{"id":1388,"date":"2013-07-13T01:34:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1388"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:34:29","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:29","slug":"48-the-supreme-secret-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\/48-the-supreme-secret-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","title":{"rendered":"-48_The Supreme Secret.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n<td>\n<div class=\"Section1\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'><b><span><font size=\"3\">TWENTY-TWO<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n\t\t<b><span><font size=\"4\">The<br \/>\nSupreme Secret*<\/font><\/span><\/b><font size=\"4\">&nbsp; <\/font> <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'><font size=\"4\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; T<\/font><font size=\"2\">HE<\/font> essence of the teaching and<br \/>\nthe Yoga has thus been given to the disciple on the field of his work and<br \/>\nbattle and the divine Teacher now proceeds to apply it to his action, but in a<br \/>\nway that makes it applicable to all action. Attached to a crucial example,<br \/>\nspoken to the protagonist of Kurukshetra, the words bear a much wider<br \/>\nsignificance and are a universal rule for all who are ready to ascend above the<br \/>\nordinary mentality and to live and act in the highest spiritual consciousness. To<br \/>\nbreak out of ego and personal mind and see everything in the wideness of the<br \/>\nself and spirit, to know God and adore him in his integral truth and in all his<br \/>\naspects, to surrender all oneself to the transcendent Soul of nature and<br \/>\nexistence, to possess and be possessed by the divine consciousness, to be one<br \/>\nwith the One in universality of love and delight and will and knowledge, one in<br \/>\nhim with all beings, to do works as an adoration and a sacrifice on the divine<br \/>\nfoundation of a world in which all is God and in the divine status of a<br \/>\nliberated spirit, is the sense of the Gita&#8217;s Yoga. It is a transition from the apparent<br \/>\nto the supreme spiritual and real truth of our being, and one enters into it by<br \/>\nputting off the many limitations of the <span class=\"SpellE\">separative<\/span><br \/>\nconsciousness and the mind&#8217;s attachment to the passion and unrest and<br \/>\nignorance, the lesser light and knowledge, the sin and virtue, the dual law and<br \/>\nstandard of the lower nature. Therefore, says the Teacher, \u201cdevoting all<br \/>\nthyself to me, giving up in thy conscious mind all thy actions into Me,<br \/>\nresorting to Yoga of the will and intelligence be always one in heart and<br \/>\nconsciousness with Me. If thou art that at all times, then by my grace thou<br \/>\nshalt pass safe through all difficult and perilous passages; but if from egoism<br \/>\nthou hear not, thou shalt fall into perdition. Vain is this thy resolve, that in<br \/>\nthy egoism thou <span class=\"SpellE\">thinkest<\/span>, saying \u2018I&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 521<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>will not fight&#8217;; thy nature shall<br \/>\nappoint thee to thy work. What from delusion thou <span class=\"SpellE\">desirest<\/span><br \/>\nnot to do, that helplessly thou shalt do bound by thy own work born of thy <span class=\"SpellE\">swabhava<\/span>. The Lord is stationed in the heart of all<br \/>\nexistences, O Arjuna, and turns them all round and round mounted on a machine<br \/>\nby his Maya. In him take refuge in every way of thy being and by his grace thou<br \/>\nshalt come to the supreme peace and the eternal status.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'><span>\u00a0<\/span>These are lines that carry in them the<br \/>\ninnermost heart of this Yoga and lead to its crowning experience and we must understand<br \/>\nthem in their innermost spirit and the whole vastness of that high summit of<br \/>\nexperience. The words express the most complete, intimate and living relation<br \/>\npossible between God and man; they are instinct with the concentrated force of religious<br \/>\nfeeling that springs from the human being&#8217;s absolute adoration, his upward<br \/>\nsurrender of his whole existence, his unreserved and perfect self-giving to the<br \/>\ntranscendent and universal Divinity from whom he comes and in whom he lives. This<br \/>\nstress of feeling is in entire consonance with the high and enduring place that<br \/>\nthe Gita assigns to <span class=\"SpellE\">bhakti<\/span>, to the love of God, to<br \/>\nthe adoration of the Highest, as the inmost spirit and motive of the supreme<br \/>\naction and the crown and core of the supreme knowledge. The phrases used and<br \/>\nthe spiritual emotion with which they vibrate seem to give the most intense prominence<br \/>\npossible and an utmost importance to the personal truth and presence of the<br \/>\nGodhead. It is no abstract Absolute of the philosopher, no indifferent<br \/>\nimpersonal Presence or ineffable Silence intolerant of all relations to whom<br \/>\nthis complete surrender of all our works can be made and this closeness and<br \/>\nintimacy of oneness with him in all the parts of our conscious existence<br \/>\nimposed as the condition and law of our perfection or of whom this divine<br \/>\nintervention and protection and deliverance are the promise. It is a Master of<br \/>\nour works, a Friend and Lover of our soul, an intimate Spirit of our life, an indwelling<br \/>\nand <span class=\"SpellE\">overdwelling<\/span> Lord of all our personal and<br \/>\nimpersonal self and nature who alone can utter to us this near and moving message.<br \/>\nAnd yet this is not the common relation established by the religions between<br \/>\nman living in his <span class=\"SpellE\">sattwic<\/span> or other ego-mind and some<br \/>\npersonal form and aspect of the Deity, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>ista-deva<\/i><\/span>, constructed by that mind or offered to it to satisfy<br \/>\nits<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 522<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>limited ideal, aspiration or<br \/>\ndesire. That is the ordinary sense and actual character of the normal mental<br \/>\nbeing&#8217;s religious devotion; but here there is something wider that passes<br \/>\nbeyond the mind and its limits and its <span class=\"SpellE\">dharmas<\/span>. It is<br \/>\nsomething deeper than the mind that offers and something greater than the <span class=\"SpellE\">Ishta-deva<\/span> that receives the surrender. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>That which surrenders here is the<br \/>\n<span class=\"SpellE\">Jiva<\/span>, the essential soul, the original central and<br \/>\nspiritual being of man, the individual <span class=\"SpellE\">Purusha<\/span>. It is<br \/>\nthe <span class=\"SpellE\">Jiva<\/span> delivered from the limiting and ignorant<br \/>\nego-sense who knows himself not as a separate personality but as an eternal<br \/>\nportion and power and soul-becoming of the Divine, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>am&#347;a<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">san&#257;tana<\/span><\/i>, the <span class=\"SpellE\">Jiva<\/span><br \/>\nreleased and uplifted by the passing away of ignorance and established in the<br \/>\nlight and freedom of his own true and supreme nature which is one with that of<br \/>\nthe Eternal. It is this central spiritual being in us who thus enters into a perfect<br \/>\nand closely real relation of delight and union with the origin and continent<br \/>\nand governing Self and Power of our existence. And he who receives our<br \/>\nsurrender is no limited Deity but the <span class=\"SpellE\">Purushottama<\/span>,<br \/>\nthe one eternal Godhead, the one supreme Soul of all that is and of all Nature,<br \/>\nthe original transcendent Spirit of existence. An immutable impersonal<br \/>\nself-existence is his first obvious spiritual self-presentation to the<br \/>\nexperience of our liberated knowledge, the first sign of his presence, the<br \/>\nfirst touch and impression of his substance. A universal and transcendent<br \/>\ninfinite Person or <span class=\"SpellE\">Purusha<\/span> is the mysterious hidden<br \/>\nsecret of his very being, unthinkable in form of mind, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>acintya-r&#363;pa<\/i><\/span>, but very near<br \/>\nand present to the powers of our consciousness, emotion, will and knowledge<br \/>\nwhen they are lifted out of themselves, out of their blind and petty forms into<br \/>\na