{"id":1393,"date":"2013-07-13T01:34:31","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1393"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:34:31","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:31","slug":"42-the-fullness-of-spiritual-action-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\/42-the-fullness-of-spiritual-action-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","title":{"rendered":"-42_The Fullness of Spiritual Action.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nSIXTEEN<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

        The Fullness of Spiritual
\nAction<\/font><\/b>         <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/font>HE<\/font> development
\nof the idea of the Gita has reached a point at which one question alone remains
\nfor solution, – the question of our nature bound and defective and how it is
\nto effect, not only in principle but in all its movements, its evolution from
\nthe lower to the higher being and from the law of its present action to the
\nimmortal Dharma. The difficulty is one which is implied in certain of the
\npositions laid down in the Gita, but has to be brought out into greater
\nprominence than it gets there and to be put into a clearer shape before our
\nintelligence. The Gita proceeded on a psychological knowledge which was familiar
\nto the mind of the time, and in the steps of its thought it was well able to
\nabridge its transitions, to take much for granted and to leave many things
\nunexpressed which we need to have put strongly into light and made precise to
\nus. Its teaching sets out at the beginning to propose a new source and level
\nfor our action in the world; that was the starting-point and that motives also
\nthe conclusion. Its initial object was not precisely to propose a way of
\nliberation, moksa<\/i><\/span>,
\nbut rather to show the compatibility of works with the soul’s effort towards
\nliberation and of spiritual freedom itself when once attained with continued
\naction in the world, muktasya<\/i><\/span>
\nkarma<\/i>. Incidentally, a synthetic Yoga
\nor psychological method of arriving at spiritual liberation and perfection has
\nbeen developed and certain metaphysical affirmations have been put forward,
\ncertain truths of truths of \u00a0<\/span>our being
\nand nature on which the validity of this Yoga reposes. But the original
\npreoccupation remains throughout, the original difficulty and problem, how
\nArjuna, dislodged by a strong revulsion of thought and feeling from the established
\nnatural and rational foundations and standards of action, is to find a new and
\nsatisfying spiritual norm of works, or how he is to live in the truth of the
\nSpirit \u2013 since he can no longer act according to the <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 435<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

partial truths of the customary
\nreason and nature of man \u2014 and yet to do his appointed work on the battle-field
\nof Kurukshetra. To live inwardly calm, detached, silent in the silence of the
\nimpersonal and universal Self and yet do dynamically the works of dynamic
\nNature, and more largely, to be one with the Eternal within us and to do all
\nthe will of the Eternal in the world expressed through a sublimated force, a
\ndivine height of the personal nature uplifted, liberated, universalised, made
\none with God-nature, \u2013 this is the Gita’s solution. <\/p>\n

Let us see what
\nthis comes to in the most plain and positive terms and from the standpoint of
\nthe problem which is at the root of Arjuna’s difficulty and refusal. His duty
\nas a human being and a social being is the discharge of the high function of
\nthe Kshatriya without which the frame of society cannot be maintained, the
\nideals of the race cannot be vindicated, the harmonious order of right and
\njustice cannot be upheld against the anarchic violence of oppression, wrong and
\ninjustice. And yet the appeal to duty by itself can no longer satisfy the
\nprotagonist of the struggle because in the terrible actuality of Kurukshetra it
\npresents itself in harsh, perplexed and ambiguous terms. The discharge of his
\nsocial duty has suddenly come to signify assent to an enormous result of sin
\nand sorrow and suffering; the customary means of maintaining social order and justice
\nis found to lead instead to a great disorder and chaos. The rule of just claim
\nand interest, that which we call rights, will not serve him here; for the
\nkingdom he has to win for himself and his brothers and his side in the war is
\nindeed rightly theirs and its assertion an overthrow of Asuric tyranny and a
\nvindication of justice, but a blood-bespattered justice and a kingdom possessed
\nin sorrow and with the stain on it of a great sin, a monstrous harm done to
\nsociety, a veritable crime against the race. Nor will the rule of Dharma, of
\nethical right, serve any better; for there is here a conflict of dharmas<\/span>. A new and greater yet unguessed rule is needed to
\nsolve the problem, but what is that rule?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>For to withdraw from his work, to take refuge
\nin a saintly inactivity and leave the imperfect world with its unsatisfying
\nmethods and motives to take care of itself is one possible solution easy to
\nenvisage, easy to execute, but this is the very cutting
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 436<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

