{"id":1382,"date":"2013-07-13T01:34:27","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1382"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:34:27","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:27","slug":"39-the-field-and-its-knower-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\/39-the-field-and-its-knower-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","title":{"rendered":"-39_The Field and its Knower.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\nPART II<\/font><\/span> <\/p>\n

\nTHE SUPREME SECRET<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n

  THIRTEEN<\/font><\/b> <\/p>\n

 The Field and its Knower*<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/font><\/span><\/b>HE<\/font> Gita in its last six chapters, in order to found on a
\nclear and complete knowledge the way of the soul’s rising out of the lower into
\nthe divine nature, restates in another form the enlightenment the Teacher has
\nalready imparted to Arjuna. Essentially it is the same knowledge, but details
\nand relations are now made prominent and assigned their entire significance, thoughts
\nand truths brought out in their full value that were alluded to only in passing
\nor generally stated in the light of another purpose. Thus in the first six
\nchapters the knowledge necessary for the distinction between the immutable self
\nand the soul veiled in nature was accorded an entire prominence. The references
\nto the supreme Self and Purusha were summary and not at all explicit; it was
\nassumed in order to justify works in the world and it was affirmed to be the
\nMaster of being, but there was otherwise nothing to show what it was and its
\nrelations to the rest were not even hinted at, much less developed. The
\nremaining chapters are devoted to the bringing out of this suppressed knowledge
\nin a conspicuous light and strong pre-eminence. It is to the Lord, the Ishwara,
\nit is to the distinction of the higher and the lower nature and to the vision of
\nthe all-originating and all-constituting Godhead in Nature, it is to the One in
\nall beings that prominence has been assigned in the next six Adhyayas (7-12) in
\norder to found a root-unity of works and love with knowledge. But now it is
\nnecessary to bring out more definitely the precise relations between the
\nsupreme Purusha, the immutable self, the Jiva and Prakriti in her action and
\nher Gunas. Arjuna is therefore made to put a question which shall evoke a
\nclearer elucidation of these still ill-lighted matters. He asks to learn of the
\nPurusha and the Prakriti; he inquires of the field of being and the knower of
\nthe field and of knowledge and the object of knowledge. Here<\/p>\n

             *Gita, XIII. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 395<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\n\u00a0<\/span>is contained the sum of all the knowledge of
\nself and the world that is still needed if the soul is to throw off its natural
\nignorance and staying its steps on a right use of knowledge, of life, of works
\nand of its own relations with the Divine in these things ascend into unity of
\nbeing with the eternal Spirit of existence.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The essence of the Gita’s ideas in these
\nmatters has already, anticipating the final evolution of its thought, been elucidated
\nin a certain measure; but, following its example, we may state them again from
\nthe point of view of its present preoccupation. Action being admitted, a divine
\naction done with self-knowledge as the instrument of the divine Will in the cosmos
\nbeing accepted as perfectly consistent with the Brahmic status and an indispensable
\npart of the Godward movement, that action being uplifted inwardly as a
\nsacrifice with adoration to the Highest, how does this way practically affect
\nthe great object of spiritual life, the rising from the lower into the higher
\nnature, from mortal into immortal being? All life, all works are a transaction
\nbetween the soul and Nature. What is the original character of that
\ntransaction? what does it become at its spiritual culminating point? to what
\nperfection does it lead the soul that gets free from its lower and external motives
\nand grows inwardly into the very highest poise of the Spirit and deepest
\nmotive-force of the works of its energy in the universe? These are the
\nquestions involved, \u2013 there are others which the Gita does not raise or answer,
\nfor they were not pressingly present to the human mind of that day, \u2013 and they
\nare replied to in the sense of the solution drawn from a large-sighted
\ncombination of the Vedantic, Sankhya and Yoga views of existence which is the
\nstarting-point of the whole thought of the Gita.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The Soul which finds itself here embodied in
\nNature has a triple reality to its own self-experience. First it is a spiritual
\nbeing apparently subjected by ignorance to the outward workings of Prakriti and
\nrepresented in her mobility as an acting, thinking, mutable personality, a
\ncreature of Nature, an ego. Next when it gets behind all this action and
\nmotion, it finds its own higher reality to be an eternal and impersonal self
\nand immutable spirit which has no other share in the action and movement than to
\nsupport it by its presence and regard it as an undisturbed equal witness. And
\nlast, when it looks beyond these two opposite selves, <\/p>\n

