{"id":1395,"date":"2013-07-13T01:34:32","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1395"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:34:32","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:32","slug":"22-equality-and-knowledge-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\/22-equality-and-knowledge-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","title":{"rendered":"-22_Equality and Knowledge.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

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

\n <\/font>Equality and Knowledge<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nY<\/font><\/b>OGA<\/font>
\nand knowledge are, in this early part of the Gita’s teaching, the two wings of
\nthe soul’s ascent. By Yoga is meant union through divine works done without
\ndesire, with equality of soul to all things and all men, as a sacrifice to the
\nSupreme, while knowledge is that on which this desirelessness, this equality,
\nthis power of sacrifice is founded. The two wings indeed assist each other’s
\nflight; acting together, yet with a subtle alternation of mutual aid, like the
\ntwo eyes in a man which see together because they see alternately, they
\nincrease one another mutually by interchange of substance. As the works grow more
\nand more desireless, equal-minded, sacrificial in spirit, the knowledge
\nincreases; with the increase of the knowledge the soul becomes firmer in the
\ndesireless, sacrificial equality of its works. The sacrifice of knowledge, says
\nthe Gita therefore, is greater than any material sacrifice. \u201cEven if thou art
\nthe greatest doer of sin beyond all sinners, thou shalt cross over all the
\ncrookedness of evil in the ship of knowledge. . . .\u00a0 <\/span>There is nothing in the world equal in purity
\nto knowledge.\u201d By knowledge desire and its first-born child, sin, are
\ndestroyed. The liberated man is able to do works as a sacrifice because he is
\nfreed from attachment through his mind, heart and spirit being firmly founded
\nin self-knowledge, gata-sangasya muktasya
\nj\u00f1ānāvasthitacetasah<\/i>. All his work disappears completely
\nas soon as done, suffers laya<\/i>, as one
\nmight say, in the being of the Brahman, pravīlīyate<\/i>;
\nit has no reactionary consequence on the soul of the apparent doer. The work is
\ndone by the Lord through his Nature, it is no longer personal to the human
\ninstrument. The work itself becomes but power of the nature and substance of
\nthe being of the Brahman. <\/p>\n

It is in this
\nsense that the Gita is speaking when it says that all the totality of work
\nfinds its completion, culmination, end in
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage 191<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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knowledge, sarvam karmākhilam j\u00f1āne parisamāpyate<\/i>. \u201cAs a fire
\nkindled turns to ashes its fuel, so the fire of knowledge turns all works to
\nashes.\u201d By this it is not at all meant that when knowledge is complete, there
\nis cessation from works. What is meant is made clear by the Gita when it says
\nthat he who has destroyed all doubt by knowledge and has by Yoga given up all
\nworks and is in possession of the Self is not bound by his works, yoga-sannyasta-karmānam ātmavantam
\nna karmāni nibadhnanti<\/i>, and that he whose self has become the self
\nof all existences, acts and yet is not affected by his works, is not caught in
\nthem, receives from them no soul-ensnaring reaction, kurvann api na lipyate. <\/i>Therefore, it says, the Yoga of works is
\nbetter than the physical renunciation of works, because, while Sannyasa is
\ndifficult for embodied beings who must do works so long as they are in the
\nbody, Yoga of works is entirely sufficient and it rapidly and easily brings the
\nsoul to Brahman. That Yoga of works is, we have seen, the offering of all action
\nto the Lord, which induces as its culmination an inner and not an outer, a
\nspiritual, not a physical giving up of works into the Brahman, into the being
\nof the Lord, brahmani<\/i> ādhāya karmāni, mayi
\nsannyasya<\/i>. When works are thus \u201creposed on the Brahman,\u201d the personality of
\nthe instrumental doer ceases; though he acts, he does nothing; for he has given
\nup not only the fruits of his works, but the works themselves and the doing of
\nthem to the Lord. The Divine then takes the burden of works from him; the Supreme
\nbecomes the doer and the act and the result. <\/p>\n