of the knot that has been
\ninsistently forbidden by the Teacher. Action is demanded of man by the Master
\nof the world who is the master of all his works and whose world is a field of action,
\nwhether done through the ego and in the ignorance or partial light of the
\nlimited human reason or initiated from a higher and more largely seeing plane
\nof vision and motive. Again, to abandon this particular action as evil would be
\nanother kind of solution, the ready resort of the shortsighted moralising mind,
\nbut to this evasion too the Teacher refuses his assent. Arjuna’s abstention
\nwould work a much greater sin and evil: it would mean, if it had any effect at
\nall, the triumph of wrong and injustice and the rejection of his own mission as
\nan instrument of the divine workings. A violent crisis in the destinies of the
\nrace has been brought about not by any blind motion of forces or solely by the
\nconfused clash of human ideas, interests, passions, egoisms, but by a Will
\nwhich is behind these outward appearances. This truth Arjuna must be brought to
\nsee; he must learn to act impersonally, imperturbably as the instrument not of
\nhis little personal desires and weak human shrinkings, but of a vaster and more
\nluminous Power, a greater all-wise divine and universal Will. He must act
\nimpersonally and universally in a high union of his soul with the inner and
\nouter Godhead, yukta, in a calm Yoga with his own supreme Self and the
\ninforming Self of the universe.<\/p>\n

But this truth
\ncannot be rightly seen and this kind of action cannot be rightly undertaken,
\ncannot become real as long as man is governed by the ego, even by the
\nhalf-enlightened unillumined sattwic ego of the reason and the mental
\nintelligence. For this is a truth of the spirit, this is an action from a
\nspiritual basis. A spiritual, not an intellectual knowledge is the indispensable
\nrequisite for this way of works, its sole possible light, medium, incentive.
\nFirst, therefore, the Teacher points out that all these ideas and feelings
\nwhich trouble, perplex and baffle Arjuna, joy and sorrow, desire and sin, the
\nmind’s turn towards governing action by the outward results of action, the
\nhuman shrinking from what seems terrible and formidable in the dealings of the universal
\nSpirit \u00a0<\/span>with the world, are things born
\nof the subjection of our consciousness to a natural ignorance, the way <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 437<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\n\u00a0<\/span>of working of a lower nature in which the soul
\nis involved and sees itself as a separate ego returning to the action of things
\nupon it dual reactions of pain and pleasure, virtue and vice, right and wrong,
\ngood happening and evil fortune. These reactions create a tangled web of
\nperplexity in which the soul is lost and bewildered by its own ignorance; it
\nhas to guide itself by partial and imperfect solutions that serve ordinarily
\nwith a stumbling sufficiency in the normal life, but fail when brought to the
\ntest of a wider seeing and a profounder experience. To understand the real
\nsense of action and existence one must retreat behind all these appearances
\ninto the truth of the spirit; one must found self-knowledge before one can have
\nthe basis of a right world-knowledge.<\/p>\n

The first
\nrequisite is to shake the wings of the soul free from desire and passion and
\ntroubling emotion and all this perturbed and distorting atmosphere of human
\nmind and arrive into an ether of dispassionate equality, a heaven of impersonal
\ncalm, an egoless feeling and vision of things. For only in that lucid upper
\nair, reaches free from all storm and cloud, can self-knowledge come and the law
\nof the world and the truth of Nature be seen steadily and with an embracing eye
\nand in an undisturbed and all-comprehending and all-penetrating light. Behind
\nthis little personality which is a helpless instrument, a passive or vainly
\nresistant puppet of Nature and a form figured in her creations, there is an
\nimpersonal self one in all which sees and knows all things; there is an equal,
\nimpartial, universal presence and support of creation, a witnessing consciousness
\nthat suffers Nature to work out the becoming of things in their own type, svabhāva<\/i><\/span>,
\nbut does not involve and lose itself in the action she initiates. To draw back
\nfrom the ego and the troubled personality into this calm, equal, eternal, universal,
\nimpersonal Self is the first step towards a seeing action in Yoga done in
\nconscious union with the divine Being and the infallible Will that, however
\nobscure now to us, manifests itself in the universe.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>When we live tranquilly poised in this self of
\nimpersonal wideness, then because that is vast, calm, quiescent, impersonal, our
\nother little false self, our ego of action disappears into its largeness and we
\nsee that it is Nature that acts and not we, that<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 438<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

