{"id":1381,"date":"2013-07-13T01:34:26","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1381"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:34:26","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:26","slug":"33-the-supreme-word-of-the-gita-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\/33-the-supreme-word-of-the-gita-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","title":{"rendered":"-33_The Supreme Word of the Gita.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

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

\n
\n <\/font><\/span>The Supreme Word of the Gita<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nW<\/font><\/span><\/b>E HAVE<\/font> now got to the inmost kernel of the Gita’s Yoga, the
\nwhole living and breathing centre of its teaching. We can see now quite clearly
\nthat the ascent of the limited human soul when it withdraws from the ego and
\nthe lower nature into the immutable Self calm, silent and stable, was only a
\nfirst step, an initial change. And now too we can see why the Gita from the
\nfirst insisted on the Ishwara, the Godhead in the human form, who speaks always
\nof himself, \u201caham<\/i>, mām<\/i>,\u201d as of some great secret and
\nomnipresent Being, lord of all the worlds and master of the human soul, one who
\nis greater even than that immutable self-existence which is still and unmoved
\nfor ever and abides for ever untouched by the subjective and objective appearances
\nof the natural universe.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>All Yoga is a seeking after the Divine, a turn
\ntowards union with the Eternal. According to the adequacy of our perception of
\nthe Divine and the Eternal will be the way of the seeking, the depth and
\nfullness of the union and the integrality of the realisation. Man, the mental
\nbeing, approaches the Infinite through his finite mind and has to open some near
\ngate of this finite upon that Infinite. He seeks for some conception on which
\nhis mind is able to seize, selects some power of his nature which by force of
\nan absolute self-heightening can reach out and lay its touch on the infinite
\nTruth that in itself is beyond his mental comprehension. Some face of that
\ninfinite Truth \u2013 for, because it is infinite, it has numberless faces, words of
\nits meaning, self-suggestions \u2013 he attempts to see, so that by attaching
\nhimself to it he can arrive through direct experience to the immeasurable
\nreality it figures. However narrow the gate may be, he is satisfied if it
\noffers some prospect into the wideness which attracts him, if it sets him on
\nthe way to the fathomless profundity and unreachable heights of that which
\ncalls to his spirit. And as he
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage 323<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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approaches it, so it receives
\nhim, ye yathā<\/i> mām<\/i> prapadyante<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Philosophic mind attempts to attain to the
\nEternal by an abstractive knowledge. The business of knowledge is to comprehend
\nand for the finite intellect that means to define and determine. But the only
\nway to determine the indeterminable is by some kind of universal negation, neti<\/i> neti<\/i>.
\nTherefore the mind proceeds to exclude from the conception of the Eternal all
\nthat offers itself as limitable by the senses and the heart and the
\nunderstanding. An entire opposition is made between the Self and the not-self,
\nbetween an eternal, immutable, indefinable self-existence and all forms of existence,
\n\u2013 between Brahman and Maya, between the ineffable Reality and all that
\nundertakes to express, but cannot express the Ineffable, \u2013 between Karma and
\nNirvana, between the ever continuous but ever impermanent action and conception
\nof the universal Energy and some absolute ineffable supreme Negation of its
\naction and conception which is empty of all life and mentality and dynamic
\nsignificance. That strong drive of knowledge towards the Eternal leads away from
\neverything that is transient. It negates life in order to return to its source,
\ncuts away from us all that we seem to be in order to get from it to the
\nnameless and impersonal reality of our being. The desires of the heart, the
\nworks of the will and the conceptions of the mind are rejected; even in the end
\nknowledge itself is negated and abolished in the Identical and Unknowable. By
\nthe way of an increasing quietude ending in an absolute passivity the Maya-created
\nsoul or the bundle of associations we call ourselves enters into annihilation
\nof its idea of personality, makes an end of the lie of living, disappears into
\nNirvana.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>But this difficult abstractive method of
\nself-negation, however it may draw to it some exceptional natures, cannot
\nsatisfy universally the embodied soul in man, because it does not give an
\noutlet to all the straining of his complex nature towards the perfect Eternal.
\nNot only his abstracting contemplative intellect but his yearning heart, his
\nactive will, his positive mind in search of some Truth to which his existence
\nand the existence of the world is a manifold key, have their straining towards the
\nEternal and Infinite and seek to find in it their divine Source and the
\njustification\u00a0 <\/span>of their being and their
\nnature. From this need arise <\/p>\n