luminous spiritual, an immeasurable supramental <span class=\"SpellE\">Ananda<\/span><br \/>\nand power and gnosis. It is He, ineffable Absolute but also Friend and Lord and<br \/>\nEnlightener and Lover, who is the object of this most complete devotion and<br \/>\napproach and this most intimate inner becoming and surrender. This union, this<br \/>\nrelation is a thing lifted beyond the forms and laws of the limiting mind, too<br \/>\nhigh for all these inferior <span class=\"SpellE\">dharmas<\/span>; it is a truth of<br \/>\nour self and spirit. And yet or rather therefore, because it is the truth of<br \/>\nour self and spirit, the truth of its oneness with that Spirit from which all&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 523<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>comes and by it and as its<br \/>\nderivations and suggestions all exists and travails, it is not a negation but a<br \/>\nfulfilment of all that mind and life point to and bear in them as their secret<br \/>\nand unaccomplished significance. Thus it is not by a nirvana, an exclusion and<br \/>\nnegating extinction of all that we are here, but by a nirvana, an exclusion and<br \/>\nnegating extinction of ignorance and ego and a consequent ineffable fulfilment<br \/>\nof our knowledge and will and heart&#8217;s aspiration, an uplifted and limitless<br \/>\nliving of them in the Divine, in the Eternal, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>nivasisyasi<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">mayyeva<\/span><\/i>, a <span class=\"SpellE\">transfigurement<\/span><br \/>\nand transference of all our consciousness to a greater inner status that there<br \/>\ncomes this supreme perfection and release in the spirit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'><span>\u00a0<\/span>The crux of the spiritual problem, the<br \/>\ncharacter of this transition of which it is so difficult for the normal mind of<br \/>\nman to get a true apprehension, turns altogether upon the capital distinction<br \/>\nbetween the ignorant life of the ego in the lower nature and the large and<br \/>\nluminous existence of the liberated <span class=\"SpellE\">Jiva<\/span> in his own<br \/>\ntrue spiritual nature. The renunciation of the first must be complete, the<br \/>\ntransition to the second absolute. This is the distinction on which the Gita<br \/>\ndwells here with all possible emphasis. On the one side is this poor, <span class=\"SpellE\">trepidant<\/span>, braggart egoistic condition of consciousness, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>ahankrta<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">bh&#257;va<\/span><\/i>,<br \/>\nthe crippling narrowness of this little helpless <span class=\"SpellE\">separative<\/span><br \/>\npersonality according to whose view-point we ordinarily think and act, feel and<br \/>\nrespond to the touches of existence. On the other are the vast spiritual<br \/>\nreaches of immortal fullness, bliss and knowledge into which we are admitted<br \/>\nthrough union with the divine Being, of whom we are then a manifestation and expression<br \/>\nin the eternal light and no longer a disguise in the darkness of the<br \/>\nego-nature. It is the completeness of this union which is indicated by the <span class=\"SpellE\">Gita&#8217;s<\/span> <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>satatam<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">mac-cittah<\/span><\/i>. The life of the ego is founded on a<br \/>\nconstruction of the apparent mental, vital and physical truth of existence, on<br \/>\na nexus of pragmatic relations between the individual soul and Nature, on an intellectual,<br \/>\nemotional and sensational interpretation of things used by the little limited I<br \/>\nin us to maintain and satisfy the ideas and desires of its bounded separate<br \/>\npersonality amid the vast action of the universe. All our <span class=\"SpellE\">dharmas<\/span>,<br \/>\nall the ordinary standards by which we determine our view of things and our<br \/>\nknowledge and our action, proceed upon this narrow and&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 524<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>limiting basis, and to follow<br \/>\nthem even in the widest <span class=\"SpellE\">wheelings<\/span> round our ego<br \/>\ncentre does not carry us out of this petty circle. It is a circle in which the<br \/>\nsoul is a contented or struggling prisoner, for ever subject to the mixed<br \/>\ncompulsions of Nature. For <span class=\"SpellE\">Purusha<\/span> veils himself in this round, veils his divine and<br \/>\nimmortal being in ignorance and is subject to the law of an insistent limiting <span class=\"SpellE\">Prakriti<\/span>. That law is the compelling rule of the three <span class=\"SpellE\">gunas<\/span>. It is a triple stair that stumbles upward towards the<br \/>\ndivine light but cannot reach it. At its base is the law or dharma of inertia:<br \/>\nthe <span class=\"SpellE\">tamasic<\/span> man inertly obeys in a customary mechanical<br \/>\naction the suggestions and impulses, the round of will of his material and his<br \/>\nhalf-<span class=\"SpellE\">intellectualised<\/span> vital and sensational nature.<br \/>\nIn the middle intervenes the kinetic law or dharma; the <span class=\"SpellE\">rajasic<\/span><br \/>\nman, vital, dynamic, active, attempts to impose himself on his world and environment,<br \/>\nbut only increases the wounding weight and tyrant yoke of his turbulent passions,<br \/>\ndesires and egoisms, the burden of his restless self-will, the yoke of his <span class=\"SpellE\">rajasic<\/span> nature. At the top presses down upon life the<br \/>\nharmonic regulative law or dharma; the <span class=\"SpellE\">sattwic<\/span> man<br \/>\nattempts to erect and follow his limited personal standards of reasoning<br \/>\nknowledge, enlightened utility or <span class=\"SpellE\">mechanised<\/span> virtue,<br \/>\nhis religions and philosophies and ethical formulas, mental systems and<br \/>\nconstructions, fixed channels of idea and conduct which do not agree with the<br \/>\ntotality of the meaning of life and are constantly being broken in the movement<br \/>\nof the wider universal purpose. The dharma of the <span class=\"SpellE\">sattwic<\/span><br \/>\nman is the highest in the circle of the <span class=\"SpellE\">gunas<\/span>; but<br \/>\nthat too is a limited view and a dwarfed standard. Its imperfect indications<br \/>\nlead to a petty and relative perfection; temporarily satisfying to the<br \/>\nenlightened personal ego, it is not founded either on the whole truth of the self<br \/>\nor on the whole truth of Nature. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'>And in fact the<br \/>\nactual life of man is not at any time one of these things alone, neither a<br \/>\nmechanical routine execution of the first crude law of Nature, nor the struggle<br \/>\nof a kinetic soul of action, nor a victorious emergence of conscious light and<br \/>\nreason and good and knowledge. There is a mixture of all these <span class=\"SpellE\">dharmas<\/span> out of which our will and intelligence make a more<br \/>\nor less arbitrary construction to be <span class=\"SpellE\">realised<\/span> as best<br \/>\nit can, but never in fact <span class=\"SpellE\">realised<\/span> except by<br \/>\ncompromise with other compelling things in&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 525<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>the universal <span class=\"SpellE\">Prakriti<\/span>.