all action is the action of
\nNature and can be nothing else. And this thing we call Nature is a universal
\nexecutive Power of eternal being in motion which takes different shapes and
\nforms in this or that class of its creatures and in each individual of the
\nspecies according to its type of natural existence and the resultant function
\nand law of its works. According to its nature each creature must act and it
\ncannot act by anything else. Ego and personal will and desire are nothing more
\nthan vividly conscious forms and limited natural workings of a universal Force
\nthat is itself formless and infinite and far exceeds them; reason and
\nintelligence and mind and sense and life and body, all that we vaunt or take
\nfor our own, are Nature’s instruments and creations. But the impersonal Self
\ndoes not act and is not part of Nature: it observes the action from behind and
\nabove and remains lord of itself and a free and impassive knower and witness.
\nThe soul that lives in this impersonality is not affected by the actions of
\nwhich our nature is an instrument; it does not reply to them or their effects
\nby grief and joy, desire and shrinking, attraction and repulsion or any of the
\nhundred dualities that draw and shake and afflict us. It regards all men and
\nall things and all happenings with equal eyes, watches the modes or qualities
\nof Nature acting on the modes or qualities, sees the whole secret of the
\nmechanism, but is itself beyond these modes and qualities, a pure absolute
\nessential \u00a0<\/span>being, impassive, free, at
\npeace. Nature works out her action and the soul impersonal and universal
\nsupports her but is not involved, is not attached, is not entangled, is not
\ntroubled, is not bewildered. If we can live in this equal self, we too are at peace;
\nour works continue so long as Nature’s impulsion prolongs itself in our
\ninstruments, but there is a spiritual freedom and quiescence. <\/p>\n

This duality of
\nSelf and Nature, quiescent Purusha, active Prakriti<\/span>,
\nis not, however, the whole of our being; these are not really the two last
\nwords in the matter. If it were so, either all works would be quite indifferent
\nto the soul and this or that action or refraining from action would take place
\nby some ungoverned turn\u00a0 <\/span>of the mobile
\nvariations of the Gunas<\/span> , \u2013 Arjuna<\/span>
\nwould\u00a0 <\/span>be moved to battle by rajasic<\/span> impulse\u00a0 <\/span>in
\nthe turn of the mobile variations of the gunas<\/span>,\u2014Arjuna
\nwould be moved to battle by rajasic<\/span> impulse in the
\ninstruments or withheld from it by tamasic<\/span> inertia or
\nsattwic indifference, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 439<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 \u2014 or else, if it so is that he
\nmust act and act only in this way, it would be by some mechanical determinism
\nof Nature. Moreover, since the soul in its retreat would come to live in the impersonal
\nquiescent Self and cease to live at all in active Nature, the final result
\nwould be quiescence, cessation, inertia, not the action imposed by the Gita.
\nAnd, finally, this duality gives no real explanation why the soul is at all
\ncalled to involve itself in Nature and her works; for it cannot be that the one
\never uninvolved self-conscient<\/span> spirit gets itself
\ninvolved and loses its self-knowledge and has to return to that knowledge. This
\npure Self, this Atman is on the contrary always there, always the same, always
\nthe one self-conscient<\/span> impersonal aloof Witness or
\nimpartial supporter of the action. It is this lacuna, this impossible vacuum
\nthat compels us to suppose two Purushas<\/span> or two poses
\nof the one Purusha, one secret in the Self that observes all from its
\nself-existence \u2014 or perhaps observes nothing, another self-projected into
\nNature that lends itself to her action and identifies itself with her
\ncreations. But even this dualism of Self and Prakriti<\/span>
\nor Maya corrected by the dualism of the two Purushas<\/span>
\nis not the whole philosophic creed of the Gita. It goes beyond them to the
\nsupreme all-embracing oneness<\/p>\n