\nPage 324.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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\u00a0<\/span>the religions of love and works, whose
\nstrength is that they satisfy and lead Godwards the most active and developed
\npowers of our humanity, \u2013 for only by starting from these can knowledge be effective.
\nEven Buddhism with its austere and uncompromising negation both of subjective
\nself and objective things had still to found itself initially on a divine
\ndiscipline of works and to admit as a substitute for bhakti the spiritualised
\nemotionalism of a universal love and compassion, since so only could it become
\nan effective way for mankind, a truly liberating religion. Even illusionist
\nMayavada with its ultra-logical intolerance of action and the creations of
\nmentality had to allow a provisional and practical reality to man and the
\nuniverse and to God in the world in order to have a first foothold and a
\nfeasible starting-point; it had to affirm what it denied in order to give some
\nreality to man’s bondage and to his effort for liberation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>But the weakness of the kinetic and the
\nemotional religions is that they are too much absorbed in some divine Personality
\nand in the divine values of the finite. And, even when they have a conception
\nof the infinite Godhead, they do not give us the full satisfaction of knowledge
\nbecause they do not follow it out into its most ultimate and supernal
\ntendencies. These religions fall short of a complete absorption in the Eternal
\nand the perfect union by identity, \u2013 and yet to that identity in some other
\nway, if not in the abstractive, since there all oneness has its basis, the
\nspirit that is in man must one day arrive. On the other hand, the weakness of a
\ncontemplative quietistic spirituality is that it arrives at this result by a
\ntoo absolute abstraction and in the end it turns into a nothing or a fiction
\nthe human soul whose aspiration was yet all the time the whole sense of this
\nattempt at union; for without the soul and its aspiration liberation and union
\ncould have no meaning. The little that this way of thinking recognises of his
\nother powers of existence, it relegates to an inferior preliminary action which
\nnever arrives at any full or satisfying realisation in the Eternal and
\nInfinite. Yet these things too which it restricts unduly, the potent will, the
\nstrong yearning of love, the positive light and all-embracing intuition of the
\nconscious mental being are from the Divine, represent essential powers of him
\nand must have some justification in their <\/p>\n

\nPage 325<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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Source and some dynamic way of
\nself-fulfilment in him. No God-knowledge can be integral, perfect or
\nuniversally satisfying which leaves unfulfilled their absolute claim, no wisdom
\nutterly wise which in its intolerant asceticism of search negates or in the
\npride of pure knowledge belittles the spiritual reality behind these ways of
\nthe Godhead.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The greatness of the central thought of the
\nGita in which all its threads are gathered up and united, consists in the synthetic
\nvalue of a conception which recognises the whole nature of the soul of man in
\nthe universe and validates by a large and wise unification its many-sided need
\nof the supreme and infinite Truth, Power, Love, Being to which our humanity turns
\nin its search for perfection and immortality and some highest joy and power and
\npeace. There is a strong and wide endeavour towards a comprehensive spiritual
\nview of God and man and universal existence. Not indeed that everything without
\nany exception is seized in these eighteen chapters, no spiritual problem left
\nfor solution; but still so large a scheme is laid out that we have only to fill
\nin, to develop, to modify, to stress, to follow out points, to work out hint
\nand illuminate adumbration in order to find a clue to any further claim of our
\nintelligence and need of our spirit. The Gita itself does not evolve any quite
\nnovel solution out of its own questionings. To arrive at the comprehensiveness
\nat which it aims, it goes back behind the great philosophical systems to the
\noriginal Vedanta of the Upanishads; for there we have the widest and profoundest
\nextant synthetic vision of spirit and man and cosmos. But what is in the
\nUpanishads undeveloped to the intelligence because wrapped up in a luminous
\nkernel of intuitive vision and symbolic utterance, the Gita brings out in the light
\nof a later intellectual thinking and distinctive experience. <\/p>\n

In the frame of
\nits synthesis it admits the seeking of the abstractive thinkers for the
\nIndefinable, anirdeśyam<\/i>, the
\never unmanifest Immutable, avyaktam<\/i> aksaram<\/i>. Those who devote
\nthemselves to this search, find, they also, the Purushottama, the supreme
\nDivine Person, mām<\/i>, the Spirit
\nand highest Soul and Lord of things. For his utmost self-existent way of being
\nis indeed an unthinkable, acintyarūpam<\/i>,
\nan unimaginable positive,
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage 326.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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an absolute quintessence of all absolutes
\nfar beyond the determination of the intelligence. The method of negative passivity,
\nquietude, renunciation of life and works by which men feel after this
\nintangible Absolute is admitted and ratified in the Gita’s philosophy, but only
\nwith a minor permissive sanction. This negating knowledge approaches the
\nEternal by one side only of the truth and that side the most difficult to reach
\nand follow for the embodied soul in Nature, duhkham<\/i>
\ndehavadbhir<\/i> avāpyate<\/i>; it proceeds by a highly specialised, even an
\nunnecessarily arduous way, \u201cnarrow and difficult to tread as a razor’s edge.\u201d
\nNot by denying all relations, but through all relations is the Divine Infinite
\nnaturally approachable to man and most easily, widely, intimately seizable.
\nThis seeing is not after all the largest or the truest truth that the Supreme
\nis without any relations with the mental, vital, physical existence of man in
\nthe universe, avyavahāryam<\/i>, nor
\nthat what is described as the empirical truth of things, the truth of
\nrelations, vyavahāra<\/i>, is
\naltogether the opposite of the highest spiritual truth, paramārtha<\/i>. On the contrary there are a thousand relations by
\nwhich the supreme Eternal is secretly in contact and union with our human
\nexistence and by all essential ways of our nature and of the world’s nature, sarva<\/i>–bhāvena<\/i>, can that contact be made sensible and that union made
\nreal to our soul, heart, will, intelligence, spirit. Therefore is this other
\nway natural and easy for man, sukham<\/i> āptum<\/i>. God does not make himself
\ndifficult of approach to us: only one thing is needed, one demand made on us,
\nthe single indomitable will to break through the veil of our ignorance and the
\nwhole, the persistent seeking of the mind and heart and life for that which is
\nall the time near to it, within it, its own soul of being and spiritual essence
\nand the secret of its personality and its impersonality, its self and its
\nnature. This is our one difficulty; the rest the Master of our existence will
\nhimself see to and accomplish, aham tvām<\/i>
\nmoksayisyāmi<\/i> ma śsucah<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>In the very part of its teaching in which the
\nGita’s synthesis leans most towards the side of pure knowledge, we have seen
\nthat it constantly prepares for this fuller truth and more pregnant experience.
\nIndeed, it is implied in the very form the Gita gives to the realisation of the
\nself-existent Immutable. That <\/p>\n