<br \/>\nThe <span class=\"SpellE\">sattwic<\/span> ideals of our enlightened will and reason<br \/>\nare either themselves compromises, at best progressive compromises, subject to<br \/>\na constant imperfection and flux of change, or if absolute in their character,<br \/>\nthey can be followed only as a counsel of perfection ignored for the most part<br \/>\nin practice or successful only as a partial influence. And if sometimes we<br \/>\nimagine we have completely <span class=\"SpellE\">realised<\/span> them, it is<br \/>\nbecause we ignore in ourselves the subconscious or half-conscious mixture of<br \/>\nother powers and motives that are usually as much or more than our ideals the<br \/>\nreal force in our action. That self-ignorance constitutes the whole vanity of<br \/>\nhuman reason and self-righteousness; it is the dark secret lining behind the<br \/>\nspotless white outsides of human sainthood and alone makes possible the<br \/>\nspecious egoisms of knowledge and virtue. The best human knowledge is a half knowledge<br \/>\nand the highest human virtue a thing of mixed quality and, even when most<br \/>\nsincerely absolute in standard, sufficiently relative in practice. As a general<br \/>\nlaw of living the absolute <span class=\"SpellE\">sattwic<\/span> ideals cannot<br \/>\nprevail in conduct; indispensable as a power for the betterment and raising of<br \/>\npersonal aspiration and conduct, their insistence modifies life but cannot<br \/>\nwholly change it, and their perfect fulfilment images itself only in a dream of<br \/>\nthe future or a world of heavenly nature free from the mixed strain of our<br \/>\nterrestrial existence. It cannot be otherwise because neither the nature of<br \/>\nthis world nor the nature of man is or can be one single piece made of the pure<br \/>\nstuff of <span class=\"SpellE\">sattwa<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'>The first door<br \/>\nof escape we see out of this limitation of our possibilities, out of this<br \/>\nconfused mixture of <span class=\"SpellE\">dharmas<\/span> is in a certain high<br \/>\ntrend towards impersonality, a movement inwards towards something large and<br \/>\nuniversal and calm and free and right and pure hidden now by the limiting mind<br \/>\nof ego. The difficulty is that while we can feel a positive release into this impersonality<br \/>\nin moments of the quiet and silence of our being, an impersonal activity is by<br \/>\nno means so easy to <span class=\"SpellE\">realise<\/span>. The pursuit of an<br \/>\nimpersonal truth or an impersonal will in our conduct is vitiated so long as we<br \/>\nlive at all in our normal mind by that which is natural and inevitable to that<br \/>\nmind, the law of our personality, the subtle urge of our vital nature, the <span class=\"SpellE\">colour<\/span> of ego. The pursuit of impersonal truth is turned by<br \/>\nthese influences into<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 526<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>an unsuspected cloak for a system<br \/>\nof intellectual preferences supported by our mind&#8217;s limiting insistence; the<br \/>\npursuit of a disinterested impersonal action is converted into a greater<br \/>\nauthority and apparent high sanction for our personal will&#8217;s interested<br \/>\nselections and blind arbitrary <span class=\"SpellE\">persistences<\/span>. On the<br \/>\nother hand an absolute impersonality would seem to impose an equally absolute<br \/>\nquietism, and this would mean that all action is bound to the machinery of the<br \/>\nego and the three <span class=\"SpellE\">gunas<\/span> and to recede from life and<br \/>\nits works the only way out of the circle. This impersonal silence however is<br \/>\nnot the last word of wisdom in the matter, because it is not the only way and crown<br \/>\nor not all the way and the last crown of self-<span class=\"SpellE\">realisation<\/span><br \/>\nopen to our <span class=\"SpellE\">endeavour<\/span>. There is a mightier fuller<br \/>\nmore positive spiritual experience in which the circle of our egoistic<br \/>\npersonality and the round of the mind&#8217;s limitations vanish in the <span class=\"SpellE\">unwalled<\/span> infinity of a greatest self and spirit and yet<br \/>\nlife and its works not only remain still acceptable and possible but reach up<br \/>\nand out to their widest spiritual completeness and assume a grand ascending<br \/>\nsignificance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'>There have been<br \/>\ndifferent gradations in this movement to bridge the gulf between an absolute<br \/>\nimpersonality and the dynamic possibilities of our nature. The thought and<br \/>\npractice of the Mahayana approached this difficult reconciliation through the<br \/>\nexperience of a deep <span class=\"SpellE\">desirelessness<\/span> and a large<br \/>\ndissolving freedom from mental and vital attachment and <span class=\"SpellE\">sanskaras<\/span><br \/>\nand on the positive side a universal altruism, a fathomless compassion for the<br \/>\nworld and its creatures which became as it were the flood and outpouring of the<br \/>\nhigh <span class=\"SpellE\">Nirvanic<\/span> state on life and action. That<br \/>\nreconciliation was equally the sense of yet another spiritual experience, more<br \/>\nconscious of a world significance, more profound, kindling, richly<br \/>\ncomprehensive on the side of action, a step nearer to the thought of the Gita:<br \/>\nthis experience we find or can at least read behind the utterances of the<br \/>\nTaoist thinkers. There <span class=\"SpellE\">there<\/span> seems to be an<br \/>\nimpersonal ineffable Eternal who is spirit and at the same time the one life of<br \/>\nthe universe: it supports and flows impartially in all things, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>samam<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">brahma<\/span><\/i>; it is<br \/>\na One that is nothing, <span class=\"SpellE\">Asat<\/span>, because other than all<br \/>\nthat we perceive and yet the totality of all these existences. The fluid<br \/>\npersonality&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 527<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>that forms like foam on this<br \/>\nInfinite, the mobile ego with its attachments and repulsions, its likings and <span class=\"SpellE\">dislikings<\/span>, its fixed mental distinctions, is an effective<br \/>\nimage that veils and deforms to us the one reality, Tao, the supreme All and<br \/>\nNothing. That can be touched only by losing personality and its little<br \/>\nstructural forms in the <span class=\"SpellE\">unseizable<\/span> universal and eternal<br \/>\nPresence and, this once achieved, we live in that a real life and have another<br \/>\ngreater consciousness which makes us penetrate all things, ourselves penetrable<br \/>\nto all eternal influences. Here, as in the Gita, the highest way would seem to<br \/>\nbe a complete openness and self-surrender to the Eternal. \u201cYour body is not<br \/>\nyour own,\u201d says the Taoist thinker, \u201cit is the delegated image of God: your<br \/>\nlife is not your own, it is the delegated harmony of God: your individuality is<br \/>\nnot your own, it is the delegated adaptability of God.\u201d And here too a vast<br \/>\nperfection and liberated action are the dynamic result of the soul&#8217;s surrender.<br \/>\nThe works of ego personality are a <span class=\"SpellE\">separative<\/span> running<br \/>\ncounter to the bias of universal nature. This false movement must be replaced<br \/>\nby a wise and still passivity in the hands of the universal and eternal Power,<br \/>\na passivity that makes us adaptable to the infinite action, in harmony with its<br \/>\ntruth, plastic to the shaping breath of the Spirit. The man who has this<br \/>\nharmony may be motionless within and absorbed in silence, but his Self will<br \/>\nappear free from disguises, the divine Influence will be at work in him and<br \/>\nwhile he abides in <span class=\"SpellE\">tranquillity<\/span> and an inward<br \/>\ninaction, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>naiskarmya<\/i><\/span>,<br \/>\nyet he will act with an irresistible power and myriads of things and beings<br \/>\nwill move and gather under his influence. The impersonal force of the Self takes<br \/>\nup his works, movements no longer deformed by ego, and <span class=\"SpellE\">sovereignly<\/span><br \/>\nacts through him for the keeping together and control of the world and its<br \/>\npeoples, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>loka-sangrah&#257;rth&#257;ya<\/i><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><span>\u00a0<\/span>There is little difference between these<br \/>\nexperiences and the first impersonal activity inculcated by the Gita. The Gita also<br \/>\ndemands of us renunciation of desire, attachment and ego, transcendence of the<br \/>\nlower nature and the breaking up of our personality and its little formations.<br \/>\nThe Gita also demands of us to live in the Self and Spirit, to see the Self and<br \/>\nSpirit in all and all in the Self and Spirit and all as the Self and Spirit. It<br \/>\ndemands of us like the Taoist thinker to renounce our natural&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 528<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>personality and its works into<br \/>\nthe Self, the Spirit, the Eternal, the Brahman, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>&#257;tmani<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">sannyasya<\/span>, <span class=\"SpellE\">brahmani<\/span><\/i>.