of a highest Purusha,
\nPurushottama.<\/p>\n

The Gita affirms
\nthat there is a supreme Mystery, a highest Reality that upholds and reconciles
\nthe truth of these two different manifestations. There is an utmost supreme
\nSelf, Lord and Brahman, one who is both the impersonal and the personal, but
\nother and greater than either of them and other and greater than both of them
\ntogether. He is Purusha, Self and soul of our being, but he is also Prakriti<\/span>; for Prakriti<\/span> is the
\npower of the All-Soul, the power of the Eternal and Infinite self-moved to
\naction and creation. The supreme Ineffable, the universal Person, he becomes by
\nhis Prakriti<\/span> all these creatures. The supreme Atman
\nand Brahman, he manifests by his Maya of self-knowledge and his Maya of
\nignorance the double truth of the cosmic riddle. The supreme Lord, master of
\nhis Force, his Shakti, he creates, impels and governs all the personality power
\nand works of these innumerable existences. Each soul is a partial being of this
\nself-existent One, an eternal soul of this
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 440<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

All-Soul, a partial manifestation
\nof this supreme Lord and his universal Nature. All here is this Divine, this
\nGodhead, Vasudeva<\/span>; for by Nature and the soul in
\nNature he becomes all that is and everything proceeds from him and lives in or
\nby him, though he himself is greater than any widest manifestation, any deepest
\nspirit, any cosmic figure. This is the complete truth of existence and this all
\nthe secret of the universal action that we have seen disengaging itself from
\nthe later chapters of the Gita. <\/p>\n

But how does this greater truth
\nmodify or how affect the principle of spiritual action? It modifies it to begin
\nwith in this fundamental matter that the whole meaning of the relation of Self
\nand soul and Nature gets changed, opens out to a new vision, fills in the
\nblanks that were left, acquires a greater amplitude, assumes a true and
\nspiritually positive, a flawlessly integral significance. The world is no
\nlonger a purely mechanical qualitative action and determination of Nature set
\nover against the quiescence of an impersonal self-existence which has no
\nquality or power of self-determination, no ability or impulse to create. The
\nchasm left by this unsatisfactory dualism is bridged and an uplifting unity
\nrevealed between knowledge and works, the soul and Nature. The quiescent
\nimpersonal Self is a truth,\u2014 it is the truth of the calm of the Godhead, the
\nsilence of the Eternal, the freedom of the Lord of all birth and becoming and
\naction and creation, his calm infinite freedom of self-existence not bound,
\ntroubled or affected by his creation, not touched by the action and reaction of
\nhis Nature. Nature itself is now no inexplicable illusion, no separated and
\nopposite phenomenon, but a movement of the Eternal, all her stir and activity
\nand multiplicity founded and supported on the detached and observing tranquillity<\/span> of an immutable self and spirit. The Lord of
\nNature remains that immutable self even while he is at the same time the one
\nand multiple soul of the universe and becomes in a partial manifestation all
\nthese forces, powers, consciousnesses, gods, animals, things, men. Nature of
\nthe Gunas<\/span> is a lower self-limited action of his
\npower,\u00a0 <\/span>it is nature of imperfectly
\nconscious\u00a0 <\/span>manifestation and therefore of
\na certain ignorance. The truth of the self, even as the truth of the Divine, is
\nheld back from her surface force absorbed here in its outer action \u2014 much as
\nman’s deeper being <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 441<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\u00a0<\/span>is held back from the knowledge of his surface
\nconsciousness \u2014 until the soul in her turns to find out this hidden thing, gets
\ninside itself and discovers its own real verities, its heights and its depths.
\nThat is why it has to draw back from its little personal and egoistic to its
\nlarge and impersonal, immutable and universal Self in order to become capable
\nof self-knowledge. But the Lord is there, not only in that self, but in Nature.
\nHe is in the heart of every creature and guides by his presence the turnings of
\nthis great natural mechanism. He is present in all, all lives in him, all is
\nhimself because all is a becoming of his being, a portion or a figure of his
\nexistence. But all proceeds here in a lower partial working that has come out
\nof a secret, a higher and greater and completer nature of Divinity, the eternal
\ninfinite nature or absolute self-power of the Godhead, devātmaśakti<\/i><\/span>. The
\nperfect, integrally conscious soul hidden in man, an eternal portion of Deity,
\na spiritual being of the eternal Divine Being, can open in us and can too open
\nus to him if we live constantly in this true truth of his action and our
\nexistence. The seeker of Godhead has to get back to the reality of his
\nimmutable and eternal impersonal self and at the same time he has to see
\neverywhere the Divine from whom he proceeds, to see him as all, to see him in
\nthe whole of this mutable Nature and in every part and result of her and in all
\nher workings, and there too to make himself one with God, there too to live in
\nhim, to enter there too into the divine oneness. He unites in that integrality
\nthe divine calm and freedom of his deep essential existence with a supreme
\npower of instrumental action in his divinised<\/span> self of
\nNature.
\n <\/p>\n

