{"id":1386,"date":"2013-07-13T01:34:28","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1386"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:34:28","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:28","slug":"13-works-and-sacrifice-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\/13-works-and-sacrifice-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","title":{"rendered":"-13_Works and Sacrifice.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\n
\nE<\/font><\/span>LEVEN<\/span><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nWorks and
\nSacrifice<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nT<\/font><\/span><\/b>HE<\/font> Yoga of the
\nintelligent will and its culmination in the Brahmic status, which occupies all
\nthe close of the second chapter, contains the seed of much of the teaching of
\nthe Gita, \u2013 its doctrine of desireless works, of equality, of the rejection of outward
\nrenunciation, of devotion to the Divine; but as yet all this is slight and
\nobscure. What is most strongly emphasised as yet is the withdrawal of the will
\nfrom the ordinary motive of human activities, desire, from man’s normal
\ntemperament of the sense-seeking thought and will with its passions and
\nignorance, and from its customary habit of troubled many-branching ideas and
\nwishes to the desireless calm unity and passionless serenity of the Brahmic
\npoise. So much Arjuna has understood. He is not unfamiliar with all this; it is
\nthe substance of the current teaching which points man to the path of knowledge
\nand to the renunciation of life and works as his way of perfection. The
\nintelligence withdrawing from sense and desire and human action and turning to
\nthe Highest, to the One, to the actionless Purusha, to the immobile, to the
\nfeatureless Brahman, that surely is the eternal seed of knowledge. There is no
\nroom here for works, since works belong to the Ignorance; action is the very
\nopposite of knowledge; its seed is desire and its fruit is bondage. That is the
\northodox philosophical doctrine, and Krishna seems quite
\nto admit it when he says that works are far inferior to the Yoga of the intelligence.
\nAnd yet works are insisted upon as part of the Yoga; so that there seems to be
\nin this teaching a radical inconsistency. Not only so; for some kind of work no
\ndoubt may persist for a while, the minimum, the most inoffensive; but here is a
\nwork wholly inconsistent with knowledge, with serenity and with the motionless
\npeace of the self-delighted soul, \u2013 a work terrible, even monstrous, a bloody
\nstrife, a ruthless battle, a giant <\/p>\n

\nPage 98<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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 massacre.
\nYet it is this that is enjoined, this that it is sought to justify by the
\nteaching of inner peace and desireless equality and status in the Brahman! Here
\nthen is an unreconciled contradiction. Arjuna complains that he has been given
\na contradictory and confusing doctrine, not the clear, strenuously single road
\nby which the human intelligence can move straight and trenchantly to the
\nsupreme good. It is in answer to this objection that the Gita begins at once to
\ndevelop more clearly its positive and imperative doctrine of Works. <\/p>\n

The Teacher first makes a distinction between the two means
\nof salvation on which in this world men can concentrate separately, the Yoga of
\nknowledge, the Yoga of works, the one implying, it is usually supposed,
\nrenunciation of works as an obstacle to salvation, the other accepting works as
\na means of salvation. He does not yet insist strongly on any fusion of them, on
\nany reconciliation of the thought that divides them, but begins by showing that
\nthe renunciation of the Sankhyas, the physical renunciation, Sannyasa, is
\nneither the only way, nor at all the better way. Naiskarmya<\/i>, a calm voidness from works, is no doubt that to
\nwhich the soul, the Purusha has to attain; for it is Prakriti which does the
\nwork and the soul has to rise above involution in the activities of the being
\nand attain to a free serenity and poise watching over the operations of Prakriti,
\nbut not affected by them. That, and not cessation of the works of Prakriti, is
\nwhat is really meant by the soul’s naiskarmya<\/i>.
\nTherefore it is an error to think that by not engaging in any kind of action
\nthis actionless state of the soul can be attained and enjoyed. Mere
\nrenunciation of works is not a sufficient, not even quite a proper means for
\nsalvation. \u201cNot by abstention from works does a man enjoy actionlessness, nor
\nby mere renunciation (of works) does he attain to his perfection,\u201d \u2013 to siddhi<\/i>, the accomplishment of the aims
\nof his self-discipline by Yoga. <\/p>\n

