearances that make up the action
\nof the world and his heart troubled by the entanglement of his works from which
\nhe feels himself unable to escape except by renunciation of life and works. He
\nhas been shown that there are two opposed ways of working and living, one in
\nthe ignorance of the ego, one in the clear self-knowledge of a divine being. He
\nmay act with desire, with passion, an ego driven by the qualities of the lower
\nNature, subject to the balance of virtue and sin, joy and sorrow, preoccupied
\nwith the fruits and consequences of his works, success and defeat, good result
\nand evil result, bound on the world machine, caught up in a great tangle of
\naction and inaction and perverse action which perplex the heart and mind and
\nsoul of man with their changing and contrary masks and appearances. But he is
\nnot utterly tied down to the works of the ignorance; he may do if he will the
\nworks of knowledge. He may act here as the higher thinker, the knower, the
\nYogin, the seeker of freedom first and afterwards the <\/p>\n

\nPage 288<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

 liberated spirit. To perceive
\nthat great possibility and to keep his will and intelligence fixed on the
\nknowledge and self-vision which will realise and make it effectual, is the path
\nof escape from his sorrow and bewilderment, the way out of the human riddle. <\/p>\n

There is a
\nspirit within us calm, superior to works, equal, not bound in this external tangle,
\nsurveying it as its supporter, source, immanent witness, but not involved in
\nit. Infinite, containing all, one self in all, it surveys impartially the whole
\naction of nature and it sees that it is only the action of Nature, not its own
\naction. It sees that the ego and its will and its intelligence are all a
\nmachinery of Nature and that all their activities are determined by the
\ncomplexity of her triple modes and qualities. The eternal spirit itself is free
\nfrom these things. It is free from them because it knows; it knows that Nature
\nand ego and the personal being of all these creatures do not make up the whole
\nof existence. For existence is not merely a glorious or a vain, a wonderful or
\na dismal panorama of a constant mutation of becoming. There is something
\neternal, immutable, imperishable, a timeless self-existence; that is not
\naffected by the mutations of Nature. It is their impartial witness, neither affecting
\nnor affected, neither acting nor acted upon, neither virtuous nor sinful, but
\nalways pure, complete, great and unwounded. Neither grieving nor rejoicing at
\nall that afflicts and attracts the egoistic being, it is the friend of none,
\nthe enemy of none, but one equal self of all. Man is not now conscious of this
\nself, because he is wrapped up in his outward-going mind, because he will not
\nlearn or has not learned to live within; he does not detach himself, draw back
\nfrom his action and observe it as the work of Nature. Ego is the obstacle, the
\nlinch-pin of the wheel of delusion, the loss of the ego in the soul’s self the
\nfirst condition of freedom. To become spirit, no longer merely a mind and ego,
\nis the opening word of this message of liberation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Arjuna has been therefore called upon first to
\ngive up all desire of the fruits of his works and become simply the desireless
\nimpartial doer of whatever has to be done, \u2013 leaving the fruit to whatever
\npower may be the master of the cosmic workings. For he very evidently is not
\nthe master; it is not for the satisfaction of his personal ego that Nature was
\nset upon her ways, not for the fulfilment of his desires and preferences that
\nthe universal Life is living, not <\/p>\n

\nPage 289<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

for the justification of his
\nintellectual opinions, judgments and standards that the universal Mind is
\nworking, nor is it to that petty tribunal that it has to refer its cosmic aims
\nor its terrestrial method and purposes. These claims can only be made by the
\nignorant souls who live in their personality and see everything from that poor
\nand narrow standpoint. He must stand back first from his egoistic demand on the
\nworld and work only as one among the millions who contributes his share of
\neffort and labour to a result determined not by himself, but by the universal
\naction and purpose. But he has to do yet more, he has to give up the idea of
\nbeing the doer and to see, freed from all personality, that it is the universal
\nintelligence, will, mind, life that is at work in him and in all others. Nature
\nis the universal worker; his works are hers, even as the fruits of her works in
\nhim are part of the grand sum of result guided by a greater Power than his own.
\nIf he can do these two things spiritually, then the tangle and bondage of his
\nworks will fall far away from him; for the whole knot of that bondage lay in
\nhis egoistic demand and participation. Passion and sin and personal joy and
\ngrief will fade away from his soul, which will now live within, pure, large,
\ncalm, equal to all persons and all things. Action will produce no subjective
\nreaction and will leave no stain nor any mark on his spirit’s purity and peace.
\nHe will have the inner joy, rest, ease and inalienable bliss of a free
\nunaffected being. Neither within nor without will he have any more the old
\nlittle personality, for he will feel consciously one self and spirit with all,
\neven as his outer nature will have become to his consciousness an inseparable
\npart of the universal mind, life and will. His separative egoistic personality
\nwill have been taken up and extinguished in the impersonality of spiritual
\nbeing; his separative egoistic nature will be unified with the action of cosmic
\nNature. <\/p>\n

