{"id":1389,"date":"2013-07-13T01:34:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1389"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:34:29","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:29","slug":"24-beyond-the-modes-of-nature-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13\/24-beyond-the-modes-of-nature-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","title":{"rendered":"-24_Beyond the Modes of Nature.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\n
\nTWENTY TWO<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nBeyond the Modes of Nature<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nS<\/font><\/span><\/b>O FAR<\/font> then extends the determinism of Nature, and what it
\namounts to is this that the ego from which we act is itself an instrument of
\nthe action of Prakriti and cannot therefore be free from the control of
\nPrakriti; the will of the ego is a will determined by Prakriti, it is a part of
\nthe nature as it has been formed in us by the sum of its own past action and self-modification,
\nand by the nature in us so formed and the will in it so formed our present
\naction also is determined. It is said by some that the first initiating action
\nis always free to our choice however much all that follows may be determined by
\nthat, and in this power of initiation and its effect on our future lies our
\nresponsibility. But where is that first action in Nature which has no
\ndetermining past behind it, where that present condition of our nature which is
\nnot in sum and detail the result of the action of our past nature? We have that
\nimpression of a free initial act because we are living at every moment from our
\npresent on towards our future and we do not live back constantly from our
\npresent into our past, so that what is strongly vivid to our minds is the
\npresent and its consequences while we have a much less vivid hold of our
\npresent as entirely the consequence of our past; this latter we are apt to look
\non as if it were dead and done with. We speak and act as if we were perfectly
\nfree in the pure and virgin moment to do what we will with ourselves using an
\nabsolute inward independence of choice. But there is no such absolute liberty,
\nour choice has no such independence. <\/p>\n

Certainly, the
\nwill in us has always to choose between a certain number of possibilities, for
\nthat is the way in which Nature always acts; even our passivity, our refusal to
\nwill, is itself a choice, itself an act of the will of Nature in us; even in the
\natom there is a will always at its work. The whole difference is the extent to
\nwhich we associate our idea of self with the action of the <\/p>\n

\nPage 214<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

will in Nature; when we so
\nassociate ourselves, we think of it as our will and say that it is a free will
\nand that it is we who are acting. And error or not, illusion or not, this idea
\nof our will, of our action is not a thing of no consequence, of no utility; everything
\nin Nature has a consequence and a utility. It is rather that process of our
\nconscious being by which Nature in us becomes more and more aware of and responsive
\nto the presence of the secret Purusha within her and opens by that increase of
\nknowledge to a greater possibility of action; it is by the aid of the ego-idea
\nand the personal will that she raises herself to her own higher possibilities,
\nrises out of the sheer or else the predominant passivity of the tamasic nature
\ninto the passion and the struggle of the rajasic nature and from the passion
\nand the struggle of the rajasic nature to the greater light, happiness and
\npurity of the sattwic nature. The relative self-mastery gained by the natural
\nman over himself is the dominion achieved by the higher possibilities of his nature
\nover its lower possibilities, and this is done in him when he associates his
\nidea of self with the struggle of the higher guna to get the mastery, the
\npredominance over the lower Guna. The sense of free will, illusion or not, is a
\nnecessary machinery of the action of Nature, necessary for man during his
\nprogress, and it would be disastrous for him to lose it before he is ready for
\na higher truth. If it be said, as it has been said, that Nature deludes man to
\nfulfil her behests and that the idea of a free individual will is the most
\npowerful of these delusions, then it must also be said that the delusion is for
\nhis good and without it he could not rise to his full possibilities. <\/p>\n

But it is not a
\nsheer delusion, it is only an error of standpoint and an error of placement.
\nThe ego thinks that it is the real self and acts as if it were the true centre
\nof action and as if all existed for its sake, and there it commits an error of standpoint
\nand placement. It is not wrong in thinking that there is something or someone
\nwithin ourselves, within this action of our nature, who is the true centre of
\nits action and for whom all exists; but this is not the ego, it is the Lord
\nsecret within our hearts, the divine Purusha, and the Jiva, other than ego, who
\nis a portion of his being. The self-assertion of ego-sense is the broken and
\ndistorted shadow in our minds of the truth that there is a real Self <\/p>\n