But at least it must be one necessary means, indispensable,
\nimperative? For how, if the works of Prakriti continue, can the soul help being
\ninvolved in them? How can I fight and yet in my soul not think or feel that I
\nthe individual am fighting, not desire victory nor be inwardly touched by
\ndefeat? This is the teaching of the Sankhyas that the intelligence of the man <\/p>\n

\nPage 99<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 who
\nengages in the activities of Nature, is entangled in egoism, ignorance and desire
\nand therefore drawn to action; on the contrary, if the intelligence draws back,
\nthen the action must cease with the cessation of the desire and the ignorance.
\nTherefore the giving up of life and works is a necessary part, an inevitable circumstance
\nand an indispensable last means of the movement to liberation. This objection
\nof a current logic, \u2013 it is not expressed by Arjuna, but it is in his mind as
\nthe turn of his subsequent utterances shows, \u2013 the Teacher immediately anticipates.
\nNo, he says, such renunciation, far from being indispensable, is not even
\npossible. \u201cFor none stands even for a moment not doing work; everyone is made
\nto do action helplessly by the modes born of Prakriti.\u201d The strong perception
\nof the great cosmic action and the eternal activity and power of the cosmic
\nenergy which was so much emphasised afterwards by the teaching of the Tantric
\nShaktas who even made Prakriti or Shakti superior to Purusha, is a very remarkable
\nfeature of the Gita. Although here an undertone, it is still strong enough,
\ncoupled with what we might call the theistic and devotional elements of its
\nthought, to bring in that activism which so strongly modifies in its scheme of
\nYoga the quietistic tendencies of the old metaphysical Vedanta. Man embodied in
\nthe natural world cannot cease from action, not for a moment, not for a second;
\nhis very existence here is an action; the whole universe is an act of God, mere
\nliving even is His movement. <\/p>\n

Our physical life, its maintenance, its continuance is a
\njourney, a pilgrimage of the body, śarīrayātrā<\/i>,
\nand that cannot be effected without action. But even if a man could leave his
\nbody unmaintained, otiose, if he could stand still always like a tree or sit
\ninert like a stone, tisthati<\/i>,
\nthat vegetable or material immobility would not save him from the hands of
\nNature; he would not be liberated from her workings. For it is not our physical
\nmovements and activities alone which are meant by works, by karma; our mental
\nexistence also is a great complex action, it is even the greater and more important
\npart of the works of the unresting energy, \u2013 subjective cause and determinant
\nof the physical. We have gained nothing if we repress the effect but retain the
\nactivity of the subjective cause. The objects of sense <\/p>\n

\nPage 100<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 are
\nonly an occasion for our bondage, the mind’s insistence on them is the means,
\nthe instrumental cause. A man may control his organs of action and refuse to
\ngive them their natural play, but he has gained nothing if his mind continues
\nto remember and dwell upon the objects of sense. Such a man has bewildered
\nhimself with false notions of self-discipline; he has not understood its object
\nor its truth, nor the first principles of his subjective existence; therefore
\nall his methods of self-discipline are false and null.\u00b9 <\/span>The body’s actions, even the mind’s actions are
\nnothing in themselves, neither a bondage, nor the first cause of bondage. What
\nis vital is the mighty energy of Nature which will have her way and her play in
\nher great field of mind and life and body; what is dangerous in her, is the
\npower of her three Gunas, modes or qualities to confuse and bewilder the
\nintelligence and so obscure the soul. That, as we shall see later, is the whole
\ncrux of action and liberation for the Gita. Be free from obscuration and
\nbewilderment by the three Gunas and action can continue, as it must continue,
\nand even the largest, richest or most enormous and violent action; it does not
\nmatter, for nothing then touches the Purusha, the soul has naiskarmya<\/i>. <\/p>\n