\nPage 327.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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immutable Self of all existences
\nseems indeed to stand back from any active intervention in the workings of
\nNature; but it is not void of all relation whatever and remote from all connection.
\nIt is our witness and supporter; it gives a silent and impersonal sanction; it
\nhas even an impassive enjoyment. The many-sided action of Nature is still
\npossible even when the soul is poised in that calm self-existence: for the
\nwitness soul is the immutable Purusha, and Purusha has always some relation
\nwith Prakriti. But now the reason of this double aspect of silence and of
\nactivity is revealed in its entire significance, \u2013 because the silent
\nall-pervading Self is only one side of the truth of the divine Being. He who
\npervades the world as the one unchanging self that supports all its mutations,
\nis equally the Godhead in man, the Lord in the heart of every creature, the
\nconscient Cause and Master of all our subjective becoming and all our
\ninward-taking and outward-going objectivised action. The Ishwara of the Yogins
\nis one with the Brahman of the seeker of knowledge, one supreme and universal
\nSpirit, one supreme and universal Godhead.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>This Godhead is not the limited personal God
\nof so many exoteric religions; for those are all only partial and outward formations
\nof this other, this creative and directive, this personal side of his complete
\ntruth of existence. This is the one supreme Person, Soul, Being, Purusha of
\nwhom all godheads are aspects, all individual personality a limited development
\nin cosmic Nature. This Godhead is not a particularised name and form of
\nDivinity, ista<\/i>–devatā<\/i>, constructed by the
\nintelligence or embodying the special aspiration of the worshipper. All such
\nnames and forms are only powers and faces of the one Deva who is the universal
\nLord of all worshippers and all religions: but this is itself that universal
\nDeity, deva<\/i>–deva<\/i>. This Ishwara is not a reflection of the impersonal and
\nindeterminable Brahman in illusive Maya: for from beyond all cosmos as well as
\nwithin it he rules and is the Lord of the worlds and their creatures. He is Parabrahman
\nwho is Parameshwara, supreme Lord because he is the supreme Self and Spirit,
\nand from his highest original existence he originates and governs the universe,
\nnot self-deceived, but with an all-knowing omnipotence. Nor is the working 
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

                                                                                                                                                      Page 328<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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of his divine Nature in the
\ncosmos an illusion whether of his or our consciousness. The only illusive Maya
\nis the ignorance of the lower Prakriti which is not a creator of non-existent
\nthings on the impalpable background of the One and Absolute, but because of its
\nblind encumbered and limited working misrepresents to the human mind by the
\nfigure of ego and other inadequate figures of mind, life and matter the greater
\nsense, the deeper realities of existence. There is a supreme, a divine Nature
\nwhich is the true creatrix of the universe. All creatures and all objects are
\nbecomings of the one divine Being; all life is a working of the power of the
\none Lord; all nature is a manifestation of the one Infinite. He is the Godhead
\nin man; the Jiva is spirit of his Spirit. He is the Godhead in the universe;
\nthis world in Space and Time is his phenomenal self-extension. <\/p>\n

In the unrolling
\nof this comprehensive vision of existence and super-existence the Yoga of the
\nGita finds its unified significance and unexampled amplitude. This supreme
\nGodhead is the one unchanging imperishable Self in all that is; therefore to
\nthe spiritual sense of this unchanging imperishable self man has to awake and
\nto unify with it his inner impersonal being. He is the Godhead in man who
\noriginates and directs all his workings; therefore man has to awake to the Godhead
\nwithin himself, to know the divinity he houses, to rise out of all that veils
\nand obscures it and to become united with this inmost Self of his self, this
\ngreater consciousness of his consciousness, this hidden Master of all his will
\nand works, this Being within him who is the fount and object of all his various
\nbecoming. He is the Godhead whose divine nature, origin of all that we are, is
\nthickly veiled by these lower natural derivations; therefore man has to get
\nback from his lower apparent existence, imperfect and mortal, to his essential
\ndivine nature of immortality and perfection. This Godhead is one in all things that
\nare, the self who lives in all and the self in whom all live and move;
\ntherefore man has to discover his spiritual unity with all creatures, to see
\nall in the self and the self in all beings, even to see all things and creatures
\nas himself, ātmaupamyena<\/i> sarvatra<\/i>, and accordingly think, feel
\nand act in all his mind, will and living. This Godhead is the origin of all
\nthat is here or elsewhere and by his Nature he has
\n <\/p>\n