<br \/>\nAnd there is this coincidence because that is always man&#8217;s highest and freest<br \/>\npossible experience of a <span class=\"SpellE\">quietistic<\/span> inner largeness<br \/>\nand silence reconciled with an outer dynamic active living, the two coexistent<br \/>\nor fused together in the impersonal infinite reality and illimitable action of<br \/>\nthe one immortal Power and sole eternal Existence. But the Gita adds a phrase<br \/>\nof immense import that alters everything, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>&#257;tmani<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">atho<\/span> <span class=\"SpellE\">mayi<\/span><\/i>. The<br \/>\ndemand is to see all things in the self and then in \u201cMe\u201d the <span class=\"SpellE\">Ishwara<\/span>, to renounce all action into the Self, Spirit,<br \/>\nBrahman and thence into the supreme Person, the <span class=\"SpellE\">Purushottama<\/span>.<br \/>\nThere is here a still greater and profounder complex of spiritual experience, a<br \/>\nlarger transmutation of the significance of human life, a more mystic and heart-felt<br \/>\nsweep of the return of the stream to the ocean, the restoration of personal<br \/>\nworks and the cosmic action to the Eternal Worker. The stress on pure<br \/>\nimpersonality has this difficulty and incompleteness for us that it reduces the<br \/>\ninner person, the spiritual individual, that persistent miracle of our inmost<br \/>\nbeing, to a temporary, illusive and mutable formation in the Infinite. The<br \/>\nInfinite alone exists and except in a passing play has no true regard on the<br \/>\nsoul of the living creature. There can be no real and permanent relation<br \/>\nbetween the soul in man and the Eternal, if that soul is even as the always<br \/>\nrenewable body no more than a transient phenomenon in the Infinite.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'>It is true that<br \/>\nthe ego and its limited personality are even such a temporary and mutable<br \/>\nformation of Nature and therefore it must be broken and we must feel ourselves<br \/>\none with all and infinite. But the ego is not the real person; when it has been<br \/>\ndissolved there still remains the spiritual individual, there is still the<br \/>\neternal <span class=\"SpellE\">Jiva<\/span>. The ego limitation disappears and the<br \/>\nsoul lives in a profound unity with the One and feels its universal unity with<br \/>\nall things. And yet it is still our own soul that enjoys this expanse and<br \/>\noneness. The universal action, even when it is felt as the action of one and<br \/>\nthe same energy in all, even when it is experienced as the initiation and<br \/>\nmovement of the <span class=\"SpellE\">Ishwara<\/span>, still takes different forms<br \/>\nin different souls of men, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>am&#347;ah<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">san&#257;tanah<\/span><\/i>, and a different turn in their nature.<br \/>\nThe light of spiritual know-<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 529<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>ledge, the manifold universal<br \/>\nShakti, the eternal delight of being stream into us and around us, concentrate<br \/>\nin the soul and flow out on the surrounding world from each as from a centre of<br \/>\nliving spiritual consciousness whose circumference is lost in the infinite.<br \/>\nMore, the spiritual individual remains as a little universe of divine existence<br \/>\nat once independent and inseparable from the whole infinite universe of the<br \/>\ndivine self-manifestation of which we see a petty portion around us. A portion<br \/>\nof the Transcendent, creative, he creates his own world around him even while<br \/>\nhe retains this cosmic consciousness in which are all others. If it be objected<br \/>\nthat this is an illusion which must disappear when he retreats into the<br \/>\ntranscendent Absolute, there is after all no very certain certainty in that<br \/>\nmatter. For it is still the soul in man that is the enjoyer of this release, as<br \/>\nit was the living spiritual centre of the divine action and manifestation;<br \/>\nthere is something more than the mere self-breaking of an illusory shell of<br \/>\nindividuality in the Infinite. This mystery of our existence signifies that<br \/>\nwhat we are is not only a temporary name and form of the One, but as we may<br \/>\nsay, a soul and spirit of the Divine Oneness. Our spiritual individuality of<br \/>\nwhich the ego is only a misleading shadow and projection in the ignorance has<br \/>\nor is a truth that persists beyond the ignorance; there is something of us that<br \/>\ndwells for ever in the supreme nature of the <span class=\"SpellE\">Purushottama<\/span>,<br \/>\n<span class=\"SpellE\"><i>nivasisyasi<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">mayi<\/span><\/i>. This is<br \/>\nthe profound comprehensiveness of the teaching of the Gita that while it <span class=\"SpellE\">recognises<\/span> the truth of the <span class=\"SpellE\">universalised<\/span><br \/>\nimpersonality into which we enter by the extinction of ego, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>brahma-nirv&#257;na<\/i><\/span>, \u2014 for indeed<br \/>\nwithout it there can be no liberation or at least no absolute release,\u2014it <span class=\"SpellE\">recognises<\/span> too the persistent spiritual truth of our<br \/>\npersonality as a factor of the highest experience. Not this natural but that<br \/>\ndivine and central being in us is the eternal <span class=\"SpellE\">Jiva<\/span>.<br \/>\nIt is the <span class=\"SpellE\">Ishwara<\/span>, <span class=\"SpellE\">Vasudeva<\/span><br \/>\nwho is all things, that takes up our mind and life and body for the enjoyment<br \/>\nof the lower <span class=\"SpellE\">Prakriti<\/span>; it is the supreme <span class=\"SpellE\">Prakriti<\/span>, the original spiritual nature of the supreme <span class=\"SpellE\">Purusha<\/span> that holds together the universe and appears in it<br \/>\nas the <span class=\"SpellE\">Jiva<\/span>. This <span class=\"SpellE\">Jiva<\/span> then<br \/>\nis a portion of the <span class=\"SpellE\">Purushottama&#8217;s<\/span> original divine<br \/>\nspiritual being, a living power of the living Eternal. He is not merely a<br \/>\ntemporary form of lower Nature, but an eternal portion of the Highest in his<br \/>\nsupreme <span class=\"SpellE\">Prakriti<\/span>, an eternal&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 530<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>conscious ray of the divine existence<br \/>\nand as everlasting as that supernal <span class=\"SpellE\">Prakriti<\/span>. One<br \/>\nside of the highest perfection and status of our liberated consciousness must<br \/>\nthen be to assume the true place of the <span class=\"SpellE\">Jiva<\/span> in a<br \/>\nsupreme spiritual Nature, there to dwell in the glory of the supreme <span class=\"SpellE\">Purusha<\/span> and there to have the joy of the eternal spiritual<br \/>\noneness. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>This mystery of our being implies<br \/>\nnecessarily a similar supreme mystery of the being of the <span class=\"SpellE\">Purushottama<\/span>,<br \/>\n<span class=\"SpellE\">rahasyam<\/span> <span class=\"SpellE\">uttamam<\/span>. It is not<br \/>\nan exclusive impersonality of the Absolute that is the highest secret. This<br \/>\nhighest secret is the miracle of a supreme Person and apparent vast Impersonal<br \/>\nthat are one, an immutable transcendent Self of all things and a Spirit that manifests<br \/>\nitself here at the very foundation of cosmos as an infinite and multiple<br \/>\npersonality acting everywhere,\u2014a Self and Spirit revealed to our last, closest,<br \/>\nprofoundest experience as an illimitable Being who accepts us and takes us to<br \/>\nhim, not into a blank of featureless existence, but most positively, deeply,<br \/>\nwonderfully into all Himself and in all the ways of his and our conscious<br \/>\nexistence. This highest experience and this largest way of seeing open a<br \/>\nprofound, moving and endless significance to our parts of nature, our<br \/>\nknowledge, will, heart&#8217;s love and adoration, which is lost or diminished if we<br \/>\nput an exclusive stress on the impersonal, because that stress suppresses or <span class=\"SpellE\">minimises<\/span> or does not allow of the <span class=\"SpellE\">intensest<\/span><br \/>\nfulfillment of movements and powers that are a portion of our deepest nature,<br \/>\nintensities and luminosities that are attached to the closest essential <span class=\"SpellE\">fibres<\/span> of our self-experience. It is not the austerity of<br \/>\nknowledge alone that can help us; there is room and infinite room for the<br \/>\nheart&#8217;s love and aspiration illumined and uplifted by knowledge, a