{"id":1383,"date":"2013-07-13T01:34:27","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1383"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:34:27","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:27","slug":"23-the-determinism-of-nature-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\/23-the-determinism-of-nature-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","title":{"rendered":"-23_The Determinism of Nature.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\nTWENTY
\nONE<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>The Determinism of Nature<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nW<\/font><\/span><\/b>HEN<\/font> we can live in the higher Self by the unity of works
\nand self-knowledge, we become superior to the method of the lower workings of
\nPrakriti. We are no longer enslaved to Nature and her gunas, but, one with the
\nIshwara, the master of our nature, we are able to use her without subjection to
\nthe chain of Karma, for the purposes of the Divine Will in us; for that is what
\nthe greater Self in us is, he is the Lord of her works and unaffected by the
\ntroubled stress of her reactions. The soul ignorant in Nature, on the contrary,
\nis enslaved by that ignorance to her modes, because it is identified there, not
\nfelicitously with its true self, not with the Divine who is seated above her,
\nbut stupidly and unhappily with the ego-mind which is a subordinate factor in
\nher operations in spite of the exaggerated figure it makes, a mere mental knot
\nand point of reference for the play of the natural workings. To break this
\nknot, no longer to make the ego the centre and beneficiary of our works, but to
\nderive all from and refer all to the divine Supersoul is the way to become
\nsuperior to all the restless trouble of Nature’s modes. For it is to live in
\nthe supreme consciousness, of which the ego-mind is a degradation, and to act
\nin an equal and unified Will and Force and not in the unequal play of the gunas
\nwhich is a broken seeking and striving, a disturbance, an inferior Maya. <\/p>\n

The passages in
\nwhich the Gita lays stress on the subjection of the ego-soul to Nature, have by
\nsome been understood as the enunciation of an absolute and a mechanical
\ndeterminism which leaves no room for any freedom within the cosmic existence.
\nCertainly, the language it uses is emphatic and seems very absolute. But we
\nmust take, here as elsewhere, the thought of the Gita as a whole and not force
\nits affirmations in their solitary sense quite detached from each other, \u2013 as indeed
\nevery truth, however true in itself, yet, taken apart from others which at once <\/p>\n

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\n

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limit and complete it, becomes a
\nsnare to bind the intellect and a misleading dogma; for in reality each is one
\nthread of a complex weft and no thread must be taken apart from the weft.
\nEverything in the Gita is even so interwoven and must be understood in its
\nrelation to the whole. The Gita itself makes a distinction between those who
\nhave not the knowledge of the whole, akrtsnavidah<\/i>,
\nand are misled by the partial truths of existence, and the Yogin who has the
\nsynthetic knowledge of the totality, krtsnavit<\/i>.
\nTo see all existence steadily and see it whole and not be misled by its
\nconflicting truths, is the first necessity for the calm and complete wisdom to
\nwhich the Yogin is called upon to rise. A certain absolute freedom is one
\naspect of the soul’s relations with Nature at one pole of our complex being; a
\ncertain absolute determinism by Nature is the opposite aspect at its opposite
\npole; and there is also a partial and apparent, therefore an unreal eidolon of
\nliberty which the soul receives by a contorted reflection of these two opposite
\ntruths in the developing mentality. It is the latter to which we ordinarily
\ngive, more or less inaccurately, the name of free will; but the Gita regards
\nnothing as freedom which is not a complete liberation and mastery.<\/p>\n

We have always
\nto keep in mind the two great doctrines which stand behind all the Gita’s
\nteachings with regard to the soul and Nature, \u2013 the Sankhya truth of the
\nPurusha and Prakriti corrected and completed by the Vedantic truth of the threefold
\nPurusha and the double Prakriti of which the lower form is the Maya of the
\nthree gunas and the higher is the divine nature and the true soul-nature. This
\nis the key which reconciles and explains what we might have otherwise to leave as
\ncontradictions and inconsistencies. There are, in fact, different planes of our
\nconscious existence, and what is practical truth on one plane ceases to be
\ntrue, because it assumes a quite different appearance, as soon as we rise to a
\nhigher level from which we can see things more in the whole. Recent scientific
\ndiscovery has shown that man, animal, plant and even the metal have essentially
\nthe same vital reactions and they would, therefore, if each has a certain kind
\nof what for want of a better word we must call nervous consciousness, possess
\nthe same basis of mechanical psychology. Yet if each of these could give its
\nown mental account of what <\/p>\n