But this
\nliberation is dependent on two simultaneous, but not yet reconciled
\nperceptions, the clear vision of spirit and the clear vision of Nature. This is
\nnot the scientific and intelligent detachment which is quite possible even to
\nthe materialistic philosopher who has some clear vision of Nature alone, but
\nnot the perception of his own soul and self-being. Nor is it the <\/p>\n

\nPage 290<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

intellectual detachment of the
\nidealistic sage who escapes from the more limiting and disturbing forms of his
\nego by a luminous use of the reason. This is a larger, more living, more
\nperfect spiritual detachment which comes by a vision of the Supreme who is more
\nthan Nature and greater than mind and reason. But even this detachment is only
\nthe initial secret of freedom and of the clear vision of knowledge, it is not
\nthe whole clue to the divine mystery, \u2013 for by itself it would leave Nature
\nunexplained and the natural active part of being isolated from the spiritual and
\nquietistic self-existence. The divine detachment must be the foundation for a
\ndivine participation in Nature which will replace the old egoistic
\nparticipation, the divine quietism must support a divine activism and kinetism.
\nThis truth which the Teacher has had in view all along and therefore insisted
\non the sacrifice of works, the recognition of the Supreme as the master of our
\nworks and the doctrine of the Avatar and the divine birth, has yet been at
\nfirst kept subordinate to the primary necessity of a quietistic liberation.
\nOnly the truths which lead to spiritual calm, detachment, equality and oneness,
\nin a word, to the perception and becoming of the immutable self, have been
\nfully developed and given their largest amplitude of power and significance.
\nThe other great and necessary truth, its complement, has been left in a certain
\nobscurity of a lesser or relative light; it has been hinted at constantly, but
\nnot as yet developed. Now in these successive chapters it is being rapidly
\nreleased into expression. <\/p>\n

Throughout Krishna,
\nthe Avatar, the Teacher, the charioteer of the human soul in the world-action,
\nhas been preparing the revelation of the secret of himself, Nature’s deepest
\nsecret. He has kept one note always sounding across his preparatory strain and
\ninsistently coming in as a warning and prelude of the larger ultimate harmony
\nof his integral Truth. That note was the idea of a supreme Godhead which dwells
\nwithin man and Nature, but is greater than man and Nature, is found by
\nimpersonality of the self, but of which impersonal self is not the whole
\nsignificance. We now see the meaning of that strong recurring insistence. It
\nwas this one Godhead, the same in universal self and man and Nature who through
\nthe voice of the Teacher in the chariot was preparing for his absolute claim to
\nthe whole being <\/p>\n

\nPage 291<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

of the awakened seer of things
\nand doer of works. \u201cI who am within thee,\u201d he was saying, \u201cI who am here in this
\nhuman body, I for whom all exists, acts, strives, am at once the secret of the
\nself-existent spirit and of the cosmic action. This `I’ is the greater I of
\nwhom the largest human personality is only a partial and fragmentary
\nmanifestation, Nature itself only an inferior working. Master of the soul,
\nmaster of all the works of the cosmos, I am the one Light, the sole Power, the
\nonly Being. This Godhead within thee is the Teacher, the Sun, the lifter of the
\nclear blaze of knowledge in which thou becomest aware of the difference between
\nthy immutable self and thy mutable nature. But look beyond the light itself to
\nits source; then shalt thou know the supreme Soul in which is recovered the
\nspiritual truth of personality and Nature. See then the one self in all beings
\nthat thou mayst see me in all beings; see all beings in one spiritual self and
\nreality, because that is the way to see all beings in me; know one Brahman in
\nall that thou mayst see God who is the supreme Brahman. Know thyself, be
\nthyself that thou mayst be united with me of whom this timeless self is the
\nclear light or the transparent curtain. I the Godhead am the highest truth of
\nself and spirit.\u201d <\/p>\n