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\n

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become all these innumerable
\nexistences, abhūt<\/i> sarvabhūtāni<\/i>; therefore man
\nhas to see and adore the One in all things animate and inanimate, to worship
\nthe manifestation in sun and star and flower, in man and every living creature,
\nin the forms and forces, qualities and powers of Nature, vāsudevah<\/i> sarvam<\/i>
\niti<\/i>. He has to make himself by divine
\nvision and divine sympathy and finally by a strong inner identity one
\nuniversality with the universe. A passive relationless identity excludes love
\nand action, but this larger and richer oneness fulfils itself by works and by a
\npure emotion: it becomes the source and continent and substance and motive and divine
\npurpose of all our acts and feelings. Kasmai<\/i>
\ndevāya<\/i> havisā<\/i> vidhema<\/i>,
\nto what Godhead shall we give all our life and activities as an offering? This
\nis that Godhead, this the Lord who claims our sacrifice. A passive relationless
\nidentity excludes the joy of adoration and devotion; but bhakti is the very
\nsoul and heart and summit of this richer, completer, more intimate union. This
\nGodhead is the fulfilment of all relations, father, mother, lover, friend and
\nrefuge of the soul of every creature. He is the one supreme and universal Deva,
\nAtman, Purusha, Brahman, Ishwara of the secret wisdom. He has manifested the
\nworld in himself in all these ways by his divine Yoga: its multitudinous
\nexistences are one in him and he is one in them in many aspects. To awaken to
\nthe revelation of him in all these ways together is man’s side of the same
\ndivine Yoga. <\/p>\n

To make it
\nperfectly and indisputably clear that this is the supreme and entire truth of
\nhis teaching, this the integral knowledge which he had promised to reveal, the
\ndivine Avatar declares, in a brief reiteration of the upshot of all that he has
\nbeen saying, that this and no other is his supreme word, paramam<\/i> vacah<\/i>.
\n\u201cAgain hearken to my supreme word,\u201d bhūya<\/i>
\neva<\/i> śrnu<\/i> me<\/i> paramam<\/i> vacah<\/i>. This supreme word of the Gita is, we find, first the
\nexplicit and unmistakable declaration that the highest worship and highest
\nknowledge of the Eternal are the knowledge and the adoration of him as the
\nsupreme and divine Origin of all that is in existence and the mighty Lord of
\nthe world and its peoples of whose being all things are the becomings. It is, secondly,
\nthe declaration of a unified knowledge and bhakti as the supreme Yoga; that is
\nthe destined and the natural way given to
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 330.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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