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\n

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it experiences, we should have
\nfour quite different and largely contradictory statements of the same reactions
\nand the same natural principles, because they get, as we rise in the scale of
\nbeing, a different meaning and value and have to be judged by a different
\noutlook. So it is with the levels of the human soul. What we now call in our
\nordinary mentality our free will and have a certain limited justification for so
\ncalling it, yet appears to the Yogin who has climbed beyond and to whom our
\nnight is day and our day night, not free will at all, but a subjection to the
\nmodes of Nature. He regards the same facts, but from the higher outlook of the
\nwhole-knower, krtsna-vit<\/i>,
\nwhile we view it altogether from the more limited mentality of our partial
\nknowledge, akrtsnavidah<\/i>,
\nwhich is an ignorance. What we vaunt of as our freedom is to him bondage. <\/p>\n

The perception
\nof the ignorance of our assumption of freedom while one is all the time in the
\nmeshes of this lower nature, is the view-point at which the Gita arrives and it
\nis in contradiction to this ignorant claim that it affirms the complete subjection
\nof the ego-soul on this plane to the Gunas. \u201cWhile the actions are being
\nentirely done by the modes of Nature,\u201d it says, \u201che whose self is bewildered by
\negoism thinks that it is his `I’ which is doing them. But one who knows the
\ntrue principles of the divisions of the modes and of works, realises that it is
\nthe modes which are acting and reacting on each other and is not caught in them
\nby attachment. Those who are bewildered by the modes, get attached to the modes
\nand their works; dull minds, not knowers of the whole, let not the knower of
\nthe whole disturb them in their mental standpoint. Giving up thy works to Me,
\nfree from desire and egoism, fight delivered from the fever of thy soul.\u201d Here
\nthere is the clear distinction between two levels of consciousness, two
\nstandpoints of action, that of the soul caught in the web of its egoistic nature
\nand doing works with the idea, but not the reality of free will, under the
\nimpulsion of Nature, and that of the soul delivered from its identification
\nwith the ego, observing, sanctioning and governing the works of Nature from
\nabove her. <\/p>\n

We speak of the
\nsoul being subject to Nature; but on the other hand the Gita in distinguishing
\nthe properties of the soul and Nature affirms that while Nature is the
\nexecutrix, the soul is <\/p>\n

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\n

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always the lord, īśvara<\/i>. It speaks here of the
\nself being bewildered by egoism, but the real Self to the Vedantin is the
\ndivine, eternally free and self-aware. What then is this self that is
\nbewildered by Nature, this soul that is subject to her? The answer is that we
\nare speaking here in the common parlance of our lower or mental view of things;
\nwe are speaking of the apparent self, of the apparent soul, not of the real self,
\nnot of the true Purusha. It is really the ego which is subject to Nature,
\ninevitably, because it is itself part of Nature, one functioning of her
\nmachinery; but when the self-awareness in the mind-consciousness identifies
\nitself with the ego, it creates the appearance of a lower self, an ego-self.
\nAnd so too what we think of ordinarily as the soul is really the natural personality,
\nnot the true Person, the Purusha, but the desire-soul in us which is a
\nreflection of the consciousness of the Purusha in the workings of Prakriti: it
\nis, in fact, itself only an action of the three modes and therefore a part of
\nNature. Thus there are, we may say, two souls in us, the apparent or
\ndesire-soul, which changes with the mutations of the Gunas and is entirely
\nconstituted and determined by them, and the free and eternal Purusha not
\nlimited by Nature and her Gunas. We have two selves, the apparent self, which
\nis only the ego, that mental centre in us which takes up this mutable action of
\nPrakriti, this mutable personality, and which says \u201cI am this personality, I am
\nthis natural being who am doing these works,\u201d \u2013 but the natural being is simply
\nNature, a composite of the Gunas, \u2013 and the true self which is, indeed, the
\nupholder, the possessor and the lord of Nature and figured in her, but is not
\nitself the mutable natural personality. The way to be free must then be to get
\nrid of the desires of this desire-soul and the false self-view of this ego.
\n\u201cHaving become free from desire and egoism,\u201d cries the Teacher, \u201cfight with all
\nthe fever of thy soul passed away from thee,\u201d \u2013 nirāśīr nirmamo bhūtvā<\/i>. <\/p>\n