Arjuna has to
\nsee that the same Godhead is the higher truth too not only of self and spirit
\nbut of Nature and his own personality, the secret at once of the individual and
\nthe universe. That was the Will universal in Nature, greater than the acts of
\nNature which proceed from him, to whom belong her actions and man’s and the
\nfruits of them. Therefore has he to do works as a sacrifice, because that is
\nthe truth of his works and of all works. Nature is the worker and not ego, but
\nNature is only a power of the Being who is the sole master of all her works and
\nenergisms and of all the aeons of the cosmic sacrifice. Therefore since his
\nworks are that Being’s, he has to give up all his actions to the Godhead in him
\nand the world by whom they are done in the divine mystery of Nature. This is
\nthe double condition of the divine birth of the soul, of its release from the
\nmortality of the ego and the body into the spiritual and eternal, \u2013 knowledge first
\nof one’s timeless immutable self and union through it with the timeless
\nGodhead, but knowledge too  <\/p>\n

\nPage 292<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

 of that which lives behind the
\nriddle of cosmos, the Godhead in all existences and their workings. Thus only
\ncan we aspire through the offering of all our nature and being to a living
\nunion with the One who has become in Time and Space all that is. Here is the
\nplace of bhakti in the scheme of the Yoga of an integral self-liberation. It is
\nan adoration and aspiration towards that which is greater than imperishable
\nself or changing Nature. All knowledge then becomes an adoration and
\naspiration, but all works too become an adoration and aspiration. Works of nature
\nand freedom of soul are unified in this adoration and become one self-uplifting
\nto the one Godhead. The final release, a passing away from the lower nature to
\nthe source of the higher spiritual becoming, is not an extinction of the soul,
\n\u2013 only its form of ego becomes extinct, \u2013 but a departure of our whole self of
\nknowledge, will and love to dwell no longer in his universal, but in his
\nsupracosmic reality, a fulfilment, not an annullation. <\/p>\n

Necessarily, to
\nmake this knowledge clear to the mind of Arjuna, the divine Teacher sets out by
\nremoving the source of two remaining difficulties, the antinomy between the
\nimpersonal self and the human personality and the antinomy between the self and
\nNature. While these two antinomies last, the Godhead in Nature and man remains
\nobscure, irrational and unbelievable. Nature has been represented as the mechanical
\nbondage of the gunas, the soul as the egoistic being subject to that bondage.
\nBut if that be all their truth, they are not and cannot be divine. Nature,
\nignorant and mechanical, cannot be a power of God; for divine Power must be
\nfree in its workings, spiritual in its origin, spiritual in its greatness. The
\nsoul bound and egoistic in Nature, mental, vital, physical only, cannot be a
\nportion of the Divine and itself a divine being; for such a divine being must
\nbe itself of the very nature of the Divine, free, spiritual, self-developing,
\nself-existent, superior to mind, life and body. Both these difficulties and the
\nobscurities they bring in are removed by one illumining ray of truth.
\nMechanical Nature is only a lower truth; it is the formula of an inferior
\nphenomenal action. There is a higher which is the spiritual and that is the
\nnature of our spiritual personality, our true <\/p>\n

 Page 293<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

 person. God is at once impersonal
\nand personal. His impersonality is to our psychological realisation an infinite
\nof timeless being, consciousness, bliss of existence; his personality
\nrepresents itself here as a conscious power of being, a conscious centre of
\nknowledge and will and the joy of multiple self-manifestation. We are that one impersonality
\nin the static essence of our being; we are each of us the multitude of that
\nessential power in our spiritual person. But the distinction is only for the
\npurposes of self-manifestation; the divine impersonality is, when one goes
\nbehind it, at the same time infinite He, a supreme soul and spirit. It is the
\ngreat \u201cI\u201d \u2013 so\u2019ham<\/i>, I am He, from
\nwhich all personality and nature proceed and disport themselves here diversely
\nin the appearance of an impersonal world. Brahman is all this that is, says the
\nUpanishad, for Brahman is one self which sees itself in four successive
\npositions of consciousness. Vasudeva, the eternal Being, is all, says the Gita.
\nHe is the Brahman, consciously supports and originates all from his higher
\nspiritual nature, consciously here becomes all things in a nature of
\nintelligence, mind, life and sense and objective phenomenon of material
\nexistence. The Jiva is he in that spiritual nature of the Eternal, his eternal
\nmultiplicity, his self-vision from many centres of conscious self-power. God,
\nNature and Jiva are the three terms of existence, and these three are one
\nbeing. <\/p>\n