This knowledge
\nof which the Gita speaks, is not an intellectual activity of the mind; it is a
\nluminous growth into the highest state of being by the outshining of the light
\nof the divine sun of Truth, \u201cthat Truth, the Sun lying concealed in the darkness\u201d
\nof our ignorance of which the Rigveda speaks, tat satyam sūryam tamasi ksiyantam<\/i>. The immutable
\nBrahman is there in the spirit’s skies above this troubled lower nature of the
\ndualities, untouched either by its virtue or by its sin, accepting neither our
\nsense of sin nor our self-righteousness, untouched by its joy and its sorrow,
\nindifferent to our joy in success and our grief in failure, master of all,
\nsupreme, all-pervading, prabhu vibhu<\/i>,
\ncalm, strong, pure, equal in all things, the source of Nature, not the direct
\ndoer <\/p>\n

\nPage 192<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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 of our works, but the witness of
\nNature and her works, not imposing on us either the illusion of being the doer,
\nfor that illusion is the result of the ignorance of this lower Nature. But this
\nfreedom, mastery, purity we cannot see; we are bewildered by the natural
\nignorance which hides from us the eternal self-knowledge of the Brahman secret
\nwithin our being. But knowledge comes to its persistent seeker and removes the
\nnatural self-ignorance; it shines out like a long-hidden sun and lights up to
\nour vision that self-being supreme beyond the dualities of this lower
\nexistence, ādityavat prakāśayati
\ntat param<\/i>. By a long whole-hearted endeavour, by directing our whole
\nconscious being to that, by making that our whole aim, by turning it into the
\nwhole object of our discerning mind and so seeing it not only in ourselves but
\neverywhere, we become one thought and self with that, tadbuddhayas tadātmānah<\/i>, we are washed clean of
\nall the darkness and suffering of the lower man by the waters of knowledge,\u00b9 <\/span>j\u00f1āna-nirdhūta-kalmasāh<\/i>. <\/p>\n

The result is,
\nsays the Gita, a perfect equality to all things and all persons; and then only
\ncan we repose our works completely in the Brahman. For the Brahman is equal, samam brahma<\/i>, and it is only when we
\nhave this perfect equality, sāamye
\nsthitam manah<\/i>, \u201cseeing with an equal eye the learned and cultured
\nBrahmin, the cow, the elephant, the dog, the outcaste\u201d and knowing all as one
\nBrahman, that we can, living in that oneness, see like the Brahman our works
\nproceeding from the nature freely without any fear of attachment, sin or
\nbondage. Sin and stain then cannot be; for we have overcome that creation full
\nof desire and its works and reactions which belongs to the ignorance, tair jitah sargah<\/i>, and
\nliving in the supreme and divine Nature there is no longer fault or defect in
\nour works; for these are created by the inequalities of the ignorance. The
\nequal Brahman is faultless, nirdosam<\/i>
\nhi samam brahma<\/i>, beyond the confusion
\nof good and evil, and living in the Brahman we too rise beyond good and evil;
\nwe act in that purity, stainlessly, with an equal and single purpose of
\nfulfilling the welfare of all existences,<\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>The Rigveda so speaks of the
\nstreams of the Truth, the waters that have perfect knowledge, the waters that
\nare full of the divine sunlight, rtasya
\ndhārāh, āpo vicetasah, svarvatīr apah<\/i>.
\nWhat are here metaphors, are there concrete symbols.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 193<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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 ksīnakalmasāh sarvabhūta-hite
\nratāh<\/i>. The Lord in our hearts is in the ignorance also the
\ncause of our actions, but through his Maya, through the egoism of our lower
\nnature which creates the tangled web of our actions and brings back upon our
\negoism the recoil of their tangled reactions affecting us inwardly as sin and
\nvirtue, affecting us outwardly as suffering and pleasure, evil fortune and good
\nfortune, the great chain of Karma. When we are freed by knowledge, the Lord, no
\nlonger hidden in our hearts, but manifest as our supreme self, takes up our
\nworks and uses us as faultless instruments, nimitta-mātram<\/i>,
\nfor the helping of the world. Such is the intimate union between knowledge and equality;
\nknowledge here in the buddhi<\/i>
\nreflected as equality in the temperament; above, on a higher plane of
\nconsciousness, knowledge as the light of the Being, equality as the stuff of
\nthe Nature. <\/p>\n