This view of our
\nbeing starts from the Sankhya analysis of the dual principle in our nature,
\nPurusha and Prakriti. Purusha is inactive, akartā<\/i>;
\nPrakriti is active, kartrī<\/i>: <\/i>Purusha is the being full of the light
\nof consciousness; Prakriti is the Nature, mechanical, reflecting all her works
\nin the conscious witness, the Purusha. Prakriti works by the inequality of her
\nthree modes, <\/p>\n

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\n

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 Gunas, in perpetual collision and
\nintermixture and mutation with each other; and by her function of ego-mind she
\ngets the Purusha to identify himself with all this working and so creates the
\nsense of active, mutable, temporal personality in the silent eternity of the
\nSelf. The impure natural consciousness overclouds the pure soul-consciousness;
\nthe mind forgets the Person in the ego and the personality; we suffer the
\ndiscriminating intelligence to be carried away by the sense-mind and its
\noutgoing functions and by the desire of the life and the body. So long as the
\nPurusha sanctions this action, ego and desire and ignorance must govern the
\nnatural being. <\/p>\n

But if this were
\nall, then the only remedy would be to withdraw altogether the sanction, suffer
\nor compel all our nature by this withdrawal to fall into a motionless
\nequilibrium of the three gunas and so cease from all action. But this is precisely
\nthe remedy, \u2013 though it is undoubtedly a remedy, one which abolishes, we might
\nsay, the patient along with the disease, \u2013 which the Gita constantly
\ndiscourages. Especially, to resort to a tamasic inaction is just what the
\nignorant will do if this truth is thrust upon them; the discriminating mind in
\nthem will fall into a false division, a false opposition, buddhibheda<\/i>; their active nature and their intelligence will be
\ndivided against each other and produce a disturbance and confusion without true
\nissue, a false and self-deceiving line of action, mithyācāra<\/i>, or else a mere tamasic inertia, cessation of
\nworks, diminution of the will to life and action, not therefore a liberation,
\nbut rather a subjection to the lowest of the three Gunas, to tamas<\/i>, the principle of ignorance and of
\ninertia. Or else they will not be able to understand at all, they will find
\nfault with this higher teaching, assert against it their present mental
\nexperience, their ignorant idea of free will and, yet more confirmed by the
\nplausibility of their logic in their bewilderment and the deception of ego and
\ndesire, lose their chance of liberation in a deeper, more obstinate
\nconfirmation of the ignorance. <\/p>\n

In fact, these
\nhigher truths can only be helpful, because there only they are true to
\nexperience and can be lived, on a higher and vaster plane of consciousness and
\nbeing. To view these truths from below is to mis-see, misunderstand and
\nprobably to misuse them. <\/p>\n

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It is a higher truth that the
\ndistinction of good and evil is indeed a practical fact and law valid for the
\negoistic human life which is the stage of transition from the animal to the
\ndivine, but on a higher plane we rise beyond good and evil, are above their
\nduality even as the Godhead is above it. But the unripe mind, seizing on this
\ntruth without rising from the lower consciousness where it is not practically
\nvalid, will simply make it a convenient excuse for indulging its Asuric
\npropensities, denying the distinction between good and evil altogether and
\nfalling by self-indulgence deeper into the morass of perdition, sarva-j\u00f1ānavimūdhān
\nnastān acetasah<\/i>. So too with this truth of the
\ndeterminism of Nature; it will be mis-seen and misused, as those misuse it who
\ndeclare that a man is what his nature has made him and cannot do otherwise than
\nas his nature compels him. It is true in a sense, but not in the sense which is
\nattached to it, not in the sense that the ego-self can claim irresponsibility
\nand impunity for itself in its works; for it has will and it has desire and so
\nlong as it acts according to its will and desire, even though that be its
\nnature, it must bear the reactions of its Karma. It is in a net, if you will, a
\nsnare which may well seem perplexing, illogical, unjust, terrible to its
\npresent experience, to its limited self-knowledge, but a snare of its own
\nchoice, a net of its own weaving. <\/p>\n