\n\u00a0<\/span>man to arrive at union with the eternal
\nGodhead. And to make more significant this definition of the way, to give an illuminating
\npoint to this highest importance of bhakti founded upon and opening to
\nknowledge and made the basis and motive-power for divinely appointed works, the
\nacceptance of it by the heart and mind of the disciple is put as a condition for
\nthe farther development by which the final command to action comes at last to
\nbe given to the human instrument, Arjuna. \u201cI will speak this supreme word to
\nthee\u201d says the Godhead \u201cfrom my will for thy soul’s good, now that thy heart is
\ntaking delight in me,\u201d te<\/i> prīyamānāya<\/i> vaksyāmi<\/i>. For this delight
\nof the heart in God is the whole constituent and essence of true Bhakti, bhajanti<\/i> prītipūrvakam<\/i>. As soon as the supreme word is given,
\nArjuna is made to utter his acceptance of it and to ask for a practical way of
\nseeing God in all things in Nature, and from that question immediately and
\nnaturally there develops the vision of the Divine as the Spirit of the universe
\nand there arises the tremendous command to the world-action.\u00b9<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea of the
\nDivine on which the Gita insists as the secret of the whole mystery of
\nexistence, the knowledge that leads to liberation, is one that bridges the
\nopposition between the cosmic procession in Time and a supracosmic eternity without
\ndenying either of them or taking anything from the reality of either. It
\nharmonises the pantheistic, the theistic and the highest transcendental terms
\nof our spiritual conception and spiritual experience. The Divine is the unborn
\nEternal who has no origin; there is and can be nothing before him from which he
\nproceeds, because he is one and timeless and absolute.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither the gods nor the great
\nRishis know any birth of me. . . .\u00a0 <\/span>He
\nwho knows me as the unborn without origin . . .\u201d are the opening utterances of
\nthis supreme word. And it gives the high promise that this knowledge, not
\nlimiting, not intellectual, but pure and spiritual, \u2013 for the form and nature,
\nif we can use such language, of this transcendental Being, his svarūpa<\/i>, are necessarily
\nunthinkable by the mind, acintyarūpa<\/i>,
\n\u2013 rtes mortal man from all confusion of ignorance and from all bondage of sin,
\nsuffering and evil, yo<\/i> vetti<\/i> asammūdhah<\/i> sa<\/i>
\nmartyesu<\/i> sarva<\/i>–papaih<\/i> pramucyate<\/i>. The human <\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>Gita,x.1-18.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 331.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\u00a0<\/span>soul that can dwell in the light of this
\nsupreme spiritual knowledge is lifted by it beyond the ideative or sensible
\nformulations of the universe. It rises into the ineffable power of an
\nall-exceeding, yet all-fulfilling identity, the same beyond and here. This
\nspiritual experience of the transcendental Infinite breaks down the limitations
\nof the pantheistic conception of existence. The infinite of a cosmic monism
\nwhich makes God and the universe one, tries to imprison the Divine in his world
\nmanifestation and leaves us that as our sole possible means of knowing him; but
\nthis experience liberates us into the timeless and spaceless Eternal. \u201cNeither
\nthe Gods nor the Titans know thy manifestation\u201d cries Arjuna in his reply: the
\nwhole universe or even numberless universes cannot manifest him, cannot contain
\nhis ineffable light and infinite greatness. All other lesser God-knowledge has
\nits truth only by dependence on the ever unmanifested and ineffable reality of
\nthe transcendent Godhead.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>But at the same time the divine Transcendence
\nis not a negation, nor is it an Absolute empty of all relation to the universe.
\nIt is a supreme positive, it is an absolute of all absolutes. All cosmic
\nrelations derive from this Supreme; all cosmic existences return to it and find
\nin it alone their true and immeasurable existence. \u201cFor I am altogether and in every
\nway the origin of the gods and the great Rishis.\u201d The gods are the great
\nundying Powers and immortal Personalities who consciously inform, constitute,
\npreside over the subjective and objective forces of the cosmos. The gods are
\nspiritual forms of the eternal and original Deity who descend from him into the
\nmany processes of the world. Multitudinous, universal, the gods weave out of
\nthe primary principles of being and its thousand complexities the whole web of
\nthis diversified existence of the One. All their own existence, nature, power,
\nprocess proceeds in every way, in every principle, in its every strand from the
\ntruth of the transcendent Ineffable. Nothing is independently created here,
\nnothing is caused self-sufficiently by these divine agents; everything finds
\nits origin, cause, first spiritual reason for being and will to be in the
\nabsolute and supreme Godhead, \u2013 aham<\/i> ādih<\/i> sarvaśah<\/i>. Nothing in the universe has its real cause
\nin the universe; all proceeds from this supernal Existence. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 332<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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 The great
\nRishis, called here as in the Veda the seven original Seers, maharsayah<\/i> sapta<\/i> pūrve<\/i>, the seven Ancients of the world, are
\nintelligence-powers of that divine Wisdom which has evolved all things out of
\nits own self-conscious infinitude, praj\u00f1ā<\/i>
\npurānī<\/i>, \u2013 developed
\nthem down the range of the seven principles of its own essence. These Rishis embody
\nthe all-upholding, all-illumining, all-manifesting seven Thoughts of the Veda, sapta<\/i> dhiyah<\/i>, \u2013 the Upanishad speaks of all things as being
\narranged in septettes, sapta<\/i> sapta<\/i>. Along with these are coupled the
\nfour eternal Manus, fathers of man, \u2013 for the active nature of the Godhead is
\nfourfold and humanity expresses this nature in its fourfold character. These also,
\nas their name implies, are mental beings. Creators of all this life that
\ndepends on manifest or latent mind for its action, from them are all these
\nliving creatures in the world; all are their children and offspring, yesām<\/i> loka<\/i> imāh<\/i> prajāh<\/i>. And these great
\nRishis and these Manus are themselves perpetual mental becomings of the supreme
\nSoul\u00b9<\/span> and born out of his
\nspiritual transcendence into cosmic Nature, \u2013 originators, but he the origin of
\nall that originates in the universe. Spirit of all spirits, Soul of all souls,
\nMind of all mind, Life of all life, Substance of all form, this transcendent Absolute
\nis no complete opposite of all we are, but on the contrary the originating and
\nilluminating Absolute of all the principles and powers of our and the world’s
\nbeing and nature.<\/p>\n