\nPage 396.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\n\u00a0<\/span>it discovers a greater ineffable Reality from
\nwhich both proceed, the Eternal who is Self of the self and the Master of all
\nNature and all action, and not only the Master, but the origin and the
\nspiritual support and scene of these workings of his own energy in Cosmos, and
\nnot only the origin and spiritual container, but the spiritual inhabitant in
\nall forces, in all things and in all beings, and not only the inhabitant but,
\nby the developments of this eternal energy of his being which we call Nature,
\nhimself all energies and forces, all things and all beings. This Nature itself
\nis of two kinds, one derived and inferior, another original and supreme. There
\nis a lower nature of the cosmic mechanism by association with which the soul in
\nPrakriti lives in a certain ignorance born of Maya, traigunyamayī māyā<\/i>, conceives of itself as
\nan ego of embodied mind and life, works under the power of the modes of Nature,
\nthinks itself bound, suffering, limited by personality, chained to the obligation
\nof birth and the wheel of action, a thing of desires, transient, mortal, a
\nslave of its own nature. Above this inferior power of existence there is a
\nhigher divine and spiritual nature of its own true being in which this soul is
\nfor ever a conscious portion of the Eternal and Divine, blissful, free,
\nsuperior to its mask of becoming, immortal, imperishable, a power of the Godhead.
\nTo rise by this higher nature to the Eternal through divine knowledge, love and
\nworks founded on a spiritual universality is the key of the complete spiritual
\nliberation. This much has been made clear; and we have to see now more in detail
\nwhat farther considerations this change of being involves and especially what
\nis the difference between these two natures and how our action and our
\nsoul-status are affected by the liberation. For that purpose the Gita enters
\nlargely into certain details of the highest knowledge which it had hitherto
\nkept in the background. Especially it dwells on the relation between Being and
\nbecoming, Soul and Nature, the action of the three Gunas, the highest
\nliberation, the largest fullest self-giving of the human soul to the Divine
\nSpirit. There is in all that it says in these closing six chapters much of the
\ngreatest importance, but it is the last thought with which it closes that is of
\nsupreme interest; for in it we shall find the central idea of its teaching, its
\ngreat word to the soul of man, its highest message.
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage 397<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

           
\nFirst, the whole
\nof existence must be regarded as a field of the soul’s construction and action
\nin the midst of Nature. The Gita explains the ksetram<\/i>, field, by saying that it is this body which is
\ncalled the field of the spirit, and in this body there is someone who takes
\ncognizance of the field, ksetraj\u00f1a<\/i>,
\nthe knower of Nature. It is evident, however, from the definitions that succeed
\nthat it is not the physical body alone which is the field, but all too that the
\nbody supports, the working of nature, the mentality, the natural action of the
\nobjectivity and subjectivity of our being.\u00b9<\/span>
\nThis wider body too is only the individual field; there is a larger, a
\nuniversal, a world-body, a world-field of the same Knower. For in each embodied
\ncreature there is this one Knower: in each existence he uses mainly and
\ncentrally this single outward result of the power of his nature which he has
\nformed for his habitation īśā<\/i>
\nvāsyam<\/i> sarvam<\/i> yat<\/i> ki\u00f1ca<\/i>, makes each separate sustained
\nknot of his mobile Energy the first base and scope of his developing harmonies.
\nIn Nature he knows the world as it affects and is reflected by the
\nconsciousness in this one limited body; the world exists to us as it is seen in
\nour single mind, \u2013 and in the end, even, this seemingly small embodied
\nconsciousness can so enlarge itself that it contains in itself the whole
\nuniverse, ātani<\/i> viśa<\/i>–darśnam<\/i>. But, physically, it is a microcosm in a macrocosm, and
\nthe macrocosm too, the large world too, is a body and field inhabited by the
\nspiritual knower.<\/p>\n