\nPage 215<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 within us which is the master of
\nall and for whom and at whose behest Nature goes about her works. So too the
\nego’s idea of free will is a distorted and misplaced sense of the truth that
\nthere is a free Self within us and that the will in Nature is only a modified
\nand partial reflection of its will, modified and partial because it lives in
\nthe successive moments of Time and acts by a constant series of modifications which
\nforget much of their own precedents and are only imperfectly conscious of their
\nown consequences and aims. But the Will within, exceeding the moments of Time,
\nknows all these, and the action of Nature in us is an attempt, we might say, to
\nwork out under the difficult conditions of a natural and egoistic ignorance
\nwhat is foreseen in full supramental light by the inner Will and Knowledge. <\/p>\n

But a time must
\ncome in our progress when we are ready to open our eyes to the real truth of
\nour being, and then the error of our egoistic free will must fall away from us.
\nThe rejection of the idea of egoistic free will does not imply a cessation of
\naction, because Nature is the doer and carries out her action after this
\nmachinery is dispensed with even as she did before it came into usage in the
\nprocess of her evolution. In the man who has rejected it, it may even be
\npossible for her to develop a greater action; for his mind may be more aware of
\nall that his nature is by the self-creation of the past, more aware of the
\npowers that environ and are working upon it to help or to hinder its growth,
\nmore aware too of the latent greater possibilities which it contains by virtue
\nof all in it that is unexpressed, yet capable of expression; and this mind may be
\na freer channel for the sanction of the Purusha to the greater possibilities
\nthat it sees and a freer instrument for the response of Nature, for her
\nresultant attempt at their development and realisation. But the rejection of
\nfree will must not be a mere fatalism or idea of natural determinism in the
\nunderstanding without any vision of the real Self in us; for then the ego still
\nremains as our sole idea of self and, as that is always the instrument of
\nPrakriti, we still act by the ego and with our will as her instrument, and the
\nidea in us brings no real change, but only a modification of our intellectual
\nattitude. We shall have accepted the phenomenal truth of the determination of
\nour egoistic being and action <\/p>\n

\nPage 216<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 by Nature, we shall have seen our
\nsubjection: but we shall not have seen the unborn Self within which is above
\nthe action of the gunas; we shall not have seen wherein lies our gate of
\nfreedom. Nature and ego are not all we are; there is the free soul, the
\nPurusha. <\/p>\n

But in what
\nconsists this freedom of the Purusha? The Purusha of the current Sankhya
\nphilosophy is free in the essence of his being, but because he is the non-doer,
\nakartā<\/i>; and in so far as he
\npermits Nature to throw on the inactive Soul her shadow of action, he becomes
\nbound phenomenally by the actions of the gunas and cannot recover his freedom except
\nby dissociation from her and by cessation of her activities. If then a man
\ncasts from him the idea of himself as the doer or of the works as his, if, as
\nthe Gita enjoins, he fixes himself in the view of himself as the inactive
\nnon-doer, ātmānam akartāram<\/i>,
\nand all action as not his own but Nature’s, as the play of her gunas, will not
\na like result follow? The Sankhya Purusha is the giver of the sanction, but a
\npassive sanction only, anumati<\/i>, the
\nwork is entirely Nature’s; essentially he is the witness and sustainer, not the
\ngoverning and active consciousness of the universal Godhead. He is the Soul
\nthat sees and accepts, as a spectator accepts the representation of a play he
\nis watching, not the Soul that both governs and watches the play planned by
\nhimself and staged in his own being. If then he withdraws the sanction, if he
\nrefuses to acknowledge the illusion of doing by which the play continues, he
\nceases also to be the sustainer and the action comes to a stop, since it is only
\nfor the pleasure of the witnessing conscious Soul that Nature performs it and
\nonly by his support that she can maintain it. Therefore it is evident that the
\nGita’s conception of the relations of the Purusha and Prakriti are not the
\nSankhya’s, since the same movement leads to a quite different result, in one
\ncase to cessation of works, in the other to a great, a selfless and desireless,
\na divine action. In the Sankhya Soul and Nature are two different entities, in
\nthe Gita they are two aspects, two powers of one self-existent being; the Soul
\nis not only giver of the sanction, but lord of Nature, Ishwara, through her
\nenjoying the play of the world, through her executing divine will and knowledge
\nin a scheme of things <\/p>\n