But how is this
\nto be done? It can be done first by a right spirit in our will of works. The
\nseeker has to regard all his action as a sacrifice to the Lord of works who is
\nthe eternal and universal Being and his own highest Self and the Self of all others
\nand the supreme all-inhabiting, all-containing, all-governing \u00a0<\/span>Godhead in the universe. The whole<\/p>\n

action of Nature is such a
\nsacrifice,\u2014 offered at first indeed to the divine Powers that move her and move
\nin her, but these powers are only limited forms and names of the One and
\nIllimitable. Man ordinarily offers his sacrifice openly or under a disguise to
\nhis own ego; his oblation
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 442<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\u00a0<\/span>is the false action of his own
\nself-will and ignorance. Or he offers his knowledge, action, aspiration, works
\nof energy and effort to the gods for partial, temporal and personal aims. The
\nman of knowledge, the liberated soul offers on the contrary all his activities
\nto the one eternal Godhead without any attachment to their fruit or to the
\nsatisfaction of his lower personal desires. He works for God, not for himself, for
\nthe universal welfare, for the Soul of the world and not for any particular
\nobject which is of his own personal creation or for any construction of his
\nmental will or object of his vital longings, as a divine agent, not as a
\nprincipal and separate profiteer in the world-commerce. And this, it must be
\nnoted, is a thing that cannot be really done except in proportion as the mind
\narrives at equality, universality, wide impersonality, and a clear freedom from
\nevery disguise of the insistent ego: for without these things the claim to be
\nthus acting is a pretension or an illusion. The whole action of the world is
\nthe business of the Lord of the universe, the concern of the self-existent
\nSpirit of whom it is the unceasing creation, the progressive becoming, the
\nsignificant manifestation and living symbol in Nature. The fruits are his, the
\nresults are those determined by him and our personal action is only a minor
\ncontribution ruled or overruled, so far as its motive is an egoistic claim, by
\nthis Self and Spirit in us who is the Self and Spirit in all and governs things
\nfor the universal end and good and not for the sake of our ego. To work
\nimpersonally, desirelessly<\/span> and without attachment to
\nthe fruits of our work, for the sake of God and the world and the greater Self
\nand the fulfilment of the universal will,\u2014 this is the first step towards
\nliberation and perfection.<\/p>\n