That becomes
\nevident when the Gita proceeds to state the character, nature, source,
\ndeformations, powers of this sensible embodiment of our being. We see then that
\nit is the whole working of the lower Prakriti that is meant by the ksetra<\/i>. That totality is the
\nfield of action of the embodied spirit here within us, the field of which it
\ntakes cognizance. For a varied and detailed knowledge of all this world of
\nNature in its essential action as seen from the spiritual view-point we are referred
\nto the verses of the ancient seers, the seers of the Veda and Upanishads, in
\nwhich we get the inspired and intuitive account of these creations of the
\nSpirit, and to the Brahma Sutras which will give us the <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u00b9<\/span> The Upanishad speaks of a fivefold
\nbody or sheath of Nature, a physical, vital, mental, ideal and divine body;
\nthis may be regarded as the totality of the field, ksetram<\/i>.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage 398<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

rational and philosophic
\nanalysis. The Gita contents itself with a brief practical statement of the
\nlower nature of our being in the terms of the Sankhya thinkers. First there is
\nthe indiscriminate unmanifest Energy; out of that has come the objective
\nevolution of the five elemental states of matter; as also the subjective
\nevolution of the senses, intelligence and ego; there are too five objects of
\nthe senses, or rather five different ways of sense cognizance of the world,
\npowers evolved by the universal energy in order to deal with all the forms of
\nthings she has created from the five elemental states assumed by her original
\nobjective substance, \u2013 \u00a0<\/span>organic relations
\nby which the ego endowed with intelligence and sense acts on the formations of
\nthe cosmos: this is the constitution of the Kshetra. Then there is a general
\nconsciousness that first informs and then illumines the Energy in its works;
\nthere is a faculty of that consciousness by which the Energy holds together the
\nrelations of objects; there is too a continuity, a persistence of the
\nsubjective and objective relations of our consciousness with its objects. These
\nare the necessary powers of the field; all these are common and universal
\npowers at once of the mental, vital and physical Nature. Pleasure and pain,
\nliking and disliking are the principal deformations of the Kshetra. From the Vedantic
\npoint of view we may say that pleasure and pain are the vital or sensational
\ndeformations given by the lower energy to the spontaneous Ananda or delight of
\nthe spirit when brought into contact with her workings. And we may say from the
\nsame view-point that liking and disliking are the corresponding mental
\ndeformations given by her to the reactive Will of the spirit that determines
\nits response to her contacts. These dualities are the positive and negative
\nterms in which the ego soul of the lower nature enjoys the universe. The
\nnegative terms, pain, dislike, sorrow, repulsion and the rest, are perverse or
\nat the best ignorantly reverse responses: the positive terms, liking, pleasure,
\njoy, attraction, are ill-guided responses or at the best insufficient and in
\ncharacter inferior to those of the true spiritual experience.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>All these things taken together constitute the
\nfundamental character of our first transactions with the world of Nature, but
\nit is evidently not the whole description of our being; it is our <\/p>\n

\nPage 399<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

actuality but not the limit of
\nour possibilities. There is something beyond to be known, j\u00f1eyam<\/i>, and it is when the knower of the field turns from the field
\nitself to learn of himself within it and of all that is behind its appearances
\nthat real knowledge begins, j\u00f1ānam<\/i>,\u2014
\nthe true knowledge of the field no less than of the knower. That turning inward
\nalone delivers from ignorance. For the farther we go inward, the more we seize
\non greater and fuller realities of things and grasp the complete truth both of
\nGod and the soul and of the world and its movements. Therefore, says the divine
\nTeacher, it is the knowledge at once of the field and its knower, ksetra<\/i>–ksetraj\u00f1ayor<\/i> j\u00f1ānam<\/i>,
\na united and even unified self-knowledge and world-knowledge, which is the real
\nillumination and the only wisdom. For both soul and nature are the Brahman, but
\nthe true truth of the world of Nature can only be discovered by the liberated
\nsage who possesses also the truth of the spirit. One Brahman, one reality in
\nSelf and Nature is the object of all knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The
\nGita then tells us what is the spiritual knowledge or rather it tells us what
\nare the conditions of knowledge, the marks, the signs of the man whose soul is
\nturned towards the inner wisdom. These signs are the recognised and traditional
\ncharacteristics of the sage, \u2013 his strong turning away of the heart from
\nattachment to outward and worldly things, his inward and brooding spirit, his
\nsteady mind and calm equality, the settled fixity of his thought and will upon
\nthe greatest inmost truths, upon the things that are real and eternal. First,
\nthere comes a certain moral condition, a sattwic government of the natural
\nbeing. There is fixed in him a total absence of worldly pride and arrogance, a
\ncandid soul, a tolerant, long-suffering and benignant heart, purity of mind and
\nbody, tranquil firmness and steadfastness, self-control and a masterful
\ngovernment of the lower nature and the heart’s worship given to the Teacher,
\nwhether to the divine Teacher within or to the human Master in whom the divine
\nWisdom is embodied, \u2013 for that is the sense of the reverence given to the Guru.
\nThen there is a nobler and freer attitude towards the outward world, an attitude
\nof perfect detachment and equality, a firm removal of the natural being’s
\nattraction to the objects of the senses and a radical freedom from the claims
\nof that constant clamorous ego-sense, ego- <\/p>\n