Always in this
\nsense of a supreme self-knowledge is this word j\u00f1āna<\/i> used in Indian philosophy and Yoga; it is the light by
\nwhich we grow into our true being, not the knowledge by which we increase our
\ninformation and our intellectual riches; it is not scientific or psychological
\nor philosophic or ethical or aesthetic or worldly and practical knowledge.
\nThese too no doubt help us to grow, but only in the becoming, not in the being;
\nthey enter into the definition of Yogic knowledge only when we use them as aids
\nto know the Supreme, the Self, the Divine, \u2013 scientific knowledge, when we can
\nget through the veil of processes and phenomena and see the one Reality behind
\nwhich explains them all; psychological knowledge, when we use it to know
\nourselves and to distinguish the lower from the higher, so that this we may
\nrenounce and into that we may grow; philosophical knowledge, when we turn it as
\na light upon the essential principles of existence so as to discover and live in
\nthat which is eternal; ethical knowledge, when by it having distinguished sin
\nfrom virtue we put away the one and rise above the other into the pure
\ninnocence of the divine Nature; aesthetic knowledge, when we discover by it the
\nbeauty of the Divine; knowledge of the world, when we see through it the way of
\nthe Lord with his creatures and use it for the service of the Divine in man.
\nEven then they are only aids; the real knowledge is that which is <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 194<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 a secret to the mind, of which
\nthe mind only gets reflections, but which lives in the spirit. <\/p>\n

The Gita in
\ndescribing how we come by this knowledge, says that we get first initiation
\ninto it from the men of knowledge who have seen, not those who know merely by
\nthe intellect, its essential truths; but the actuality of it comes from within
\nourselves: \u201cthe man who is perfected by Yoga, finds it of himself in the self
\nby the course of Time,\u201d it grows within him, that is to say, and he grows into
\nit as he goes on increasing in desirelessness, in equality, in devotion to the
\nDivine. It is only of the supreme knowledge that this can altogether be said;
\nthe knowledge which the intellect of man amasses, is gathered laboriously by
\nthe senses and the reason from outside. To get this other knowledge,
\nself-existent, intuitive, self-experiencing, self-revealing, we must have
\nconquered and controlled our mind and senses, samyatendriyah<\/i>, so that we are no longer subject to their
\ndelusions, but rather the mind and senses become its pure mirror; we must have
\nfixed our whole conscious being on the truth of that supreme reality in which
\nall exists, tatparāh<\/i>, so
\nthat it may display in us its luminous self-existence.<\/p>\n

Finally, we must
\nhave a faith which no intellectual doubt can be allowed to disturb, śraddhāvān labhate j\u00f1ānam<\/i>.
\n\u201cThe ignorant who has not faith, the soul of doubt goeth to perdition; neither
\nthis world, nor the supreme world, nor any happiness is for the soul full of
\ndoubts.\u201d In fact, it is true that without faith nothing decisive can be
\nachieved either in this world or for possession of the world above, and that it
\nis only by laying hold of some sure basis and positive support that man can
\nattain any measure of terrestrial or celestial success and satisfaction and
\nhappiness; the merely sceptical mind loses itself in the void. But still in the
\nlower knowledge doubt and scepticism have their temporary uses; in the higher
\nthey are stumbling-blocks: for there the whole secret is not the balancing of
\ntruth and error, but a constantly progressing realisation of revealed truth. In
\nintellectual knowledge there is always a mixture of falsehood or incompleteness
\nwhich has to be got rid of by subjecting the truth itself to sceptical inquiry;
\nbut in the higher knowledge falsehood cannot enter and that which intellect
\ncontributes by <\/p>\n

\nPage 195<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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attaching itself to this or that
\nopinion, cannot be got rid of by mere questioning, but will fall away of itself
\nby persistence in realisation. Whatever incompleteness there is in the
\nknowledge attained, it must be got rid of, not by questioning in its roots what
\nhas already been realised, but by proceeding to further and more complete
\nrealisation through a deeper, higher and wider living in the Spirit. And what
\nis not yet realised must be prepared for by faith, not by sceptical
\nquestioning, because this truth is one which the intellect cannot give and
\nwhich is indeed often quite opposed to the ideas in which the reasoning and
\nlogical mind gets entangled: it is not a truth which has to be proved, but a
\ntruth which has to be lived inwardly, a greater reality into which we have to
\ngrow. Finally, it is in itself a self-existent truth and would be self-evident
\nif it were not for the sorceries of the ignorance in which we live; the doubts,
\nthe perplexities which prevent us from accepting and following it, arise from
\nthat ignorance, from the sense-bewildered, opinion-perplexed heart and mind,
\nliving as they do in a lower and phenomenal truth and therefore questioning the
\nhigher realities, aj\u00f1ānasambhūutam
\nhrtstham samśayam.<\/i> They have to be cut away by the sword of
\nknowledge, says the Gita, by the knowledge that realises, by resorting
\nconstantly to Yoga, that is, by living out the union with the Supreme whose
\ntruth being known all is known, yasmin
\nvij\u00f1āte sarvam vij\u00f1ātam. <\/i><\/p>\n