more<br \/>\nmystically clear, a greater calmly passionate knowledge. It is by the perpetual<br \/>\nunified closeness of our heart-consciousness, mind-consciousness, all<br \/>\nconsciousness, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>satatam<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">maccittah<\/span><\/i>,<br \/>\nthat we get the widest, the deepest, the most integral experience of our<br \/>\noneness with the Eternal. A nearest oneness in all the being, profoundly<br \/>\nindividual in a divine passion even in the midst of universality, even at the<br \/>\ntop of transcendence is here enjoined on the human soul as its way to reach the<br \/>\nHighest and its way to possess the perfection and the divine consciousness to<br \/>\nwhich it is called by its nature as a spirit. The intelligence and&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 531<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>will have to turn the whole<br \/>\nexistence in all its parts to the <span class=\"SpellE\">Ishwara<\/span>, to the<br \/>\ndivine Self and Master of that whole existence, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>buddhi-yogam<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">up&#257;&#347;ritya<\/span><\/i>. The heart has to<br \/>\ncast all other emotion into the delight of oneness with him and the love of Him<br \/>\nin all creatures. The sense <span class=\"SpellE\">spiritualised<\/span> has to see<br \/>\nand hear and feel him everywhere. The life has to be utterly his life in the <span class=\"SpellE\">Jiva<\/span>. All the actions have to proceed from his sole power<br \/>\nand sole initiation in the will, knowledge, organs of action, senses, vital<br \/>\nparts, body. This way is deeply impersonal because the separateness of ego is<br \/>\nabolished for the soul <span class=\"SpellE\">universalised<\/span> and restored to<br \/>\ntranscendence. And yet it is intimately personal because it soars to a<br \/>\ntranscendent passion and power of indwelling and oneness. A featureless<br \/>\nextinction may be a rigorous demand of the mind&#8217;s logic of self-annulment; it<br \/>\nis not the last word of the supreme mystery, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>rahasyam<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">uttamam<\/span><\/i>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><span>\u00a0<\/span>The refusal of <span class=\"SpellE\">Arjuna<\/span><br \/>\nto persevere in his divinely appointed work proceeded from the ego sense in<br \/>\nhim, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>ahamk&#257;ra<\/i><\/span>.<br \/>\nBehind it was a mixture and confusion and tangled error of ideas and impulsions<br \/>\nof the <span class=\"SpellE\">sattwic<\/span>, <span class=\"SpellE\">rajasic<\/span>, <span class=\"SpellE\">tamasic<\/span> ego, the vital nature&#8217;s fear of sin and its<br \/>\npersonal consequences, the heart&#8217;s recoil from individual grief and suffering,<br \/>\nthe clouded reason&#8217;s covering of egoistic impulses by self-deceptive specious<br \/>\npleas of right and virtue, our nature&#8217;s ignorant shrinking from the ways of God<br \/>\nbecause they seem other than the ways of man and impose things terrible and<br \/>\nunpleasant on his nervous and emotional parts and his intelligence. The<br \/>\nspiritual consequences will be infinitely worse now than before, now that a<br \/>\nhigher truth and a greater way and spirit of action have been revealed to him,<br \/>\nif yet persisting in his egoism he perseveres in a vain and impossible refusal.<br \/>\nFor it is a vain resolution, a futile recoil, since it springs only from a<br \/>\ntemporary failure of strength, a strong but passing deviation from the<br \/>\nprinciple of energy of his inmost character, and is not the true will and way<br \/>\nof his nature. If now he casts down his arms, he will yet be compelled by that<br \/>\nnature to resume them when he sees the battle and slaughter go on without him,<br \/>\nhis abstention a defeat of all for which he has lived, the cause for whose<br \/>\nservice he was born weakened and bewildered by the absence or inactivity of its<br \/>\nprotagonist, vanquished and afflicted by the<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 532<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>cynical and unscrupulous strength<br \/>\nof the champions of a self-regarding unrighteousness and injustice. And in this<br \/>\nreturn there will be no spiritual virtue. It was a confusion of the ideas and<br \/>\nfeelings of the ego mind that impelled his refusal; it will be his nature working<br \/>\nthrough a restoration of the characteristic ideas and feelings of the ego mind<br \/>\nthat will compel him to annul his refusal. But whatever the direction, this<br \/>\ncontinued subjection to the ego will mean a worse, a more fatal spiritual<br \/>\nrefusal, a perdition, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>vinasti<\/i><\/span>;<br \/>\nfor it will be a definite falling away from a greater truth of his being than<br \/>\nthat which he has followed in the ignorance of the lower nature. He has been<br \/>\nadmitted to a higher consciousness, a new self-<span class=\"SpellE\">realisation<\/span>,<br \/>\nhe has been shown the possibility of a divine instead of an egoistic action;<br \/>\nthe gates have been opened before him of a divine and spiritual in place of a<br \/>\nmerely intellectual, emotional, sensuous and vital life. He is called to be no<br \/>\nlonger a great blind instrument, but a conscious soul and an enlightened power<br \/>\nand vessel of the Godhead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><span>\u00a0<\/span>For there is this possibility within us: there<br \/>\nis open to us even at our human highest this consummation and transcendence.<br \/>\nThe ordinary mind and life of man is a half-enlightened and mostly an ignorant<br \/>\ndevelopment and a partial uncompleted manifestation of something concealed<br \/>\nwithin him. There is a godhead there concealed from himself, subliminal to his<br \/>\nconsciousness, <span class=\"SpellE\">immobilised<\/span> behind the obscure veil of<br \/>\na working that is not wholly his own and the secret of which he has not yet<br \/>\nmastered. He finds himself in the world thinking and willing and feeling and<br \/>\nacting and he takes himself instinctively or intellectually conceives of<br \/>\nhimself or at least conducts his life as a separate self-existent being who has<br \/>\nthe freedom of his thought and will and feeling and action. He bears the burden<br \/>\nof his sin and error and suffering and takes the responsibility and merit of<br \/>\nhis knowledge and virtue; he claims the right to satisfy his <span class=\"SpellE\">sattwic<\/span>, <span class=\"SpellE\">rajasic<\/span> or <span class=\"SpellE\">tamasic<\/span> ego and arrogates the power to shape his own<br \/>\ndestiny and to turn the world to his own uses. It is this idea of himself<br \/>\nthrough which Nature works in him, and she deals with him according to his own<br \/>\nconception, but fulfils all the time the will of the greater Spirit within her.<br \/>\nThe error of this self-view of man is like most of his errors the distortion of<br \/>\na truth, a distortion<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 533<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>that creates a whole system of<br \/>\nerroneous and yet effective values. What is true of his spirit he attributes to<br \/>\nhis ego-personality and gives it a false application, a false form and a mass<br \/>\nof ignorant consequences. The ignorance lies in this fundamental deficiency of<br \/>\nhis surface consciousness that he identifies himself only with the outward mechanical<br \/>\npart of him which is a convenience of Nature and with so much only of the soul<br \/>\nas reflects and is reflected in these workings. He misses the greater inner<br \/>\nspirit within which gives to all his mind and life and creation and action an unfulfilled<br \/>\npromise and a hidden significance. A universal Nature here obeys the power of<br \/>\nthe Spirit who is the master of the universe, shapes each creature and<br \/>\ndetermines its action according to the law of its own nature, <span class=\"SpellE\">Swabhava<\/span>, shapes man too and determines his action<br \/>\naccording to the general law of nature of his kind, the law of a mental being <span class=\"SpellE\">emmeshed<\/span> and ignorant in the life and the body, shapes too<br \/>\neach man and determines his individual action according to the law of his own distinct<br \/>\ntype and the variations of his own original <span class=\"SpellE\">swabhava<\/span>.