But at present the Gita does not proceed to that larger
\npoint. Since the mind is the instrumental cause, since inaction is impossible,
\nwhat is rational, necessary, the right way is a controlled action of the
\nsubjective and objective organism. The mind must bring the senses under its
\ncontrol as an instrument of the intelligent will and then the organs of action
\nmust be used for their proper office, for action, but for action done as Yoga.
\nBut what is the essence of this self-control, what is meant by action done as
\nYoga, Karmayoga<\/i>? It is non-attachment,
\nit is to do works without clinging with the mind to the objects of sense and
\nthe fruit of the works. Not complete inaction, which is an error, a confusion,
\na self-delusion, an impossibility, but action full and free done without
\nsubjection to sense and passion, desireless<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>I cannot think that mithyācāra<\/i>
\nmeans a hypocrite. How is a man a hypocrite who inflicts on himself so severe
\nand complete a privation? He is mistaken and deluded, vimūdhātmā<\/i>, and his ācāra<\/i>, his formally regulated method of self-discipline,
\nis a false and vain method, \u2013 this surely is all that the Gita means. <\/span>
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage 101<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 and
\nunattached works, are the first secret of perfection. Do action thus
\nself-controlled, says Krishna, niyatam
\nkuru karma tvam<\/i>: I have said that knowledge, the intelligence, is greater than
\nworks, jyāyasī karmano
\nbuddhih<\/i>, but I did not mean that inaction is greater than action;
\nthe contrary is the truth, karma jyāyo
\nakarmanah<\/i>. For knowledge does not mean renunciation of
\nworks, it means equality and non-attachment to desire and the objects of sense;
\nand it means the poise of the intelligent will in the Soul free and
\nhigh-uplifted above the lower instrumentation of Prakriti and controlling the
\nworks of the mind and the senses and body in the power of self-knowledge and
\nthe pure objectless self-delight of spiritual realisation, niyatam karma<\/i>.\u00b9 <\/span>Buddhiyoga<\/i> is fulfilled by karmayoga<\/i>; the Yoga of the
\nself-liberating intelligent will finds its full meaning by the Yoga of desireless
\nworks. Thus the Gita founds its teaching of the necessity of desireless works, niskāma karma<\/i>, and unites
\nthe subjective practice of the Sankhyas \u2013 rejecting their merely physical rule
\n\u2013 with the practice of Yoga. <\/p>\n