But beyond this
\nstep there lies that other greater motion, the inner surrender of all our
\nactions to the Divinity within us. For it is infinite Nature that impels our
\nworks and a divine Will in and above her that demands action of us; the choice
\nand turn our ego gives to it is a contribution of our tamasic<\/span>,
\nrajasic<\/span>, sattwic quality, a deformation in the lower
\nNature. The deformation comes by the ego thinking of itself as the doer; the
\ncharacter of \u00a0<\/span>the
\nact takes the form of the limited personal nature and the soul is bound up with
\nthat and its narrow figures and does <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 443<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\n\u00a0<\/span>not allow the act to proceed freely and purely
\nfrom the infinite power within it. And the ego is chained to the act and its
\noutcome; it must suffer the personal consequence and reaction even as it claims
\nthe responsible origination and personal will of the doing. The free perfect
\nworking comes first by referring and finally by surrendering altogether the action
\nand its origination to the divine Master of our existence; for we feel it
\nprogressively taken up by a supreme Presence within us, the soul drawn into
\ndeep intimacy and close unity with an inner Power and Godhead and the work
\noriginated directly from the greater Self, from the all-wise, infinite,
\nuniversal force of an eternal being and not from the ignorance of the little
\npersonal ego. The action is chosen and shaped according to the nature, but
\nentirely by the divine Will in the nature, and it is therefore free and perfect
\nwithin, whatever its outward appearance; it comes stamped with the inward
\nspiritual seal of the Infinite as the thing to be done, the movement and the
\nstep of the movement decreed in the ways of the omniscient Master of action, kartavyam<\/i><\/span> karma<\/i>. The soul of the liberated man is
\nfree in its impersonality, even while he contributes to the action as its means
\nand its occasion his instrumental personal self-creation and the special will
\nand power in his nature. That will and power is now not separately,
\negoistically his own, but a force of the suprapersonal<\/span>
\nDivine who acts in this becoming of his own self, this one of his myriad
\npersonalities by means of the characteristic form of the natural being, the swabhava<\/span>. This is the high secret and mystery, uttamam<\/i><\/span> rahasyam<\/i><\/span>, of the
\naction of the liberated man. It is the result of a growing of the human soul
\ninto a divine Light and of the union of its nature with a highest universal
\nnature. <\/span><\/p>\n

This change
\ncannot come about except by knowledge. There is necessary a right knowledge of
\nself and God and world and a living and growing into the greater consciousness to
\nwhich that knowledge admits us. We know now what the knowledge is. It is
\nsufficient to remember that it reposes on another and wider vision than the
\nhuman mental, a changed vision and experience
\nby which one is first of all liberated from the limitations of the ego sense
\nand its contacts and feels and sees the one self in all, all in God, all beings
\nas Vasudeva<\/span>, all as vessels of the Godhead
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 444<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 and one’s self too as a
\nsignificant being and soul-power of that one Godhead it treats in a spiritual
\nuniting consciousness all the happenings of the lives of others as if they were
\nhappenings of one’s own life; it allows no wall of separation and lives in a
\nuniversal sympathy with all existences, while amidst the world-movement one still
\ndoes the work that has to be done for the good of all, sarva<\/i>–bhūta<\/i>–hite<\/i><\/span>, according
\nto the way appointed by the Divine and in the measures imposed by the command
\nof the Spirit who is Master of Time. Thus living and acting in this knowledge
\nthe soul of man becomes united with the Eternal in personality and in impersonality,
\nlives in the Eternal though acting in Time, even as the Eternal acts, and is
\nfree, perfect and blissful whatever may be the form and determination of the
\nwork done in Nature.<\/p>\n

The liberated
\nman has the complete and total knowledge, krtsnavid<\/i><\/span>, and does all works
\nwithout any of the restrictions made by the mind, karmakrt<\/i><\/span>, according to the force
\nand freedom and infinite power of the divine will within him. And since he is
\nunited with the Eternal, he has too the pure spiritual and illimitable joy of
\nhis eternal existence. He turns with adoration to the Self of whom he is a
\nportion, the Master of his works and divine Lover of his soul and nature. He is
\nnot an impassive calm spectator only; he lifts not only his knowledge and will
\nto the Eternal, but his heart also of love and adoration and passion. For
\nwithout that uplifting of the heart his whole nature is not fulfilled and
\nunited with God; the ecstasy of the spirit’s calm needs to be transformed by
\nthe ecstasy of the soul’s Ananda. Beyond the personal Jiva<\/span>
\nand the impersonal Brahman or Atman he reaches the supracosmic<\/span>
\nPurushottama who is immutable in impersonality and fulfils himself in personality
\nand draws us to him through these two different attractions. The liberated
\nseeker rises personally to that highest Numen<\/span> by his
\nsoul’s love and joy in God and the adoration of the will in him for the Master
\nof its works; the peace and largeness of his impersonal universal knowledge is
\nperfected by delight in the self-existent integral close and intimate reality
\nof this surpassing and universal Godhead. This delight glorifies his knowledge
\nand unites it with the eternal delight of the Spirit in its self and its manifestation;
\nthis perfects too his per- <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 445<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 sonality<\/span>
\nin the superperson<\/span> of the divine Purusha and makes
\nhis natural being and action one with eternal beauty, eternal harmony, eternal
\nlove and Ananda.<\/p>\n