\nPage\u00a0 <\/span>400.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 idea, ego-motive which tyrannises
\nover the normal man. There is no longer any clinging to the attachment and
\nabsorption of family and home. There is instead of these vital and animal
\nmovements an unattached will and sense and intelligence, a keen perception of
\nthe defective nature of the ordinary life of physical man with its aimless and
\npainful subjection to birth and death and disease and age, a constant equalness
\nto all pleasant or unpleasant happenings, \u2013 \u00a0<\/span>for the soul is seated within and impervious
\nto the shocks of external events, \u2013 \u00a0<\/span>and
\na meditative mind turned towards solitude and away from the vain noise of
\ncrowds and the assemblies of men. Finally, there is a strong turn within
\ntowards the things that really matter, a philosophic perception of the true
\nsense and large principles of existence, a tranquil continuity of inner
\nspiritual knowledge and light, the Yoga of an unswerving devotion, love of God,
\nthe heart’s deep and constant adoration of the universal and eternal Presence.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The one object to which the mind of spiritual
\nknowledge must be turned is the Eternal by fixity in whom the soul clouded here
\nand swathed in the mists of Nature recovers and enjoys its native and original
\nconsciousness of immortality and transcendence. To be fixed on the transient,
\nto be limited in the phenomenon is to accept mortality; the constant truth in things
\nthat perish is that in them which is inward and immutable. The soul when it
\nallows itself to be tyrannised over by the appearances of Nature, misses itself
\nand goes whirling about in the cycle of the births and deaths of its bodies.
\nThere, passionately following without end the mutations of personality and its
\ninterests, it cannot draw back to the possession of its impersonal and unborn
\nself-existence. To be able to do that is to find oneself and get back to one’s
\ntrue being, that which assumes these births but does not perish with the
\nperishing of its forms. To enjoy the eternity to which birth and life are only outward
\ncircumstances, is the soul’s true immortality and transcendence. That Eternal
\nor that Eternity is the Brahman. Brahman is That which is transcendent and That
\nwhich is universal: it is the free spirit who supports in front the play of
\nsoul with nature and assures behind their imperishable oneness; it is at once
\nthe mutable and the immutable, the All that is the One. In his highest
\nsupracosmic
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage 401<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