But still there is an essential difficulty unsolved. Desire
\nis the ordinary motive of all human actions, and if the soul is free from
\ndesire, then there is no farther rationale for action. We may be compelled to
\ndo certain works for the maintenance of the body, but even that is a subjection
\nto the desire of the body which we ought to get rid of if we are to attain
\nperfection. But granting that this cannot be done, the only way is to fix a
\nrule for action outside ourselves, not dictated by anything in our
\nsubjectivity, the nityakarma<\/i> of the
\nVedic rule, the routine \u00a0<\/span>of ceremonial
\nsacrifice, daily conduct and social duty, which the man who seeks liberation
\nmay do simply because it is enjoined upon him, without any personal purpose or
\nsubjective interest in them, with an<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>Again, I cannot accept the current interpretation of niyatam karma<\/i> as if it meant fixed and
\nformal works and were equivalent to the Vedic nityakarma<\/i>, the regular works of sacrifice, ceremonial and the
\ndaily rule of Vedic living. Surely, niyata<\/i>
\nsimply takes up the niyamya<\/i> of the
\nlast verse. Krishna makes a statement, \u201che who controlling the senses by the
\nmind engages with the organs of action in Yoga of action, he excels,\u201d manasā<\/i> niyamya ārabhate karmayogam<\/i>, and he immediately goes on to
\ndraw from the statement an injunction, to sum it up and convert it into a rule.
\n\u201cDo thou do controlled action,\u201d niyata\\.m
\nkuru karma tvam: niyatam<\/i> takes up the niyamya<\/i>, kuru karma<\/i> takes up the ārabhate karmayogam<\/i>. Not formal
\nworks fixed by an external rule, but desireless works controlled by the
\nliberated buddhi<\/i>, is the Gita’s
\nteaching.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 102<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 absolute
\nindifference to the doing, not because he is compelled by his nature but
\nbecause it is enjoined by the Shastra. But if the principle of the action is
\nnot to be external to the nature but subjective, if the actions even of the
\nliberated and the sage are to be controlled and determined by his nature, svabhāva-niyatam<\/i>, then the only
\nsubjective principle of action is desire of whatever kind, lust of the flesh or
\nemotion of the heart or base or noble aim of the mind, but all subject to the Gunas
\nof Prakriti. Let us then interpret the niyata
\nkarma<\/i> of the Gita as the nityakarma of the Vedic rule, its kartavya karma<\/i> or work that has to be
\ndone as the Aryan rule of social duty and let us take too its work done as a
\nsacrifice to mean simply these Vedic sacrifices and this fixed social duty
\nperformed disinterestedly and without any personal object. This is how the
\nGita’s doctrine of desireless work is often interpreted. But it seems to me
\nthat the Gita’s teaching is not so crude and simple, not so local and temporal and
\nnarrow as all that. It is large, free, subtle and profound; it is for all time
\nand for all men, not for a particular age and country. Especially, it is always
\nbreaking free from external forms, details, dogmatic notions and going back to
\nprinciples and the great facts of our nature and our being. It is a work of
\nlarge philosophic truth and spiritual practicality, not of constrained religious
\nand philosophical formulas and stereotyped dogmas. <\/p>\n

The difficulty is this, how, our nature being what it is and
\ndesire the common principle of its action, is it possible to institute a really
\ndesireless action? For what we call ordinarily disinterested action is not
\nreally desireless; it is simply a replacement of certain smaller personal
\ninterests by other larger desires which have only the appearance of being impersonal,
\nvirtue, country, mankind. All action, moreover, as Krishna insists, is done by
\nthe Gunas of Prakriti, by our nature; in acting according to the Shastra we are
\nstill acting according to our nature, \u2013 even if this Shastric action is not, as
\nit usually is, a mere cover for our desires, prejudices, passions, egoisms, our
\npersonal, national, sectarian vanities, sentiments and preferences; but even
\notherwise, even at the purest, still we obey a choice of our nature, and if our
\nnature were different and the Gunas acted on our intelligence and will in some
\nother combination, we would not <\/p>\n

\nPage 103<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 accept
\nthe Shastra, but live according to our pleasure or our intellectual notions or
\nelse break free from the social law to live the life of the solitary or the
\nascetic. We cannot become impersonal by obeying something outside ourselves,
\nfor we cannot so get outside ourselves; we can only do it by rising to the
\nhighest in ourselves, into our free Soul and Self which is the same and one in
\nall and has therefore no personal interests, to the Divine in our being who
\npossesses Himself transcendent of cosmos and is therefore not bound by His
\ncosmic works or His individual action. That is what the Gita teaches and
\ndesirelessness is only a means to this end, not an aim in itself. Yes, but how
\nis it to be brought about? By doing all works with sacrifice as the only
\nobject, is the reply of the divine Teacher. \u201cBy doing works otherwise than for
\nsacrifice, this world of men is in bondage to works; for sacrifice practise
\nworks, O son of Kunti, becoming free from all attachment.\u201d It is evident that
\nall works and not merely sacrifice and social duties can be done in this
\nspirit; any action may be done either from the ego-sense narrow or enlarged or
\nfor the sake of the Divine. All being and all action of Prakriti exist only for
\nthe sake of the Divine; from that it proceeds, by that it endures, to that it
\nis directed. But so long as we are dominated by the ego-sense we cannot
\nperceive or act in the spirit of this truth, but act for the satisfaction of
\nthe ego and in the spirit of the ego, otherwise than for sacrifice. Egoism is
\nthe knot of the bondage. By acting Godwards, without any thought of ego, we
\nloosen this knot and finally arrive at freedom. <\/p>\n