This
\ntranscendent Origin of our existence is not separated from us by any
\nunbridgeable gulf and does not disown the creatures that derive from him or
\ncondemn them to be only the figment of an illusion. He is the Being, all are
\nhis becomings. He does not create out of a void, out of a Nihil or out of an
\nunsubstantial matrix of dream. Out of himself he creates, in himself he
\nbecomes; all are in his being and all is of his being. This truth admits and
\nexceeds the pantheistic seeing of things. Vasudeva is all, vāsudevah sarvam,<\/i> but Vasudeva is all that appears in
\nthe cosmos because he is too all that does not\u00a0
\n<\/span>appear in it,\u00a0 <\/span>all that is never
\nmanifested. His being is in no way limited by his becomings; he is in no degree
\nbound by this world of relations. Even in becoming all he\u00a0 <\/span>is still a Transcendence; even in assuming
\nfinite
\n <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>mad<\/font><\/i>–bhāvāh <\/i>\u00a0<\/span>mānasā<\/i>
\njātāh<\/i>.<\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 333<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\n\u00a0<\/span>forms he is always the Infinite. Nature,
\nPrakriti, is in her essence his spiritual power, self-power, ātmaśakti<\/i>; this spiritual
\nself-power develops infinite primal qualities of becoming in the inwardness of
\nthings and turns them into an external surface of form and action. For in her
\nessential, secret and divine order the spiritual truth of each and all comes
\nfirst, a thing of her deep identities; their psychological truth of quality and
\nnature is dependent on the spiritual for all in it that is authentic, it
\nderives from the spirit; least in necessity, last in order the objective truth
\nof form and action derives from inner quality of nature and depends on it for
\nall these variable presentations of existence here in the external order. Or in
\nother words, the objective fact is only an expression of a sum of soul factors
\nand these go back always to a spiritual cause of their appearance.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>This finite outward becoming is an expressive
\nphenomenon of the divine Infinite. Nature is, secondarily, the lower Nature, a
\nsubordinate variable development of a few selective combinations out of the
\nmany possibilities of the Infinite. Evolved out of essential and psychological
\nquality of being and becoming, svabhāva<\/i>,
\nthese combinations of form and energy, action and movement exist for a quite
\nlimited relation and mutual experience in the cosmic oneness. And in this lower,
\noutward and apparent order of things Nature as an expressive power of the
\nGodhead is disfigured by the perversions of an obscure cosmic Ignorance and her
\ndivine significances lost in the materialised, separative and egoistic
\nmechanism of our mental and vital experience. But still here also all is from
\nthe supreme Godhead, a birth, a becoming, an evolution,\u00b9<\/span> a process of development through action of Nature
\nout of the Transcendent. Aham<\/i> sarvasya<\/i> prabhavo<\/i> mattah<\/i> sarvam<\/i> pravartate<\/i>; \u201cI am the birth of everything and from me all proceeds
\ninto development of action and movement.\u201d Not only is this true of all that we
\ncall good or praise and recognise as divine, all that is luminous, sattwic,
\nethical, peace-giving, spiritually joy-giving, \u201cunderstanding and knowledge and
\nfreedom from the bewilderment of the Ignorance, forgiveness and truth and
\nself-government and calm of inner control, non-injuring and equality,
\ncontentment and austerity and giving.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>prabhava<\/font><\/i>, bhāva<\/i>, pravrtti<\/i>.<\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage\u00a0 <\/span>334.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

               \u00a0<\/span>It is true also of the oppositions that
\nperplex the mortal mind and bring in ignorance and its bewilderment, \u201cgrief and
\npleasure, coming into being and destruction, fear and fearlessness, glory and
\ningloriousness\u201d with all the rest of the interplay of light and darkness, all
\nthe myriad mixed threads that quiver so painfully and yet with a constant
\nstimulation through the entanglement of our nervous mind and its ignorant
\nsubjectivities. All here in their separate diversities are subjective becomings
\nof existences in the one great Becoming and they get their birth and being from
\nHim who transcends them. The Transcendent knows and originates these things,
\nbut is not caught as in a web in that diversified knowledge and is not overcome
\nby his creation. We must observe here the emphatic collocation of the three
\nwords from the verb bhū<\/i>, to become,
\nbhavanti<\/i>, bhavāh<\/i>, bhūtānām<\/i>.
\nAll existences are becomings of the Divine, bhūtāni<\/i>;
\nall subjective states and movements are his and their psychological becomings, bhāvāh<\/i>. These even,
\nour lesser subjective conditions and their apparent results no less than the
\nhighest spiritual states, are all becomings from the supreme Being, \u00b9<\/span> bhavanti<\/i> matta<\/i> eva<\/i>. The Gita recognises and stresses
\nthe distinction between Being and becoming, but does not turn it into an
\nopposition. For that would be to abrogate the universal oneness. The Godhead is
\none in his transcendence, one all-supporting Self of things, one in the unity
\nof his cosmic nature. These three are one Godhead; all derives from him, all
\nbecomes from his being, all is eternal portion or temporal expression of the
\nEternal. In the Transcendence, in the Absolute, if we are to follow the Gita,
\nwe must look, not for a supreme negation of all things, but for the positive
\nkey of their mystery, the reconciling secret of their existence. <\/p>\n