\nPage 217<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

supported by his sanction and
\nexisting by his immanent presence, existing in his being, governed by the law of
\nhis being and by the conscious will within it. To know, to respond to, to live
\nin the divine being and nature of this Soul is the object of withdrawing from
\nthe ego and its action. One rises then above the lower nature of the gunas to
\nthe higher divine nature. <\/p>\n

The movement by
\nwhich this ascension is determined results from the complex poise of the Soul
\nin its relations with Nature; it depends on the Gita’s idea of the triple
\nPurusha. The Soul that immediately informs the action, the mutations, the successive
\nbecomings of Nature, is the Kshara, that which seems to change with her
\nchanges, to move in her motion, the Person who follows in his idea of his being
\nthe changes of his personality brought about by the continuous action of her Karma.
\nNature here is Kshara, a constant movement and mutation in Time, a constant
\nbecoming. But this Nature is simply the executive power of the Soul itself; for
\nonly by what he is, can she become, only according to the possibilities of his becoming,
\ncan she act; she works out the becoming of his being. Her Karma is determined
\nby Swabhava, the own-nature, the law of self-becoming of the soul, even though,
\nbecause it is the agent and executive of the becoming, the action rather seems
\noften to determine the nature. According to what we are, we act, and by our
\naction we develop, we work out what we are. Nature is the action, the mutation,
\nthe becoming, and it is the Power that executes all these; but the Soul is the conscious
\nBeing from which that Power proceeds, from whose luminous stuff of
\nconsciousness she has drawn the variable will that changes and expresses its
\nchanges in her actions. And this Soul is One and Many; it is the one Life-being
\nout of which all life is constituted and it is all these living beings; it is
\nthe cosmic Existent and it is all this multitude of cosmic existences, sarvabhūtāni<\/i>, for all these
\nare One; all the many Purushas are in their original being the one and only
\nPurusha. But the mechanism of the ego-sense in Nature, which is part of her
\naction, induces the mind to identify the soul’s consciousness with the limited
\nbecoming of the moment, with the sum of her active consciousness in a given
\nfield of space and time, with the result <\/p>\n

\nPage 218<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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from moment to moment of the sum
\nof her past actions. It is possible to realise in a way the unity\u00a0 <\/span>of all these beings even in Nature herself
\nand to become aware of a cosmic Soul which is manifest in the whole action of cosmic
\nNature, Nature manifesting the Soul, the Soul constituting the Nature. But this
\nis to become aware only of the great cosmic Becoming, which is not false or
\nunreal, but the knowledge of which alone does not give us the true knowledge of
\nour\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Self; for our true Self is always
\nsomething more than this and something beyond it. <\/p>\n

For, beyond the
\nsoul manifest in Nature and bound up with its action, is another status of the
\nPurusha, which is entirely a status and not at all an action; that is the
\nsilent, the immutable, the all-pervading, self-existent, motionless Self, sarvagatam<\/i>\u00a0 <\/span>acalam<\/i>,
\nimmutable Being and not Becoming, the Akshara. In the Kshara the Soul is
\ninvolved in the action of Nature, therefore it is concentrated, loses itself,
\nas it were, in the moments of Time, in the waves of the Becoming, not really,
\nbut\u00a0 <\/span>only in appearance and by following
\nthe current; in the Akshara Nature falls to silence and rest in the Soul,
\ntherefore it becomes aware of its immutable Being. The Kshara is the Sankhya’s
\nPurusha when it reflects the varied workings of the Gunas of Nature, and it
\nknows itself as the Saguna, the Personal; the Akshara is the Sankhya’s Purusha
\nwhen these Gunas have fallen into a state of equilibrium, and it knows itself
\nas the Nirguna, the Impersonal. Therefore while the Kshara, associating itself
\nwith the work of Prakriti, seems to be the doer of works, kartā<\/i>, the Akshara dissociated from all the workings of the
\ngunas is the inactive non-doer, akartā<\/i>,
\nand witness. The soul of man, when it takes the poise of the Kshara, identifies
\nitself with the play of personality and readily clouds its self-knowledge with
\nthe ego-sense in Nature, so that he thinks of himself as the ego-doer of works;
\nwhen it takes its poise in the Akshara, it identifies itself with the
\nImpersonal and is aware of Nature as the doer and itself as the inactive
\nwitnessing Self, akartāram<\/i>. The
\nmind of man has to tend to one of these poises, it takes them as alternatives;
\nit is bound by Nature to action in the mutations of quality and personality or
\nit is free from her workings in immutable impersonality.<\/p>\n