<br \/>\nIt is this universal Nature that forms and directs the mechanical workings of<br \/>\nthe body and the instinctive operations of our vital and nervous parts; and<br \/>\nthere our subjection to her is very obvious. And she has formed and directs the<br \/>\naction too, hardly less mechanical as things now are, of our sense-mind and<br \/>\nwill and intelligence. Only, while in the animal the mind workings are a wholly<br \/>\nmechanical obedience to <span class=\"SpellE\">Prakriti<\/span>, man has this<br \/>\ndistinction that he embodies a conscious development in which the soul more<br \/>\nactively participates, and that gives to his outward mentality the sense,<br \/>\nuseful to him, indispensable, but very largely a misleading sense, of a certain<br \/>\nfreedom and increasing mastery of his instrumental nature. And it is especially<br \/>\nmisleading because it blinds him to the hard fact of his bondage and his false<br \/>\nidea of freedom prevents him from finding a true liberty and lordship. For the<br \/>\nfreedom and mastery of man over his nature are hardly even real and cannot be<br \/>\ncomplete until he becomes aware of the Divinity within him and is in possession<br \/>\nof his own real self and spirit other than the ego, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>&#257;tmav&#257;n<\/i><\/span>. It is that<br \/>\nwhich Nature is <span class=\"SpellE\">labouring<\/span> to express in mind and life<br \/>\nand body; it is that which imposes on her this or that law of being and&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 534<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>working, <span class=\"SpellE\">Swabhava<\/span>;<br \/>\nit is that which shapes the outward destiny and the evolution of the soul within<br \/>\nus. It is therefore only when he is in possession of his real self and spirit<br \/>\nthat his nature can become a conscious instrument and enlightened power of the<br \/>\ngodhead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>For then, when we enter into that<br \/>\ninmost self of our existence, we come to know that in us and in all is the one<br \/>\nSpirit and Godhead whom all Nature serves and manifests and we ourselves are<br \/>\nsoul of this Soul, spirit of this Spirit, our body his delegated image, our<br \/>\nlife a movement of the rhythm of his life, our mind a sheath of his consciousness,<br \/>\nour senses his instruments, our emotions and sensations the <span class=\"SpellE\">seekings<\/span><br \/>\nof his delight of being, our actions a means of his purpose, our freedom only a<br \/>\nshadow, suggestion or glimpse while we are ignorant, but when we know him and<br \/>\nourselves a prolongation and effective channel of his immortal freedom. Our<br \/>\nmasteries are a reflection of his power at work, our best knowledge a partial<br \/>\nlight of his knowledge, the highest most potent will of our spirit a projection<br \/>\nand delegation of the will of this Spirit in all things who is the Master and<br \/>\nSoul of the universe. It is the Lord seated in the heart of every creature who<br \/>\nhas been turning us in all our inner and outer action during the ignorance as<br \/>\nif mounted on a machine on the wheel of this Maya of the lower Nature. And<br \/>\nwhether obscure in the Ignorance or luminous in the Knowledge, it is for him in<br \/>\nus and him in the world that we have our existence. To live consciously and<br \/>\nintegrally in this knowledge and this truth is to escape from ego and break out<br \/>\nof Maya. All other highest <span class=\"SpellE\">dharmas<\/span> are only a<br \/>\npreparation for this Dharma, and all Yoga is only a means by which we can come<br \/>\nfirst to some kind of union and finally, if we have the full light, to an<br \/>\nintegral union with the Master and supreme Soul and Self of our existence. The<br \/>\ngreatest Yoga is to take refuge from all the perplexities and difficulties of<br \/>\nour nature with this indwelling Lord of all Nature, to turn to him with our<br \/>\nwhole being, with the life and body and sense and mind and heart and<br \/>\nunderstanding, with our whole dedicated knowledge and will and action, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>sarva-bh&#257;vena<\/i><\/span>,<br \/>\nin every way of our conscious self and our instrumental nature. And when we can<br \/>\nat all times and entirely do this, then the divine Light and Love and Power<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 535<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>takes hold of us, fills both self<br \/>\nand instruments and leads us safe through all the doubts and difficulties and<br \/>\nperplexities and perils that beset our soul and our life, leads us to a supreme<br \/>\npeace and the spiritual freedom of our immortal and eternal status, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>par&#257;m<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">&#347;&#257;ntim<\/span>,<br \/>\n<span class=\"SpellE\">sth&#257;nam<\/span> <span class=\"SpellE\">&#347;&#257;&#347;vatam<\/span><\/i>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'><span>\u00a0<\/span>For after giving out all the laws, the <span class=\"SpellE\">dharmas<\/span>, and the deepest essence of its Yoga, after saying<br \/>\nthat beyond all the first secrets revealed to the mind of man by the<br \/>\ntransforming light of spiritual knowledge, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>guhy&#257;t<\/i><\/span>, this is a still deeper<br \/>\nmore secret truth, <span class=\"SpellE\">guhyataram<\/span>, the Gita suddenly<br \/>\ndeclares that there is yet a supreme word that it has to speak, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>paramam<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">vacah<\/span><\/i>, and a<br \/>\nmost secret truth of all, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>sarva-guhyatamam<\/i><\/span>. This secret of secrets the Teacher will<br \/>\ntell to <span class=\"SpellE\">Arjuna<\/span> as his highest good because he is the<br \/>\nchosen and beloved soul, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>ista<\/i><\/span>.<br \/>\nFor evidently, as had already been declared by the Upanishad, it is only the<br \/>\nrare soul chosen by the Spirit for the revelation of his very body, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>tanum<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">sv&#257;m<\/span><\/i>,<br \/>\nwho can be admitted to this mystery, because he alone is near enough in heart<br \/>\nand mind and life to the Godhead to respond truly to it in all his being and to<br \/>\nmake it a living practice. The last, the closing supreme word of the Gita<br \/>\nexpressing the highest mystery is spoken in two brief, direct and simple <span class=\"SpellE\">slokas<\/span> and these are left without farther comment or<br \/>\nenlargement to sink into the mind and reveal their own fullness of meaning in<br \/>\nthe soul&#8217;s experience. For it is alone this inner incessantly extending experience<br \/>\nthat can make evident the infinite deal of meaning with which are for ever<br \/>\npregnant these words in themselves apparently so slight and simple. And we<br \/>\nfeel, as they are being uttered, that it was this for which the soul of the<br \/>\ndisciple was being prepared all the time and the rest was only an enlightening<br \/>\nand enabling discipline and doctrine. Thus runs this secret of secrets, the<br \/>\nhighest most direct message of the <span class=\"SpellE\">Ishwara<\/span>. \u201cBecome<br \/>\nmy-minded, my lover and adorer, a <span class=\"SpellE\">sacrificer<\/span> to me,<br \/>\nbow thyself to me, to me thou shalt come, this is my pledge and promise to<br \/>\nthee, for dear art thou to me. Abandon all <span class=\"SpellE\">dharmas<\/span><br \/>\nand take refuge in me alone. I will deliver thee from all sin and evil, do not<br \/>\ngrieve.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'>The Gita<br \/>\nthroughout has been insisting on a great and well-built discipline of Yoga, a<br \/>\nlarge and clearly traced philosophical system, on the <span class=\"SpellE\">Swabhava<\/span><br \/>\nand the <span class=\"SpellE\">Swadharma<\/span>, on the <span class=\"SpellE\">sattwic<\/span>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 536<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>law of life as leading out of<br \/>\nitself by a self-exceeding exaltation to a free spiritual dharma of immortal<br \/>\nexistence utterly wide in its spaces and high-lifted beyond the limitation of<br \/>\neven this highest <span class=\"SpellE\">guna<\/span>, on many rules and means and<br \/>\ninjunctions and conditions of perfection, and now suddenly it seems to break<br \/>\nout of its own structure and says to the human soul, \u201cAbandon all <span class=\"SpellE\">dharmas<\/span>, give thyself to the Divine alone, to the supreme<br \/>\nGodhead above and around and within thee: that is all that thou <span class=\"SpellE\">needest<\/span>, that is the truest and greatest way, that is the<br \/>\nreal deliverance.