How does this
\nBeing manifest himself in cosmos? First as the immutable timeless self
\nomnipresent and all-supporting which is in its eternity being and not becoming.
\nThen, held in that being there is an essential power or spiritual principle of self-becoming,
\nsvabhāva<\/i>, through which by
\nspiritual self-vision it determines and expresses, creates by liberation all
\nthat is latent or contained in its own existence. The power or the energy of
\nthat self-becoming looses forth into universal action, Karma, all that is thus
\ndetermined in the spirit. All creation is this action, is this working of the
\nessential nature, is Karma. But it is developed here in a mutable Nature of
\nintelligence, mind, life, sense and form-objectivity of material phenomenon
\nactually cut off from the absolute light and limited by the Ignorance. All its
\nworkings become there a sacrifice of the <\/p>\n

 Page 294<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\n <\/span> soul in Nature to the supreme
\nSoul secret within her, and the supreme Godhead dwells therefore in all as the
\nMaster of their sacrifice, whose presence and power govern it and whose
\nself-knowledge and delight of being receive it. To know this is to have the right
\nknowledge of the universe and the vision of God in the cosmos and to find out
\nthe door of escape from the Ignorance. For this knowledge, made effective for
\nman by the offering up of his works and all his consciousness to the Godhead in
\nall, enables him to return to his spiritual existence and through it to the
\nsupracosmic Reality eternal and luminous above this mutable Nature. <\/p>\n

This truth is
\nthe secret of being which the Gita is now going to apply in its amplitude of
\nresult for our inner life and our outer works. What it is going to say is the
\nmost secret thing of all.\u00b9 <\/span>It
\nis the knowledge of the whole Godhead, samagram
\nmām<\/i>, which the Master of his being has promised to Arjuna, that essential
\nknowledge attended with the complete knowledge of it in all its principles
\nwhich will leave nothing yet to be known. The whole knot of the ignorance which
\nhas bewildered his human mind and has made his will recoil from his divinely appointed
\nwork, will have been cut entirely asunder. This is the wisdom of all wisdoms,
\nthe secret of all secrets, the king-knowledge, the king-secret. It is a pure
\nand supreme light which one can verify by direct spiritual experience and see
\nin oneself as the truth: it is the right and just knowledge, the very law of
\nbeing. It is easy to practise when one gets hold of it, sees it, tries
\nfaithfully to live in it. <\/p>\n

But faith is
\nnecessary; if faith is absent, if one trusts to the critical intelligence which
\ngoes by outward facts and jealously questions the revelatory knowledge because
\nthat does not square with the divisions and imperfections of the apparent
\nnature and seems to exceed it and state something which carries us beyond the
\nfirst practical facts of our present existence, its grief, its pain, evil,
\ndefect, undivine error and stumbling, aśubham<\/i>,
\nthen there is no possibility of living out that greater knowledge. The soul
\nthat fails to get faith in the higher truth and law, must return into the path
\nof ordinary mortal living subject <\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>Gita, IX. 1-3.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage 295<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

to death and error and evil: it
\ncannot grow into the Godhead which it denies. For this is a truth which has to
\nbe lived, \u2013 and lived in the soul’s growing light, not argued out in the mind’s
\ndarkness. One has to grow into it, one has to become it, \u2013 that is the only way
\nto verify it. It is only by an exceeding of the lower self that one can become
\nthe real divine self and live the truth of our spiritual existence. All the
\napparent truths one can oppose to it are appearances of the lower Nature. The
\nrelease from the evil and the defect of the lower Nature, aśubham<\/i>, can only come by accepting a higher knowledge in
\nwhich all this apparent evil becomes convinced of \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>altimate unreality, is shown to be a creation
\nof our darkness. But to grow thus into the freedom of the divine Nature one
\nmust accept and believe in the Godhead secret within our present limited
\nnature. For the reason why the practice of this Yoga becomes possible and easy
\nis that in doing it we give up the whole working of all that we naturally are
\ninto the hands of that inner divine Purusha. The Godhead works out the divine
\nbirth in us progressively, simply, infallibly, by taking up our being into his and
\nby filling it with his own knowledge and power, j\u00f1ānadīpena bhāsvatā<\/i>; he lays hands on our
\nobscure ignorant nature and transforms it into his own light and wideness. What
\nwith entire faith and without egoism we believe in and impelled by him will to
\nbe, the God within will surely accomplish. But the egoistic mind and life we
\nnow and apparently are, must first surrender itself for transmutation into the
\nhands of that inmost secret Divinity within us.
\n  <\/p>\n

\nPage 296<\/span><\/p>\n

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

FOUR  The Secret of Secrets   ALL the truth that has developed itself at this length step by step, each bringing forward a fresh aspect…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","wpcat-31-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}