The higher
\nknowledge we then get is that which is to the knower of Brahman his constant
\nvision of things when he lives uninterruptedly in the Brahman, brahmavid<\/i> brahmani sthitah<\/i>. That is not a vision or knowledge
\nor consciousness of Brahman to the exclusion of all else, but a seeing of all
\nin Brahman and as the Self. For, it is said, the knowledge by which we rise
\nbeyond all relapse back into the bewilderment of our mental nature, is \u201cthat by
\nwhich thou shalt see all existences without exception in the Self, then in Me.\u201d
\nElsewhere the Gita puts it more largely, \u201cEqual-visioned everywhere, he sees
\nthe Self in all existences and all existences in the Self. He who sees Me
\neverywhere and all and each in Me, is never lost to Me nor I to him. He who has
\nreached oneness and loves Me in all beings, that Yogin, howsoever he lives and
\nacts, is living and acting in <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 196<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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Me. O Arjuna, he who sees all
\nequally everywhere as himself, whether it be happiness or suffering, I hold him
\nto be the supreme Yogin.\u201d That is the old Vedantic knowledge of the Upanishads
\nwhich the Gita holds up constantly before us; but it is its superiority to
\nother later formulations of it that it turns persistently this knowledge into a
\ngreat practical philosophy of divine living. Always it insists on the relation
\nbetween this knowledge of oneness and Karmayoga, and therefore on the knowledge
\nof oneness as the basis of a liberated action in the world. Whenever it speaks
\nof knowledge, it turns at once to speak of equality which is its result;
\nwhenever it speaks of equality, it turns to speak too of the knowledge which is
\nits basis. The equality it enjoins does not begin and end in a static condition
\nof the soul useful only for self-liberation; it is always a basis of works. The
\npeace of the Brahman in the liberated soul is the foundation; the large, free,
\nequal, world-wide action of the Lord in the liberated nature radiates the power
\nwhich proceeds from that peace; these two made one synthesise divine works and
\nGod-knowledge. <\/p>\n

We see at once
\nwhat a profound extension we get here for the ideas which otherwise the Gita
\nhas in common with other systems of philosophic, ethical or religious living.
\nEndurance, philosophic indifference, resignation are, we have said, the
\nfoundation of three kinds of equality; but the Gita’s truth of knowledge not
\nonly gathers them all up together, but gives them an infinitely profound, a
\nmagnificently ample significance. The Stoic knowledge is that of the soul’s
\npower of self-mastery by fortitude, an equality attained by a struggle with
\none’s nature, maintained by a constant vigilance and control against its
\nnatural rebellions: it gives a noble peace, an austere happiness, but not the
\nsupreme joy of the liberated self living not by a rule, but in the pure, easy,
\nspontaneous perfection of its divine being, so that \u201chowever it may act and
\nlive, it acts and lives in the Divine,\u201d because here perfection is not only
\nattained but possessed in its own right and has no longer to be maintained by
\neffort, for it has become the very nature of the soul’s being. The Gita accepts
\nthe endurance and fortitude of our struggle with the lower nature as a
\npreliminary movement; but if a certain mastery comes by our individual
\nstrength, the freedom of mastery only <\/p>\n