status Brahman is a transcendent
\nEternity without origin or change far above the phenomenal oppositions of
\nexistence and non-existence, persistence and transience between which the
\noutward world moves. But once seen in the substance and light of this eternity,
\nthe world also becomes other than it seems to the mind and senses; for then we
\nsee the universe no longer as a whirl of mind and life and matter or a mass of
\nthe determinations of energy and substance, but as no other than this eternal
\nBrahman. A spirit who immeasurably fills and surrounds all this movement with
\nhimself \u2013 for indeed the movement too is himself \u00a0<\/span>\u2013 \u00a0<\/span>and
\nwho throws on all that is finite the splendour of his garment of infinity, a
\nbodiless and million-bodied spirit whose hands of strength and feet of
\nswiftness are on every side of us, whose heads and eyes and faces are those
\ninnumerable visages which we see wherever we turn, whose ear is everywhere listening
\nto the silence of eternity and the music of the worlds, is the universal Being
\nin whose embrace we live.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>All relations of Soul and Nature are
\ncircumstances in the eternity of Brahman; sense and quality, their reflectors
\nand constituents, are this supreme Soul’s devices for the presentation of the
\nworkings that his own energy in things constantly liberates into movement. He
\nis himself beyond the limitation of the senses, sees all things but not with
\nthe physical eye, hears all things but not with the physical ear, is aware of
\nall things but not with the limiting mind \u00a0<\/span>\u2013 \u00a0<\/span>mind
\nwhich represents but cannot truly know. Not determined by any qualities, he
\npossesses and determines in his substance all qualities and enjoys this
\nqualitative action of his own Nature. He is attached to nothing, bound by
\nnothing, fixed to nothing that he does; calm, he supports in a large and immortal
\nfreedom all the action and movement and passion of his universal Shakti. He
\nbecomes all that is in the universe; that which is in us is he and all that we
\nexperience outside ourselves is he. The inward and the outward, the far and the
\nnear, the moving and the unmoving, all this he is at once. He is the subtlety
\nof the subtle which is beyond our knowledge, even as he is the density of force
\nand substance which offers itself to the grasp of our minds. He is indivisible
\nand the One, but seems to divide himself in forms and creatures and appears as
\nall these <\/p>\n

\nPage 402.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

separate existences. All things
\ncan get back in him, can return in the Spirit to the indivisible unity of their
\nself-existence. All is eternally born from him, upborne in his eternity, taken
\neternally back into his oneness. He is the light of all lights and luminous
\nbeyond all the darkness of our ignorance. He is knowledge and the object of
\nknowledge. The spiritual supramental knowledge that floods the illumined mind
\nand transfigures it is this spirit manifesting himself in light to the
\nforce-obscured soul which he has put forth into the action of Nature. This
\neternal Light is in the heart of every being; it is he who is the secret knower
\nof the field, ksetraj\u00f1a<\/i>, and
\npresides as the Lord in the heart of things over this province and over all
\nthese kingdoms of his manifested becoming and action. When man sees this
\neternal and universal Godhead within himself, when he becomes aware of the soul
\nin all things and discovers the spirit in Nature, when he feels all the
\nuniverse as a wave mounting in this Eternity and all that is as the one
\nexistence, he puts on the light of Godhead and stands free in the midst of the
\nworlds of Nature. A divine knowledge and a perfect turning with adoration to
\nthis Divine is the secret of the great spiritual liberation. Freedom, love and
\nspiritual knowledge raise us from mortal nature to immortal being. <\/p>\n

The Soul and
\nNature are only two aspects of the eternal Brahman, an apparent duality which
\nfounds the operations of his universal existence. The Soul is without origin
\nand eternal, Nature too is without origin and eternal; but the modes of Nature
\nand the lower forms she assumes to our conscious experience have an origin in
\nthe transactions of these two entities. They come from her, wear by her the
\noutward chain of cause and effect, doing and the results of doing, force and
\nits workings, all that is here transient and mutable. Constantly they change
\nand the soul and Nature seem to change with them, but in themselves these two
\npowers are eternal and always the same. Nature creates and acts, the Soul
\nenjoys her creation and action; but in this inferior form of her action she
\nturns this enjoyment into the obscure and petty figures of pain and pleasure.
\nForcibly the soul, the individual Purusha, is attracted by her qualitative
\nworkings and this attraction of her qualities draws him constantly to births of
\nall kinds in which he enjoys the variations and vicissitudes,
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