\nPage 219<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 But these two,
\nthe status and immutability of the Soul and the action of the Soul and its
\nmutability in Nature, actually coexist. And this would be an anomaly
\nirreconcilable except by some such theory as that of Maya or else of a double
\nand divided being, if there were not a supreme reality of the Soul’s existence
\nof which these are the two contrary aspects, but which is limited by neither of
\nthem. We have seen that the Gita finds this in the Purushottama. The supreme
\nSoul is the Ishwara, God, the Master of all being, sarvabhūta-maheśvara<\/i>. He puts forth his own active
\nnature, his Prakriti, \u2013 svām prakrtim<\/i>,
\nsays the Gita, \u2013 manifest in the Jiva, worked out by the svabhāva<\/i>, \u201cown-becoming\u201d, of each Jiva according to the law of
\nthe divine being in it, the great lines of which each Jiva must follow, but
\nworked out too in the egoistic nature by the\u00a0
\n<\/span>bewildering play of the three gunas upon each other, gunā gunesu
\nvartante<\/i>. That is the traigunyamayī<\/i>
\nmāyā<\/i>, the Maya hard for man
\nto get beyond, duratyayā<\/i>, \u2013 yet
\ncan one get beyond it by transcending the three gunas. For while all this is done
\nby the Ishwara through his Nature-Power in the Kshara, in the Akshara he is
\nuntouched, indifferent, regarding all equally, extended within all, yet above
\nall. In all three he is the Lord, the supreme Ishwara in the highest, the
\npresiding and all-pervading Impersonality, prabhu<\/i>
\nand vibhu<\/i>, in the Akshara, and the
\nimmanent Will and present active Lord in the Kshara. He is free in his
\nimpersonality even while working out the play of his personality; he is not either
\nmerely impersonal or personal, but one and the same being in two aspects; he is
\nthe impersonal-personal, nirguno
\ngunī<\/i>, of the Upanishad. By him all has been willed even before
\nit is worked out, \u2013 as he says of the still living Dhartarashtrians, \u201calready
\nhave they been slain by Me,\u201d mayā
\nnihatāh pūrvam eva<\/i>, \u2013 \u00a0<\/span>and the working out by Nature is only the
\nresult of his Will; yet by virtue of his impersonality behind he is not bound
\nby his works, kartāram akartāram.<\/i><\/p>\n

But man as the
\nindividual self, owing to his ignorant self-identification with the work and
\nthe becoming, as if that were all his soul and not a power of his soul, a power
\nproceeding from it, is bewildered by the ego-sense. He thinks that it is he and
\nothers who are doing all; he does not see that<\/p>\n

\nPage 220<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

Nature is doing all and that he
\nis misrepresenting and disfiguring her works to himself by ignorance and
\nattachment. He is enslaved by the gunas, now hampered in the dull case of
\ntamas, now blown by the strong winds of rajas, now limited by the partial
\nlights of sattwa, not distinguishing himself at all from the nature-mind which
\nalone is thus modified by the Gunas. He is therefore mastered by pain and
\npleasure, happiness and grief, desire and passion, attachment and disgust: he
\nhas no freedom. <\/p>\n