\nPage 197<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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comes by our union with God, by a
\nmerging or dwelling of the personality in the one divine Person and the loss of
\nthe personal will in the divine Will. There is a divine Master of Nature and
\nher works, above her though inhabiting her, who is our highest being and our
\nuniversal self; to be one with him is to make ourselves divine. By union with
\nGod we enter into a supreme freedom and a supreme mastery. The ideal of the
\nStoic, the sage who is king because by self-rule he becomes master also of
\noutward conditions, resembles superficially the Vedantic idea of the self-ruler
\nand all-ruler, svarāt samrāt<\/i>;
\nbut it is on a lower plane. The Stoic kingship is maintained by a force put
\nupon self and environment; the entirely liberated kingship of the Yogin exists
\nnaturally by the eternal royalty of the divine nature, a union with its
\nunfettered universality, a finally unforced dwelling in its superiority to the
\ninstrumental nature through which it acts. His mastery over things is because
\nhe has become one soul with all things. To take an image from Roman
\ninstitutions, the Stoic freedom is that of the libertus<\/i>, the freedman, who is still really a dependent on the
\npower that once held him enslaved; his is a freedom allowed by Nature because
\nhe has merited it. The freedom of the Gita is that of the freeman, the true
\nfreedom of the birth into the higher nature, self-existent in its divinity.
\nWhatever he does and however he lives, the free soul lives in the Divine; he is
\nthe privileged child of the mansion, bālavat<\/i>,
\nwho cannot err or fall because all he is and does is full of the Perfect, the All-blissful,
\nthe All-loving, the All-beautiful. The kingdom which he enjoys, rājyam<\/i> samrddham<\/i>, is a sweet and happy dominion of which it may be
\nsaid, in the pregnant phrase of the Greek thinker, <\/p>\n

\u201cThe kingdom is
\nof the child.\u201d The knowledge of the philosopher is that of the true nature of
\nmundane existence, the transience of outward things, the vanity of the world’s
\ndifferences and distinctions, the superiority of the inner calm, peace, light,
\nself-dependence. It is an equality of philosophic indifference; it brings a
\nhigh calm, but not the greater spiritual joy; it is an isolated freedom, a
\nwisdom like that of the Lucretian sage high in his superiority upon the
\ncliff-top whence he looks down on men tossed still upon the tempestuous waters
\nfrom which he has escaped, \u2013 in the end something <\/p>\n

\nPage 198<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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after all aloof and ineffective.
\nThe Gita admits the philosophic motive of indifference as a preliminary
\nmovement; but the indifference to which it finally arrives, if indeed that inadequate
\nword can be at all applied, has nothing in it of the philosophic aloofness. It
\nis indeed a position as of one seated above, udāsīnavat<\/i>, but as the Divine is seated above, having no
\nneed at all in the world, yet he does works always and is present everywhere
\nsupporting, helping, guiding the labour of creatures. This equality is founded
\nupon oneness with all beings. It brings in what is wanting to the philosophic
\nequality; for its soul is the soul of peace, but also it is the soul of love. It
\nsees all beings without exception in the Divine, it is one self with the Self
\nof all existences and therefore it is in supreme sympathy with all of them.
\nWithout exception, aśesena<\/i>,
\nnot only with all that is good and fair and pleases; nothing and no one,
\nhowever vile, fallen, criminal, repellent in appearance, can be excluded from
\nthis universal, this whole-souled sympathy and spiritual oneness. Here there is
\nno room, not merely for hatred or anger or uncharitableness, but for aloofness,
\ndisdain or any petty pride of superiority. A divine compassion for the
\nignorance of the struggling mind, a divine will to pour forth on it all light
\nand power and happiness there will be, indeed, for the apparent man; but for
\nthe divine Soul within him there will be more, there will be adoration and
\nlove. For from all, from the thief and the harlot and the outcaste as from the
\nsaint and the sage, the Beloved looks forth and cries to us, \u201cThis is I.\u201d \u201cHe
\nwho loves Me in all beings,\u201d \u2013 what greater word of power for the utmost
\nintensities and profundities of divine and universal love, has been uttered by
\nany philosophy or any religion? <\/p>\n

Resignation is
\nthe basis of a kind of religious equality, submission to the divine will, a
\npatient bearing of the cross, a submissive forbearance. In the Gita this
\nelement takes the more ample form of an entire surrender of the whole being to
\nGod. It is not merely a passive submission, but an active self-giving; not only
\na seeing and an accepting of the divine Will in all things, but a giving up of
\none’s own will to be the instrument of the Master of works, and this not with
\nthe lesser idea of being a servant of God, but, eventually at least, of such a
\ncomplete renunciation <\/p>\n