The Gita says,
\nindeed, \u201cAll existences follow their nature and what shall coercing it avail?\u201d
\nwhich seems, if we take it by itself, a hopelessly absolute assertion of the
\nomnipotence of Nature over the soul; \u201ceven the man of knowledge acts according
\nto his own nature.\u201d And on this it founds the injunction to follow faithfully
\nin our action the law of our nature. \u201cBetter is one’s own law of works,
\nsvadharma, though in itself faulty than an alien law well wrought out; death in
\none’s own law of being is better, perilous is it to follow an alien law.\u201d What
\nis precisely meant by this svadharma we have to wait to see until we get to the
\nmore elaborate disquisition in the closing chapters about Purusha and Prakriti
\nand the gunas; but certainly it does not mean that we are to follow any
\nimpulse, even though evil, which what we call our nature dictates to us. For
\nbetween these two verses the Gita throws in this further injunction, \u201cIn the <\/p>\n

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\n

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object of this or that sense
\nliking and disliking are set in ambush; fall not into their power, for they are
\nthe besetters of the soul in its path.\u201d And immediately after this, in answer
\nto Arjuna’s objection who asks him, if there is no fault in following our
\nNature, what are we then to say of that in us which drives a man to sin, as if
\nby force, even against his own struggling will, the Teacher replies that this
\nis desire and its companion wrath, children of rajas, the second Guna, the
\nprinciple of passion, and this desire is the soul’s great enemy and has to be
\nslain. Abstention from evil-doing it declares to be the first condition for
\nliberation, and always it enjoins self-mastery, self-control, samyama<\/i>, control of the mind, senses,
\nall the lower being. <\/p>\n

There is
\ntherefore a distinction to be made between what is essential in the nature, its
\nnative and inevitable action, which it avails not at all to repress, suppress,
\ncoerce, and what is accidental to it, its wanderings, confusions, perversions, over
\nwhich we must certainly get control. There is a distinction implied too between
\ncoercion and suppression, nigraha<\/i>,
\nand control with right use and right guidance, samyama<\/i>. The former is a violence done to the nature by the will,
\nwhich in the end depresses the natural powers of the being, ātmānam avasādayet<\/i>; the
\nlatter is the control of the lower by the higher self, which successfully gives
\nto those powers their right action and their maximum efficiency, \u2013 yogah karmasu kauśalam<\/i>. This
\nnature of samyama<\/i> is made very clear
\nby the Gita in the opening of its sixth chapter, \u201cBy the self thou shouldst
\ndeliver the self, thou shouldst not depress and cast down the self (whether by
\nself-indulgence or suppression); for the self is the friend of the self and the
\nself is the enemy. To the man is his self a friend in whom the (lower) self has
\nbeen conquered by the (higher) self, but to him who is not in possession of his
\n(higher) self, the (lower) self is as if an enemy and it acts as an enemy.\u201d
\nWhen one has conquered one’s self and attained to the calm of a perfect
\nself-mastery and self-possession, then is the supreme self in a man founded and
\npoised even in his outwardly conscious human being, samāhita<\/i>. In other words, to master the lower self by the
\nhigher, the natural self by the spiritual is the way of man’s perfection and
\nliberation. <\/p>\n

Here then is a
\nvery great qualification of the determinism <\/p>\n

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\n

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of Nature, a precise limitation
\nof its meaning and scope. How the passage from subjection to mastery works out
\nis best seen if we observe the working of the gunas in the scale of Nature from
\nthe bottom to the top. At the bottom are the existences in which the principle
\nof tamas is supreme, the beings who have not yet attained to the light of
\nself-consciousness and are utterly driven by the current of Nature. There is a
\nwill even in the atom, but we see clearly enough that it is not free will,
\nbecause it is mechanical and the atom does not possess the will, but is
\npossessed by it. Here the buddhi<\/i>, the
\nelement of intelligence and will in Prakriti, is actually and plainly what the Sankhya
\nasserts it to be, jada<\/i>, a
\nmechanical, even an inconscient principle in which the light of the conscious
\nSoul has not at all struggled to the surface: the atom is not conscious of an
\nintelligent will; tamas, the inert and ignorant principle, has its grip on it,
\ncontains rajas<\/i>, conceals sattva<\/i> within itself and holds a high
\nholiday of mastery, Nature compelling this form of existence to act with a
\nstupendous force indeed, but as a mechanical instrument, yantrāarūdham māyayā<\/i>. Next, in the
\nplant the principle of rajas<\/i> has
\nstruggled to the surface, with its power of life, with its capacity of the
\nnervous reactions which in us are recognisable as pleasure and suffering, but sattva<\/i> is quite involved, has not yet
\nemerged to awaken the light of a conscious intelligent will; all is still
\nmechanical, subconscient or half-conscient, Tamas stronger than Rajas, both
\ngaolers of the imprisoned sattwa. <\/p>\n