Page 403<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

the good and evil of birth in
\nNature. But this is only the outward experience of the soul mutable in
\nconception by identification with mutable Nature. Seated in this body is her
\nand our Divinity, the supreme Self, Paramatman, the supreme Soul, the mighty
\nLord of Nature, who watches her action, sanctions her operations, upholds all she
\ndoes, commands her manifold creation, enjoys with his universal delight this
\nplay of her figures of his own being. That is the self-knowledge to which we
\nhave to accustom our mentality before we can truly know ourselves as an eternal
\nportion of the Eternal. Once that is fixed, no matter how the soul in us may
\ncomport itself outwardly in its transactions with Nature, whatever it may seem
\nto do or however it may seem to assume this or that figure of personality and
\nactive force and embodied ego, it is in itself free, no longer bound to birth
\nbecause one through impersonality of self with the inner unborn spirit of
\nexistence. That impersonality is our union with the supreme egoless I of all
\nthat is in cosmos.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>This knowledge comes by an inner meditation
\nthrough which the eternal self becomes apparent to us in our own self-existence.
\nOr it comes by the Yoga of the Sankhyas, the separation of the soul from
\nnature. Or it comes by the Yoga of works in which the personal will is
\ndissolved through the opening up of our mind and heart and all our active
\nforces to the Lord who assumes to himself the whole of our works in nature. The
\nspiritual knowledge may be awakened by the urging of the spirit within us, its
\ncall to this or that Yoga, this or that way of oneness. Or it may come to us by
\nhearing of the truth from others and the moulding of the mind into the sense of
\nthat to which it listens with faith and concentration. But however arrived at,
\nit carries us beyond death to immortality. Knowledge shows us high above the
\nmutable transactions of the soul with the mortality of nature our highest Self
\nas the supreme Lord of her actions, one and equal in all objects and creatures,
\nnot born in the taking up of a body, not subject to death in the perishing of
\nall these bodies. That is the true seeing, the seeing of that in us which is
\neternal and immortal. As we perceive more and more this equal spirit in all
\nthings, we pass into that equality of the spirit; as we dwell more and more in
\nthis universal being, we become ourselves universal
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage 404.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

beings; as we grow more and more
\naware of this eternal, we put on our own eternity and are for ever. We identify
\nourselves with the eternity of the self and no longer with the limitation and
\ndistress of our mental and physical ignorance. Then we see that all our works
\nare an evolution and operation of Nature and our real self not the executive
\ndoer, but the free witness and lord and unattached enjoyer of the action. All
\nthis surface of cosmic movement is a diverse becoming of natural existences in
\nthe one eternal Being, all is extended, manifested, rolled out by the universal
\nEnergy from the seeds of her Idea deep in his existence; but the spirit even
\nthough it takes up and enjoys her workings in this body of ours, is not
\naffected by its mortality because it is eternal beyond birth and death, is not
\nlimited by the personalities which it multiply assumes in her because it is the
\none supreme self of all these personalities, is not changed by the mutations of
\nquality because it is itself undetermined by quality, does not act even in
\naction, kartāram<\/i> api<\/i> akartāram<\/i>,
\nbecause it supports natural action in a perfect spiritual freedom from its
\neffects, is the originator indeed of all activities, but in no way changed or
\naffected by the play of its Nature. As the all-pervading ether is not affected
\nor changed by the multiple forms it assumes, but remains always the same pure
\nsubtle original substance, even so this spirit when it has done and become all possible
\nthings, remains through it all the same pure immutable subtle infinite essence.
\nThat is the supreme status of the soul, parā<\/i>
\ngatih<\/i>, that is the divine being and
\nnature, madbhāva<\/i>, and whoever
\narrives at spiritual knowledge, rises to that supreme immortality of the
\nEternal.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>This Brahman, this eternal and spiritual
\nknower of the field of his own natural becoming, this Nature, his perpetual energy,
\nwhich converts herself into that field, this immortality of the soul in mortal
\nnature, \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u2013 these things together make
\nthe whole reality of our existence. The spirit within, when we turn to it,
\nillumines the entire field of Nature with its own truth in all the splendour of
\nits rays. In the light of that sun of knowledge the eye of knowledge opens in
\nus and we live in that truth and no longer in this ignorance. Then we perceive
\nthat our limitation to our present mental and physical nature was an error of
\nthe darkness, <\/p>\n

\nPage 405<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

then we are liberated from the
\nlaw of the lower Prakriti, the law of the mind and body, then we attain to the supreme
\nnature of the spirit. That splendid and lofty change is the last, the divine
\nand infinite becoming, the putting off of mortal nature, the putting on of an
\nimmortal existence. <\/span><\/p>\n

Page 406<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PART II  THE SUPREME SECRET     THIRTEEN   The Field and its Knower*   THE Gita in its last six chapters, in order to found on…<\/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-1382","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\/1382","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=1382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}