\u201d The Master of the worlds in the form of the divine<br \/>\nCharioteer and Teacher of <span class=\"SpellE\">Kurukshetra<\/span> has revealed to<br \/>\nman the magnificent realities of God and Self and Spirit and the nature of the<br \/>\ncomplex world and the relation of man&#8217;s mind and life and heart and senses to<br \/>\nthe Spirit and the victorious means by which through his own spiritual<br \/>\nself-discipline and effort he can rise out of mortality into immortality and<br \/>\nout of his limited mental into his infinite spiritual existence. And now<br \/>\nspeaking as the Spirit and Godhead in man and in all things he says to him, \u201cAll<br \/>\nthis personal effort and self-discipline will not in the end be needed, all<br \/>\nfollowing and limitation of rule and dharma can at last be thrown away as<br \/>\nhampering encumbrances if thou canst make a complete surrender to Me, depend<br \/>\nalone on the Spirit and Godhead within thee and all things and trust to his<br \/>\nsole guidance. Turn all thy mind to me and fill it with the thought of me and<br \/>\nmy presence. Turn all thy heart to me, make thy every action, whatever it be, a<br \/>\nsacrifice and offering to me. That done, leave me to do my will with thy life<br \/>\nand soul and action; do not be grieved or perplexed by my dealings with thy<br \/>\nmind and heart and life and works or troubled because they do not seem to<br \/>\nfollow the laws and <span class=\"SpellE\">dharmas<\/span> man imposes on himself to<br \/>\nguide his limited will and intelligence. My ways are the ways of a perfect<br \/>\nwisdom and power and love that knows all things and combines all its movements<br \/>\nin view of a perfect eventual result; for it is refining and weaving together the<br \/>\nmany threads of an integral perfection. I am here with thee in thy chariot of<br \/>\nbattle revealed as the Master of Existence within and without thee and I repeat<br \/>\nthe absolute assurance, the infallible promise that I will lead thee to myself<br \/>\nthrough and beyond all sorrow and evil. Whatever difficulties&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 537<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>and perplexities arise, be sure<br \/>\nof this that I am leading thee to a complete divine life in the universal and<br \/>\nan immortal existence in the transcendent Spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'><span>\u00a0<\/span>The secret thing, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>guhyam<\/i><\/span>, that all deep spiritual<br \/>\nknowledge reveals to us, mirrored in various teachings and justified in the<br \/>\nsoul&#8217;s experience, is for the Gita the secret of the spiritual self hidden<br \/>\nwithin us of which mind and external Nature are only manifestations or figures.<br \/>\nIt is the secret of the constant relations between soul and Nature, <span class=\"SpellE\">Purusha<\/span> and <span class=\"SpellE\">Prakriti<\/span>, the secret<br \/>\nof an indwelling Godhead who is the lord of all existence and veiled from us in<br \/>\nits forms and movements. These are the truths taught in many ways by Vedanta<br \/>\nand <span class=\"SpellE\">Sankhya<\/span> and Yoga and <span class=\"SpellE\">synthetised<\/span><br \/>\nin the earlier chapters of the Gita. And amidst all their apparent distinctions<br \/>\nthey are one truth and all the different ways of Yoga are various means of<br \/>\nspiritual self-discipline by which our unquiet mind and blinded life are<br \/>\nstilled and turned towards this many-<span class=\"SpellE\">aspected<\/span> One and<br \/>\nthe secret truth of self and God made so real to us and intimate that we can<br \/>\neither consciously live and dwell in it or lose our separate selves in the<br \/>\nEternal and no longer be compelled at all by the mental Ignorance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'>The more secret<br \/>\nthing, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>guhyataram<\/i><\/span>,<br \/>\ndeveloped by the Gita is the profound reconciling truth of the divine <span class=\"SpellE\">Purushottama<\/span>, at once self and <span class=\"SpellE\">Purusha<\/span>,<br \/>\nsupreme Brahman and a sole, intimate, mysterious, ineffable Godhead. That gives<br \/>\nto the thought a larger and more deeply understanding foundation for an<br \/>\nultimate knowledge and to the spiritual experience a greater and more fully<br \/>\ncomprehending and comprehensive Yoga. This deeper mystery is founded on the<br \/>\nsecret of the supreme spiritual <span class=\"SpellE\">Prakriti<\/span> and of the <span class=\"SpellE\">Jiva<\/span>, an eternal portion of the Divine in that eternal and<br \/>\nthis manifested Nature and of one spirit and essence with him in his immutable<br \/>\nself-existence. This profounder knowledge escapes from the elementary<br \/>\ndistinction of spiritual experience between the Beyond and what is here. For<br \/>\nthe Transcendent beyond the worlds is at the same time <span class=\"SpellE\">Vasudeva<\/span><br \/>\nwho is all things in all worlds; he is the Lord standing in the heart of every<br \/>\ncreature and the self of all existences and the origin and supernal meaning of<br \/>\neverything that he has put forth in his <span class=\"SpellE\">Prakriti<\/span>. He<br \/>\nis manifested in his <span class=\"SpellE\">Vibhutis<\/span> and he is the Spirit in<br \/>\nTime who compels&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 538<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>the action of the world and the<br \/>\nSun of all knowledge and the Lover and Beloved of the soul and the Master of<br \/>\nall works and sacrifice. The result of an inmost opening to this deeper, truer,<br \/>\nmore secret mystery is the <span class=\"SpellE\">Gita&#8217;s<\/span> Yoga of integral<br \/>\nknowledge, integral works and integral <span class=\"SpellE\">bhakti<\/span>. It is<br \/>\nthe simultaneous experience of spiritual universality and a free and perfected<br \/>\nspiritual individuality, of an entire union with God and an entire dwelling in<br \/>\nhim as at once the frame of the soul&#8217;s immortality and the support and power of<br \/>\nour liberated action in the world and the body.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>And now there comes the supreme<br \/>\nword and most secret thing of all, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>guhyatamam<\/i><\/span>, that the Spirit and Godhead is an Infinite free<br \/>\nfrom all <span class=\"SpellE\">dharmas<\/span> and though he conducts the world<br \/>\naccording to fixed laws and leads man through his <span class=\"SpellE\">dharmas<\/span><br \/>\nof ignorance and knowledge, sin and virtue, right and wrong, liking and<br \/>\ndisliking and indifference, pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow and the rejection<br \/>\nof these opposites, through his physical and vital, intellectual, emotional,<br \/>\nethical and spiritual forms and rules and standards, yet the Spirit and Godhead<br \/>\ntranscends all these things, and if we too can cast away all dependence on <span class=\"SpellE\">dharmas<\/span>, surrender ourselves to this free and eternal<br \/>\nSpirit and, taking care only to keep ourselves absolutely and exclusively open<br \/>\nto him, trust to the light and power and delight of the Divine in us and,<br \/>\nunafraid and <span class=\"SpellE\">ungrieving<\/span>, accept only his guidance,<br \/>\nthen that is the truest, the greatest release and that brings the absolute and<br \/>\ninevitable perfection of our self and nature. This is the way offered to the<br \/>\nchosen of the Spirit,\u2014to those only in whom he takes the greatest delight<br \/>\nbecause they are nearest to him and most capable of oneness and of being even<br \/>\nas he, freely consenting and concordant with Nature in her highest power and<br \/>\nmovement, universal in soul consciousness, transcendent in the spirit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'><span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>For<br \/>\na time comes in spiritual development when we become aware that all our effort<br \/>\nand action are only our mental and