In the animal,
\nthough tamas is still strong, though we may still describe him as belonging to
\nthe tamasic creation, tāmasa sarga<\/i>,
\nyet rajas prevails much more against tamas, brings with it its developed power
\nof life, desire, emotion, passion, pleasure, suffering, while sattwa, emerging,
\nbut still dependent on the lower action, contributes to these the first light
\nof the conscious mind, the mechanical sense of ego, conscious memory, a certain
\nkind of thought, especially the wonders of instinct and animal intuition. But
\nas yet the buddhi, the intelligent will, has not developed the full light of
\nconsciousness; therefore, no responsibility can be attributed to the animal for
\nits actions. The tiger can be no more blamed for killing and devouring than the
\natom for its blind movements, the fire for burning and consuming or<\/p>\n

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the storm for its destructions.
\nIf it could answer the question, the tiger would indeed say, like man, that it
\nhad free will, it would have the egoism of the doer, it would say, \u201cI kill, I
\ndevour\u201d; but we can see clearly enough that it is not really the tiger, but
\nNature in the tiger that kills, it is Nature in the tiger that devours; and if
\nit refrains from killing or devouring, it is from satiety, from fear or from
\nindolence, from another principle of Nature in it, from the action of the guna called
\ntamas. As it was Nature in the animal that killed, so it is Nature in the
\nanimal that refrained from killing. Whatever soul is in it, sanctions passively
\nthe action of Nature, is as much passive in its passion and activity as in its
\nindolence or inaction. The animal like the atom acts according to the mechanism
\nof its Nature, and not otherwise, sadrśam
\ncestate svasyāh prakrteh<\/i>, as
\nif mounted on a machine, yantrārūdho
\nmāyayā. <\/i><\/p>\n

Well, but in man
\nat least there is another action, a free soul, a free will, a sense of
\nresponsibility, a real doer other than Nature, other than the mechanism of
\nMaya? So it seems, because in man there is a conscious intelligent will; buddhi<\/i> is full of the light of the
\nobserving Purusha, who through it, it seems, observes, understands, approves or
\ndisapproves, gives or withholds the sanction, seems indeed at last to begin to
\nbe the lord of his nature. Man is not like the tiger or the fire or the storm;
\nhe cannot kill and say as a sufficient justification, \u201cI am acting according to
\nmy nature\u201d, and he cannot do it, because he has not the nature and not,
\ntherefore, the law of action, svadharma<\/i>,
\nof the tiger, storm or fire. He has a conscious intelligent will, a buddhi, and
\nto that he must refer his actions. If he does not do so, if he acts blindly
\naccording to his impulses and passions, then the law of his being is not
\nrightly worked out, svadharmah
\nsu-anusthitah<\/i>, he has not acted according to the
\nfull measure of his humanity, but even as might the animal. It is true that the
\nprinciple of rajas<\/i> or the principle
\nof tamas<\/i> gets hold of his buddhi<\/i> and induces it to justify any and
\nevery action he commits or any avoidance of action; but still the justification
\nor at least the reference to the buddhi must be there either before or after
\nthe action is committed. And, besides, in man sattva<\/i> is awake and acts not only as intelligence and intelligent
\nwill, but as a seeking for light, for right knowledge and <\/p>\n

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right action according to that
\nknowledge, as a sympathetic perception of the existence and claims of others,
\nas an attempt to know the higher law of his own nature, which the sattwic
\nprinciple in him creates, and to obey it, and as a conception of the greater
\npeace and happiness which virtue, knowledge and sympathy bring in their train.
\nHe knows more or less imperfectly that he has to govern his rajasic and tamasic
\nby his sattwic nature and that thither tends the perfection of his normal
\nhumanity. <\/p>\n