But there is
\nanother supreme reality of the Infinite that must also be recognised as an
\nindispensable element of the liberating knowledge. This reality is that of the
\ntranscendent downlook as well as the close immanent presence of the divine government
\nof the universe. The Supreme who becomes all<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>Cf. the Upanishad, ātmā eva abhut sarvani bhutāni<\/i>, the Self has become
\nall existences, with this contained significance in the choice of the words,
\nthe Self-existent has become all these becomings.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage 335.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

creation, yet infinitely
\ntranscends it, is not a will-less cause aloof from his creation. He is not an
\ninvoluntary originator who disowns all responsibility for these results of his
\nuniversal Power or casts them upon an illusive consciousness entirely different
\nfrom his own or leaves them to a mechanical Law or to a Demiurge or to a
\nManichean conflict of Principles. He is not an aloof and indifferent Witness
\nwho waits impassively for all to abolish itself or return to its unmoved
\noriginal principle. He is the mighty lord of the worlds and peoples, loka<\/i>–maheśvara<\/i>,
\nand governs all not only from within but from above, from his supreme
\ntranscendence. Cosmos cannot be governed by a Power that does not transcend
\ncosmos. A divine government implies the free mastery of an omnipotent Ruler and
\nnot an automatic force or mechanical law of determinative becoming limited by
\nthe apparent nature of the cosmos. This is the theistic seeing of the universe,
\nbut it is no shrinking and gingerly theism afraid of the world’s
\ncontradictions, but one which sees God as the omniscient and omnipotent, the
\nsole original Being who manifests in himself all, whatever it may be, good and
\nevil, pain and pleasure, light and darkness as stuff of his own existence and
\ngoverns himself what in himself he has manifested. Unaffected by its
\noppositions, unbound by his creation, exceeding, yet intimately related to this
\nNature and closely one with her creatures, their Spirit, Self, highest Soul,
\nLord, Lover, Friend, Refuge, he is ever leading them from within them and from
\nabove through the mortal appearances of ignorance and suffering and sin and
\nevil, ever leading each through his nature and all through universal Nature
\ntowards a supreme light and bliss and immortality and transcendence. This is
\nthe fullness of the liberating knowledge. It is a knowledge of the Divine
\nwithin us and in the world as at the same time a transcendent Infinite. An Absolute
\nwho has become all that is by his divine Nature, his effective power of Spirit,
\nhe governs all from his transcendence. He is intimately present within every
\ncreature and the cause, ruler, director of all cosmic happenings and yet is he
\nfar too great, mighty and infinite to be limited by his creation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>This character of the knowledge is emphasised
\nin three separate verses of promise. \u201cWhosoever knows me,\u201d says the <\/p>\n

\nPage 336.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

Godhead, \u201cas the unborn who is
\nwithout origin, mighty lord of the worlds and peoples, lives unbewildered among
\nmortals and is delivered from all sin and evil. . . . Whosoever knows in its
\nright principles this my pervading lordship and this my Yoga (the divine Yoga, aiśvara<\/i> yoga<\/i>, by which the Transcendent is one with all existences, even
\nwhile more than them all, and dwells in them and contains them as becomings of
\nhis own Nature), unites himself to me by an untrembling Yoga. . . . The wise
\nhold me for the birth of each and all, hold each and all as developing from me
\nits action and movement, and so holding they love and adore me . . .\u00a0 <\/span>and I give them the Yoga of the understanding
\nby which they come to me and I destroy for them the darkness which is born of
\nthe ignorance.\u201d These results must arise inevitably from the very nature of the
\nknowledge and from the very nature of the Yoga which converts that knowledge
\ninto spiritual growth and spiritual experience. For all the perplexity of man’s
\nmind and action, all the stumbling, insecurity and affliction of his mind, his
\nwill, his ethical turn, his emotional, sensational and vital urgings can be
\ntraced back to the groping and bewildered cognition and volition natural to his
\nsense-obscured mortal mind in the body, sammoha<\/i>.
\nBut when he sees the divine Origin of all things, when he looks steadily from
\nthe cosmic appearance to its transcendent Reality and back from that Reality to
\nthe appearance, he is then delivered from this bewilderment of the mind, will,
\nheart and senses, he walks enlightened and free, asammūdhah<\/i> martyesu<\/i>.
\nAssigning to everything its supernal and real and not any longer only its
\npresent and apparent value, he finds the hidden links and connections; he
\nconsciously directs all life and act to their high and true object and governs
\nthem by the light and power which comes to him from the Godhead within him. Thus
\nhe escapes from the wrong cognition, the wrong mental and volitional reaction,
\nthe wrong sensational reception and impulse which here originate sin and error
\nand suffering, sarva<\/i>–pāpaih<\/i> pramucyate<\/i>. For living thus in the transcendent and universal he
\nsees his own and every other individuality in their greater values and is
\nreleased from the falsehood and ignorance of his separative and egoistic will
\nand knowledge. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 337.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