He must, to be
\nfree, get back from the Nature action to the status of the Akshara; he will
\nthen be trigunātīta<\/i>,
\nbeyond the gunas. Knowing himself as the Akshara Brahman, the unchanging
\nPurusha, he will know himself as an immutable impersonal self, the Atman,
\ntranquilly observing and impartially supporting the action, but himself calm,
\nindifferent, untouched, motionless, pure, one with all beings in their self,
\nnot one with Nature and her workings. This self, though by its\u00a0 <\/span>presence authorising the works of Nature,
\nthough by its all-pervading existence supporting and consenting to them, prabhu<\/i> vibhu<\/i>, does not itself create works or the state of the doer or the
\njoining of the works to their fruit, na
\nkartrtvam na karmāni srjati na karma-phala-samyogam<\/i>,
\nbut only watches nature in the Kshara working out these things, svabhāvas tu pravartate<\/i>; it accepts
\nneither the sin nor the virtue of the living creatures born into this birth as
\nits own, nādatte kasyacit pāpam
\nna caiva sukrtam<\/i>; it preserves its spiritual purity. It is the ego
\nbewildered by ignorance which attributes these things to itself, because it
\nassumes the responsibility of the doer and chooses to figure as that and not as
\nthe instrument of a greater power, which is all that it really is; aj\u00f1ānenāvrtam j\u00f1ānam
\ntena muhyanti jantavah<\/i>. By going back into the impersonal self the
\nsoul gets back into a greater self-knowledge and is liberated from the bondage
\nof the works of Nature, untouched by her Gunas, free from her shows of good and
\nevil, suffering and happiness. The natural being, the mind, body, life, still
\nremain, Nature still works; but the inner being does not identify himself with
\nthese, nor while the gunas play in the natural being, does he rejoice or
\ngrieve. He is the calm and free immutable Self observing all. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 221<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 Is this the last
\nstate, the utmost possibility, the highest secret? It cannot be, since this is
\na mixed or divided, not a perfectly harmonised status, a double, not a unified
\nbeing, a freedom in the soul, an imperfection in the Nature. It can only be a
\nstage. What then is there beyond it? One solution is that of the Sannyasin who
\nrejects the nature, the action altogether, so far at least as action can be
\nrejected, so that there may be an unmixed undivided freedom; but this solution,
\nthough admitted, is not preferred by the Gita. The Gita also insists on the
\ngiving up of actions, sarva-karmāni
\nsannyasya<\/i>, but inwardly to the Brahman. Brahman in the Kshara supports
\nwholly the action of Prakriti, Brahman in the Akshara, even while supporting,
\ndissociates itself from the action, preserves its freedom; the individual soul,
\nunified with the Brahman in the Akshara, is free and dissociated, yet, unified
\nwith the Brahman in the Kshara, supports but is not affected. This it can do best
\nwhen it sees that both are aspects of the one Purushottama. The Purushottama,
\ninhabiting all existences as the secret Ishwara, controls the Nature and by his
\nwill, now no longer distorted and disfigured by the ego-sense, the Nature works
\nout the actions by the Swabhava; the individual soul makes the divinised
\nnatural being an instrument of the divine Will, nimitt-mātram.<\/i> He remains even in action trigunātīta, <\/i>beyond the Gunas, free from the Gunas,
\nnistraigunya<\/i>, he fulfils entirely
\nat last the early injunction of the Gita, nistraigu\\,nyo bhav\\=arjuna. He is indeed
\nstill the enjoyer of the Gunas, as is the Brahman, though not limited by them, nirgunam gunabhoktr
\nca<\/i>, unattached, yet all-supporting, even as is that Brahman, asaktam sarvabhrt<\/i>: but the
\naction of the gunas within him is quite changed; it is lifted above their
\negoistic character and reactions. For he has unified his whole being in the
\nPurushottama, has assumed the divine being and the higher divine nature of
\nbecoming, madbhāva<\/i>, has unified
\neven his mind and natural consciousness with the Divine, manmanā<\/i> maccittah<\/i>.
\nThis change is the final evolution of the nature and the consummation of the
\ndivine birth, rahasyam uttamam <\/i>When
\nit is accomplished, the soul is aware of itself as the master of its nature
\nand,\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>grown a light of the divine Light
\nand will of the divine Will, is able to change its natural workings into a
\ndivine action. <\/p>\n

\nPage 222<\/span><\/p>\n

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

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