But all this
\nchange means a total passing from the lower human to the higher divine nature.
\nIt is a lifting of our whole being or at least of the whole mental being that
\nwills, knows and feels beyond what we are into some highest spiritual consciousness,
\nsome satisfying fullest power of existence, some deepest widest delight of the
\nspirit. And this may well be possible by a transcendence of our present natural
\nlife, it may well be possible in some celestial state beyond the earthly existence
\nor still beyond in a supracosmic<\/span> superconscience<\/span>;
\nit may happen by transition to an absolute and infinite power and status of the
\nSpirit. But while we are here in the body, here in life, here in action, what
\nin this change becomes of the lower nature? For at present all our activities
\nare determined in their trend and shape by the nature, and this Nature here is
\nthe nature of the three Gunas<\/span>, and in all natural
\nbeing and in all natural activities there is the triple Guna<\/span>,
\nTamas<\/span> with its ignorance and inertia, rajas with its
\nkinesis and action, its passion and grief and perversion, Sattwa<\/span>
\nwith its light and happiness, and the bondage of these things. And granted that
\nthe soul becomes superior in the self to the three Gunas<\/span>,
\nhow does it escape in its instrumental nature from their working and result and
\nbondage? For even the man of knowledge, says the Gita, must act according to
\nhis nature. To feel and bear the reactions of the Gunas<\/span>
\nin the outer manifestation, but to be free from them and superior in the
\nobserving conscious self behind is not sufficient; for it leaves still a
\ndualism of freedom and subjection, a contradiction between what we are within
\nand\u00a0 <\/span>what we are without, between our
\nself and our power, what we know ourselves to be and what we will and do. Where
\nis the release here, where the full elevation and transformation to the higher
\nspiritual nature, the immortal Dharma, the law proper to the infinite purity and
\npower of a divine being? If this change cannot be effected while in the body,
\nthen so it <\/p>\n

must be said, that the whole
\nnature cannot be transformed and there must remain an unreconciled<\/span>
\nduality until the mortal type of existence drops off like a discarded shell
\nfrom the spirit. But in that case the gos<\/span>– <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 446<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 pel<\/span> of
\nworks cannot well be the right or at least cannot be the ultimate gospel: a
\nperfect quiescence or at least as perfect a quiescence as possible, a
\nprogressive Sannyasa<\/span> and renunciation of works would
\nseem still to be the true counsel of perfection, \u2014 as indeed the Mayavadin<\/span> contends, who says that the Gita’s<\/span>
\nway is no doubt the right way so long as we remain in action, but still all
\nworks are an illusion and quiescence the highest path. To act in this spirit is
\nwell, but only as a transition to a renunciation of all works, to cessation, to
\nan absolute quiescence. <\/p>\n

This is the
\ndifficulty which the Gita has still to meet in order to justify works to the
\nseeker after the Spirit. Otherwise it must say to Arjuna, \u201cAct temporarily in
\nthis fashion, but afterwards seek the higher way of renunciation of works.\u201d But
\non the contrary it has said that not the cessation of works, but renunciation
\nof desire is the better way; it has spoken of the action of the liberated man, muktasya<\/i><\/span> karma<\/i>. It has even insisted on doing
\nall actions, sarvāni<\/i><\/span>
\nkarmāni<\/i><\/span>,
\nkrtsnakrt<\/i><\/span>;
\nit has said that in whatever way the perfected Yogin<\/span>
\nlives and acts, he lives and acts in God. This can only be, if the nature also
\nin its dynamics and workings becomes divine, a power imperturbable, intangible,
\ninviolate, pure and untroubled by the reactions of the inferior Prakriti<\/span>. How and by what steps is this most difficult
\ntransformation to be effected? What is this last secret of the soul’s
\nperfection? what the principle or the process of this transmutation of our human
\nand earthly nature?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 447<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SIXTEEN         The Fullness of Spiritual Action           THE development of the idea of the Gita has reached a point at which one question alone…<\/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-1393","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\/1393","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=1393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}