vital reactions to the silent and secret<br \/>\ninsistence of a greater Presence in and around us. It is borne in upon us that<br \/>\nall our Yoga, our aspiration and our <span class=\"SpellE\">endeavour<\/span> are<br \/>\nimperfect or narrow forms, because disfigured or at least limited by the mind&#8217;s<br \/>\nassociations, demands,&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 539<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>prejudgments, predilections,<br \/>\nmistranslations or half translations of a vaster truth. Our ideas and experiences<br \/>\nand efforts are mental images only of greatest things which would be done more<br \/>\nperfectly, directly, freely, largely, more in harmony with the universal and<br \/>\neternal will by that Power itself in us if we could only put ourselves passively<br \/>\nas instruments in the hands of a supreme and absolute strength and wisdom. That<br \/>\nPower is not separate from us; it is our own self one with the self of all<br \/>\nothers and at the same time a transcendent Being and an immanent Person. Our existence,<br \/>\nour action taken up into this greatest Existence would be no longer, as it<br \/>\nseems to us now, individually our own in a mental separation. It would be the<br \/>\nvast movement of an Infinity and an intimate ineffable Presence; it would be<br \/>\nthe constant spontaneity of formation and expression in us of this deep<br \/>\nuniversal self and this transcendent Spirit. The Gita indicates that in order<br \/>\nthat that may wholly be, the surrender must be without reservations; our Yoga,<br \/>\nour life, our state of inner being must be determined freely by this living<br \/>\nInfinite, not predetermined by our mind&#8217;s insistence on this or that dharma or<br \/>\nany dharma. The divine Master of the Yoga, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>yoge&#347;varah<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">krisnah<\/span><\/i>, will<br \/>\nthen himself take up our Yoga and raise us to our utmost possible perfection,<br \/>\nnot the perfection of any external or mental standard or limiting rule, but<br \/>\nvast and comprehensive, to the mind incalculable. It will be a perfection<br \/>\ndeveloped by an all-seeing Wisdom according to the whole truth, first indeed of<br \/>\nour human <span class=\"SpellE\">swabhava<\/span>, but afterwards of a greater thing<br \/>\ninto which it will open, a spirit and power illimitable, immortal, free and<br \/>\nall-transmuting, the light and <span class=\"SpellE\">splendour<\/span> of a divine and<br \/>\ninfinite nature. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'>All must be<br \/>\ngiven as material of that transmutation. An omniscient consciousness will take<br \/>\nup our knowledge and our ignorance, our truth and our error, cast away their<br \/>\nforms of insufficiency, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>sarva-dharm&#257;n<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">parityajya<\/span><\/i>,<br \/>\nand transform all into its infinite light. An almighty Power will take up our<br \/>\nvirtue and sin, our right and wrong, our strength and our weakness, cast away<br \/>\ntheir tangled figures, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>sarva-dharm&#257;n<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">parityajya<\/span><\/i>,<br \/>\nand transform all into its transcendent purity and<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 540<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>universal good and infallible<br \/>\nforce. An ineffable <span class=\"SpellE\">Ananda<\/span> will take up our petty joy<br \/>\nand sorrow, our struggling pleasure and pain, cast away their discordances and<br \/>\nimperfect rhythms, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>sarva-dharm&#257;n<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">parityajya<\/span><\/i>,<br \/>\nand transform all into its transcendent and universal unimaginable delight. All<br \/>\nthat all the <span class=\"SpellE\">Yogas<\/span> can do will be done and more; but<br \/>\nit will be done in a greater seeing way, with a greater wisdom and truth than<br \/>\nany human teacher, saint or sage can give us. The inner spiritual state to<br \/>\nwhich this supreme Yoga will take us, will be above all that is here and yet<br \/>\ncomprehensive of all things in this and other worlds, but with a spiritual<br \/>\ntransformation of all, without limitation, without bondage, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>sarva-dharm&#257;n<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">parityajya<\/span><\/i>.<br \/>\nThe infinite existence, consciousness and delight of the Godhead in its calm<br \/>\nsilence and bright boundless activity will be there, will be its essential, fundamental,<br \/>\nuniversal stuff, mould and character. And in that mould of infinity the Divine<br \/>\nmade manifest will overtly dwell, no longer concealed by his <span class=\"SpellE\">Yogamaya<\/span>, and whenever and as he wills build in us whatever<br \/>\nshapes of the Infinite, translucent forms of knowledge, thought, love,<br \/>\nspiritual joy, power and action according to his self-fulfilling will and immortal<br \/>\npleasure. And there will be no binding effect on the free soul and the<br \/>\nunaffected nature, no <span class=\"SpellE\">unescapable<\/span> <span class=\"SpellE\">crystallising<\/span><br \/>\ninto this or that inferior formula. For all the action will be executed by the<br \/>\npower of the Spirit in a divine freedom, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>sarva-dharm&#257;n<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">parityajya<\/span><\/i>.<br \/>\nAn <span class=\"SpellE\">unfallen<\/span> abiding in the transcendent Spirit, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>param<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">dh&#257;ma<\/span><\/i>,<br \/>\nwill be the foundation and the assurance of this spiritual state. An intimate<br \/>\nunderstanding oneness with universal being and all creatures, released from the<br \/>\nevil and suffering of the <span class=\"SpellE\">separative<\/span> mind but wisely<br \/>\nregardful of true distinctions, will be the conditioning power. A constant<br \/>\ndelight, oneness and harmony of the eternal individual here with the Divine and<br \/>\nall that he is will be the effect of this integral liberation. The baffling<br \/>\nproblems of our human existence of which <span class=\"SpellE\">Arjuna&#8217;s<\/span><br \/>\ndifficulty stands as an acute example, are created by our <span class=\"SpellE\">separative<\/span><br \/>\npersonality in the Ignorance. This Yoga because it puts the soul of man into<br \/>\nits right relation with God and world-existence and makes our action God&#8217;s, the<br \/>\nknowledge and will shaping and moving it his and our life the harmony of a<br \/>\ndivine self-expression, is the way to their total disappearance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><span>\u00a0<\/span>The whole Yoga is revealed, the great word of<br \/>\nthe teaching&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 541<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>is given, and <span class=\"SpellE\">Arjuna<\/span><br \/>\nthe chosen human soul is once more turned, no longer in his egoistic mind but<br \/>\nin this greatest self-knowledge, to the divine action. The <span class=\"SpellE\">Vibhuti<\/span><br \/>\nis ready for the divine life in the human, his conscious spirit for the works<br \/>\nof the liberated soul, <span class=\"SpellE\">muktasya<\/span> karma. Destroyed is<br \/>\nthe illusion of the mind; the soul&#8217;s memory of its self and its truth concealed<br \/>\nso long by the misleading shows and forms of our life has returned to it and<br \/>\nbecome its normal consciousness: all doubt and perplexity gone, it can turn to<br \/>\nthe execution of the command and do faithfully whatever work for God and the<br \/>\nworld may be appointed and apportioned to it by the Master of our being, the<br \/>\nSpirit and Godhead self-fulfilled in Time and universe.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 542<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TWENTY-TWO The Supreme Secret*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; THE essence of the teaching and the Yoga has thus been given to the disciple on the field of&#8230;<\/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-1388","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\/1388","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=1388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}