At first, however, the Gita takes up the Vedic statement of
\nthe idea of sacrifice and phrases the law of sacrifice in its current terms.
\nThis it does with a definite object. We have seen that the quarrel between
\nrenunciation and works has two forms, the opposition of Sankhya and Yoga which
\nis already in principle reconciled and the opposition of Vedism and Vedantism
\nwhich the Teacher has yet to reconcile. The first is a larger statement of the
\nopposition in which the idea of works is general and wide. The Sankhya starts
\nfrom the notion of the divine status as that of the immutable and inactive
\nPurusha which each soul is in reality and makes an opposition between
\ninactivity of Purusha and activity of Prakriti; so its logical culmination is
\ncessation of all works. <\/p>\n

\nPage 104<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

Yoga
\nstarts from the notion of the Divine as Ishwara, lord of the operations of
\nPrakriti and therefore superior to them, and its logical culmination is not
\ncessation of works but the soul’s superiority to them and freedom even though
\ndoing all works. In the opposition of Vedism and Vedantism works, karma<\/i>, are restricted to Vedic works and
\nsometimes even to Vedic sacrifice and ritualised works, all else being excluded
\nas not useful to salvation. Vedism of the Mimansakas insisted on them as the
\nmeans, Vedantism taking its stand on the Upanishads looked on them as only a
\npreliminary belonging to the state of ignorance and in the end to be overpassed
\nand rejected, an obstacle to the seeker of liberation. Vedism worshipped the
\nDevas, the gods, with sacrifice and held them to be the powers who assist our
\nsalvation. Vedantism was inclined to regard them as powers of the mental and material
\nworld opposed to our salvation (men, says the Upanishad, are the cattle of the
\ngods, who do not desire man to know and be free); it saw the Divine as the
\nimmutable Brahman who has to be attained not by works of sacrifice and worship
\nbut by knowledge. Works only lead to material results and to an inferior Paradise;
\ntherefore they have to be renounced. <\/p>\n

The Gita resolves this opposition by insisting that the Devas
\nare only forms of the one Deva, the Ishwara, the Lord of all Yoga and worship
\nand sacrifice and austerity, and if it is true that sacrifice offered to the
\nDevas leads only to material results and to Paradise, it is also true that
\nsacrifice offered to the Ishwara leads beyond them to the great liberation. For
\nthe Lord and the immutable Brahman are not two different beings, but one and
\nthe same Being, and whoever strives towards either, is striving towards that
\none divine Existence. All works in their totality find their culmination and
\ncompleteness in the knowledge of the Divine, sarvam karmākhilam pārtha j\u00f1āane parisamāpyate<\/i><\/a>.
\nThey are not an obstacle, but the way to the supreme knowledge. Thus this
\nopposition too is reconciled with the help of a large elucidation of the
\nmeaning of sacrifice. In fact its conflict is only a restricted form of the
\nlarger opposition between Yoga and Sankhya. Vedism is a specialised and narrow
\nform of Yoga; the principle of the Vedantists is identical with that of the
\nSankhyas, for to both the movement of salvation is the recoil of the
\nintelligence, <\/p>\n

\nPage 105<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 the buddhi<\/i>, from the differentiating powers
\nof Nature, from ego, mind, senses, from the subjective and the objective, and
\nits return to the undifferentiated and the immutable. It is with this object of
\nreconciliation in his mind that the Teacher first approaches his statement of
\nthe doctrine of sacrifice; but throughout, even from the very beginning, he keeps
\nhis eye not on the restricted Vedic sense of sacrifice and works, but on their
\nlarger and universal application, \u2013 that widening of narrow and formal notions
\nto admit the great general truths they unduly restrict which is always the
\nmethod of the Gita. <\/p>\n

\nPage 106<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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