That is always the essence of the
\nspiritual liberation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The wisdom of the liberated man is not then,
\nin the view of the Gita, a consciousness of abstracted and unrelated impersonality,
\na do-nothing quietude. For the mind and soul of the liberated man are firmly
\nsettled in a constant sense, an integral feeling of the pervasion of the world
\nby the actuating and directing presence of the divine Master of the universe, etām<\/i> vibhūtim<\/i> mama<\/i> yo<\/i> vetti<\/i>.
\nHe is aware of his spirit’s transcendence of the cosmic order, but he is aware
\nalso of his oneness with it by the divine Yoga, yogam<\/i> ca<\/i> mama<\/i>. And he sees each aspect of the
\ntranscendent, the cosmic and the individual existence in its right relation to
\nthe supreme Truth and puts all in their right place in the unity of the divine
\nYoga. He no longer sees each thing in its separateness, \u2013 the separate seeing
\nthat leaves all either unexplained or one-sided to the experiencing consciousness.
\nNor does he see all confusedly together, \u2013 the confused seeing that gives a
\nwrong light and a chaotic action. Secure in the transcendence, he is not
\naffected by the cosmic stress and the turmoil of Time and circumstance.
\nUntroubled in the midst of all this creation and destruction of things, his
\nspirit adheres to an unshaken and untrembling, an unvacillating Yoga of union
\nwith the eternal and spiritual in the universe. He watches through it all the
\ndivine persistence of the Master of the Yoga and acts out of a tranquil
\nuniversality and oneness with all things and creatures. And this close contact
\nwith all things implies no involution of soul and mind in the separative lower
\nnature, because his basis of spiritual experience is not the inferior phenomenal
\nform and movement but the inner All and the supreme Transcendence. He becomes
\nof like nature and law of being with the Divine, sādharmyam āgatāh<\/i>, transcendent even in
\nuniversality of spirit, universal even in the individuality of mind, life and
\nbody. By this Yoga once perfected, undeviating and fixed, avikampena yogena yujyate<\/i>, he is able to take up whatever poise of
\nnature, assume whatever human condition, do whatever world-action without any
\nfall from his oneness with the divine Self, without any loss of his constant
\ncommunion with the Master of existence.\u00b9<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>sarvathā<\/i> vartamano’pi<\/i>
\nsa<\/i> yogī<\/i> mayi<\/i> vartate<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\nPage 338.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

             This knowledge
\ntranslated into the affective, emotional, temperamental plane becomes a calm
\nlove and intense adoration of the original and transcendental Godhead above us,
\nthe ever-present Master of all things here, God in man, God in Nature. It is at
\nfirst a wisdom of the intelligence, the buddhi<\/i>;
\nbut that is accompanied by a moved spiritualised state of the affective nature,\u00b9<\/span> bhāva<\/i>. This change of the heart and mind is the beginning of a
\ntotal change of all the nature. A new inner birth and becoming prepares us for
\noneness with the supreme object of our love and adoration, madbhāvāya<\/i>. There is an intense delight of love in the
\ngreatness and beauty and perfection of this divine Being now seen everywhere in
\nthe world and above it, prīti<\/i>.
\nThat deeper ecstasy assumes the place of the scattered and external pleasure of
\nthe mind in existence or rather it draws all other delight into it and
\ntransforms by a marvellous alchemy the mind’s and the heart’s feelings and all
\nsense movements. The whole consciousness becomes full of the Godhead and
\nreplete with his answering consciousness; the whole life flows into one sea of
\nbliss-experience. All the speech and thought of such God-lovers becomes a
\nmutual utterance and understanding of the divine. In that one joy is
\nconcentrated all the contentment of the being, all the play and pleasure of the
\nnature. There is a continual union from moment to moment in the thought and
\nmemory, there is an unbroken continuity of the experience of oneness in the
\nspirit. And from the moment that this inner state begins, even in the stage of
\nimperfection, the Divine confirms it by the perfect Yoga of the will and
\nintelligence. He uplifts the blazing lamp of knowledge within us, he destroys the
\nignorance of the separative mind and will, he stands revealed in the human
\nspirit. By the Yoga of the will and intelligence founded on an illumined union
\nof works and knowledge the transition was effected from our lower troubled mind-ranges
\nto the immutable calm of the witnessing Soul above the active nature. But now
\nby this greater yoga of the Buddhi founded on an illumined union of love and
\nadoration with an all-comprehending knowledge the soul rises in a vast ecstasy
\nto the whole transcendental truth
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>budhā<\/i> bhāva<\/i>–samanvitāh<\/i>. <\/p>\n

\nPage 339.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

of the absolute and
\nall-originating Godhead. The Eternal is fulfilled in the individual spirit and
\nindividual nature; the individual spirit is exalted from birth in time to the
\ninfinitudes of the Eternal. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 340.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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

SEVEN  The Supreme Word of the Gita   WE HAVE now got to the inmost kernel of the Gita’s Yoga, the whole living and breathing…<\/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-1381","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\/1381","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=1381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}