But is the
\ncondition of the predominantly sattwic nature freedom and is this will in man a
\nfree will? That the Gita from the standpoint of a higher consciousness in which
\nalone is true freedom, denies. The buddhi or conscious intelligent will is still
\nan instrument of Nature and when it acts, even in the most sattwic sense, it is
\nstill Nature which acts and the soul which is carried on the wheel by Maya. At
\nany rate, at least nine-tenths of our freedom of will is a palpable fiction;
\nthat will is created and determined not by its own self-existent action at a
\ngiven moment, but by our past, our heredity, our training, our environment, the
\nwhole tremendous complex thing we call Karma, which is, behind us, the whole
\npast action of Nature on us and the world converging in the individual,
\ndetermining what he is, determining what his will shall be at a given moment and
\ndetermining, as far as analysis can see, even its action at that moment. The
\nego associates itself always with its Karma and it says \u201cI did\u201d and \u201cI will\u201d
\nand \u201cI suffer\u201d, but if it looks at itself and sees how it was made, it is
\nobliged to say of man as of the animal, \u201cNature did this in me, Nature wills in
\nme\u201d, and if it qualifies by saying \u201cmy Nature\u201d, that only means \u201cNature as
\nself-determined in this individual creature\u201d. It was the strong perception of
\nthis aspect of existence which compelled the Buddhists to declare that all is
\nKarma and that there is no self in existence, that the idea of self is only a
\ndelusion of the ego-mind. When the ego thinks \u201cI choose and will this virtuous
\nand not that evil action\u201d, it is simply associating itself, somewhat like the
\nfly on the wheel, or rather as might a cog or other part of a mechanism if it
\nwere conscious, with a predominant wave or a formed current of the sattwic
\nprinciple by which Nature chooses through the Buddhi
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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one type of action in preference
\nto another. Nature forms itself in us and wills in us, the Sankhya would say,
\nfor the pleasure of the inactive observing Purusha. <\/p>\n

But even if this
\nextreme statement has to be qualified, and we shall see hereafter in what
\nsense, still the freedom of our individual will, if we choose to give it that
\nname, is very relative and almost infinitesimal, so much is it mixed up with
\nother determining elements. Its strongest power does not amount to mastery. It
\ncannot be relied upon to resist the strong wave of circumstance or of other
\nnature which either overbears or modifies or mixes up with it or at the best
\nsubtly deceives and circumvents it. Even the most sattwic will is so overborne
\nor mixed up with or circumvented by the rajasic and tamasic gunas as to be only
\nin part sattwic, and thence arises that sufficiently strong element of
\nself-deception, of a quite involuntary and even innocent make-believe and
\nhiding from oneself which the merciless eye of the psychologist detects even in
\nthe best human action. When we think that we are acting quite freely, powers
\nare concealed behind our action which escape the most careful
\nself-introspection; when we think that we are free from ego, the ego is there,
\nconcealed, in the mind of the saint as in that of the sinner. When our eyes are
\nreally opened on our action and its springs, we are obliged to say with the Gita
\n\u201cgunā gunesu
\nvartante<\/i>\u201d, \u201cit was the modes of Nature that were acting upon the modes.\u201d <\/p>\n

For this reason
\neven a high predominance of the sattwic principle does not constitute freedom.
\nFor, as the Gita points out, the sattwa binds, as much as the other gunas, and
\nbinds just in the same way, by desire, by ego; a nobler desire, a purer ego, \u2013 but
\nso long as in any form these two hold the being, there is no freedom. The man
\nof virtue, of knowledge, has his ego of the virtuous man, his ego of knowledge,
\nand it is that sattwic ego which he seeks to satisfy; for his own sake he seeks
\nvirtue and knowledge. Only when we cease to satisfy the ego, to think and to
\nwill from the ego, the limited \u201cI\u201d in us, then is there a real freedom. In
\nother words, freedom, highest self-mastery begin when above the natural self we
\nsee and hold the supreme Self of which the ego is an obstructing veil and a
\nblinding shadow. And that can only be when we see the one Self in us seated
\nabove Nature and make <\/p>\n

\nPage 212<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

our individual being one with it
\nin being and consciousness and in its individual nature of action only an
\ninstrument of a supreme Will, the one Will that is really free. For that we
\nmust rise high above the three Gunas, become trigunātīta<\/i>; for that Self is beyond even the
\nsattwic principle. We have to climb to it through the sattwa, but we attain to
\nit only when we get beyond sattwa; we reach out to it from the ego, but only
\nreach it by leaving the ego. We are drawn towards it by the highest, most
\npassionate, most stupendous and ecstatic of all desires; but we can securely
\nlive in it only when all desire drops away from us. We have at a certain stage
\nto liberate ourselves even from the desire of our liberation. <\/p>\n

\nPage 213<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TWENTY ONE  The Determinism of Nature   WHEN we can live in the higher Self by the unity of works and self-knowledge, we become superior…<\/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-1383","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\/1383","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=1383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}