\nPage 199<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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both of the consciousness and the
\nworks to him that our being becomes one with his being and the impersonalised
\nnature only an instrument and nothing else. All result good or bad, pleasing or
\nunpleasing, fortunate or unfortunate, is accepted as belonging to the Master of
\nour actions, so that finally not only are grief and suffering borne, but they
\nare banished: a perfect equality of the emotional mind is established. There is
\nno assumption of personal will in the instrument; it is seen that all is
\nalready worked out in the omniscient prescience and omnipotent effective power
\nof the universal Divine and that the egoism of men cannot alter the workings of
\nthat Will. Therefore, the final attitude is that enjoined on Arjuna in a later
\nchapter, \u201cAll has been already done by Me in my divine will and foresight;
\nbecome only the occasion, O Arjuna,\u201d nimittamātram
\nbhava savyasācin<\/i>. This attitude must lead finally to an absolute union
\nof the personal with the Divine Will and, with the growth of knowledge, bring
\nabout a faultless response of the instrument to the divine Power and Knowledge.
\nA perfect, an absolute equality of self-surrender, the mentality a passive
\nchannel of the divine Light and Power, the active being a mightily effective
\ninstrument for its work in the world, will be the poise of this supreme union
\nof the Transcendent, the universal and the individual. <\/p>\n

Equality too
\nthere will be with regard to the action of others upon us. Nothing that they
\ncan do will alter the inner oneness, love, sympathy which arises from the
\nperception of the one Self in all, the Divine in all beings. But a resigned forbearance
\nand submission to them and their deeds, a passive non-resistance, will be no
\nnecessary part of the action; it cannot be, since a constant instrumental
\nobedience to the divine and universal Will must mean in the shock of opposite forces
\nthat fill the world a conflict with personal wills which seek rather their own
\negoistic satisfaction. Therefore Arjuna is bidden to resist, to fight, to conquer;
\nbut, to fight without hatred or personal desire or personal enmity or
\nantagonism, since to the liberated soul these feelings are impossible. To act
\nfor the lokasamgraha<\/i>, impersonally,
\nfor the keeping and leading of the peoples on the path to the divine goal, is a
\nrule which rises necessarily from the oneness of the soul with the Divine, the
\nuniversal Being, since <\/p>\n

\nPage 200<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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that is the whole sense and drift
\nof the universal action. Nor does it conflict with our oneness with all beings,
\neven those who present themselves here as opponents and enemies. For the divine
\ngoal is their goal also, since it is the secret aim of all, even of those whose
\noutward minds, misled by ignorance and egoism, would wander from the path and
\nresist the impulsion. Resistance and defeat are the best outward service that
\ncan be done to them. By this perception the Gita avoids the limiting conclusion
\nwhich might have been drawn from a doctrine of equality impracticably
\noverriding all relations and of a weakening love without knowledge, while it
\nkeeps the one thing essential unimpaired. For the soul oneness with all, for
\nthe heart calm universal love, sympathy, compassion, but for the hands freedom
\nto work out impersonally the good, not of this or that person only without
\nregard to or to the detriment of the divine plan, but the purpose of the
\ncreation, the progressing welfare and salvation of men, the total good of all
\nexistences. <\/p>\n

Oneness with
\nGod, oneness with all beings, the realisation of the eternal divine unity
\neverywhere and the drawing onwards of men towards that oneness are the law of
\nlife which arises from the teachings of the Gita. There can be none greater,
\nwider, more profound. Liberated oneself, to live in this oneness, to help
\nmankind on the path that leads towards it and meanwhile to do all works for God
\nand help man also to do with joy and acceptance all the works to which he is
\ncalled, krtsnakarmakrt,
\nsarvakarmāni josayan, <\/i>no greater or more liberal rule
\nof divine works can be given. This freedom and this oneness are the secret goal
\nof our human nature and the ultimate will in the existence of the race. It is
\nthat to which it must turn for the happiness all mankind is now vainly seeking,
\nwhen once men lift their eyes and their hearts to see the Divine in them and
\naround, in all and everywhere, sarvesu,
\nsarvatra<\/i>, and learn that it is in him they live, while this lower nature of
\ndivision is only a prison-wall which they must break down or at best an
\ninfant-school which they must outgrow, so that they may become adult in nature
\nand free in spirit. To be made one self with God above and God in man and God
\nin the world is the sense of liberation and the secret of perfection. <\/p>\n

 Page 201<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TWENTY  Equality and Knowledge   YOGA and knowledge are, in this early part of the Gita’s teaching, the two wings of the soul’s ascent. By…<\/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-1395","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\/1395","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=1395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}