{"id":1410,"date":"2013-07-13T01:34:37","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1410"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:34:37","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:37","slug":"10-sankhya-and-yoga-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\/10-sankhya-and-yoga-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","title":{"rendered":"-10_Sankhya and Yoga.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

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


\n <\/font><\/b>Sankhya and
\nYoga<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nI<\/font><\/b>N THE<\/font> moment of his turning from this
\nfirst and summary answer to Arjuna’s difficulties and in the very first words
\nwhich strike the keynote of a spiritual solution, the Teacher makes at once a
\ndistinction which is of the utmost importance for the understanding of the
\nGita, \u2013 the distinction of Sankhya and Yoga. \u201cSuch is the intelligence (the
\nintelligent knowledge of things and will) declared to thee in the Sankhya, hear
\nnow this in the Yoga, for if thou art in Yoga by this intelligence, O son of
\nPritha, thou shalt cast away the bondage of works.\u201d That is the literal
\ntranslation of the words in which the Gita announces the distinction it intends
\nto make. <\/p>\n

The Gita is in its foundation a Vedantic work; it is one of
\nthe three recognised authorities for the Vedantic teaching and, although not
\ndescribed as a revealed Scripture, although, that is to say, it is largely
\nintellectual, ratiocinative, philosophical in its method, founded indeed on the
\nTruth, but not the directly inspired Word which is the revelation of the Truth
\nthrough the higher faculties of the seer, it is yet so highly esteemed as to be
\nranked almost as a thirteenth Upanishad. But still its Vedantic ideas are
\nthroughout and thoroughly coloured by the ideas of the Sankhya and the Yoga way
\nof thinking and it derives from this colouring the peculiar synthetic character
\nof its philosophy. It is in fact primarily a practical system of Yoga that it
\nteaches and it brings in metaphysical ideas only as explanatory of its
\npractical system; nor does it merely declare Vedantic knowledge, but it founds
\nknowledge and devotion upon works, even as it uplifts works to knowledge, their
\nculmination, and informs them with devotion as their very heart and kernel of
\ntheir spirit. Again its Yoga is founded upon the analytical philosophy of the
\nSankhyas, takes that as a starting-point and always keeps it as a large element
\nof its method and doctrine; but still it proceeds far <\/p>\n

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\n

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 beyond
\nit, negatives even some of its characteristic tendencies and finds a means of
\nreconciling the lower analytical knowledge of Sankhya with the higher synthetic
\nand Vedantic truth. <\/p>\n

What, then, are the Sankhya and Yoga of which the Gita
\nspeaks? They are certainly not the systems which have come down to us under
\nthese names as enunciated respectively in the Sankhya Karika of Ishwara Krishna
\nand the Yoga aphorisms of Patanjali. This Sankhya is not the system of the
\nKarikas, \u2013 at least as that is generally understood; for the Gita nowhere for a
\nmoment admits the multiplicity of Purushas as a primal truth of being and it
\naffirms emphatically what the traditional Sankhya strenuously denies, the One
\nas Self and Purusha, that One again as the Lord, Ishwara or Purushottama, and
\nIshwara as the cause of the universe. The traditional Sankhya is, to use our
\nmodern distinctions, atheistic; the Sankhya of the Gita admits and subtly
\nreconciles the theistic, pantheistic and monistic views of the universe. <\/p>\n

Nor is this Yoga the Yoga system of Patanjali; for that is a
\npurely subjective method of Rajayoga, an internal discipline, limited, rigidly
\ncut out, severely and scientifically graded, by which the mind is progressively
\nstilled and taken up into Samadhi so that we may gain the temporal and eternal
\nresults of this self-exceeding, the temporal in a great expansion of the soul’s
\nknowledge and powers, the eternal in the divine union. But the Yoga of the Gita
\nis a large, flexible and many-sided system with various elements, which are all
\nsuccessfully harmonised by a sort of natural and living assimilation, and of
\nthese elements Rajayoga is only one and not the most important and vital. This
\nYoga does not adopt any strict and scientific gradation but is a process of
\nnatural soul-development; it seeks by the adoption of a few principles of
\nsubjective poise and action to bring about a renovation of the soul and a sort
\nof change, ascension or new birth out of the lower nature into the divine.
\nAccordingly, its idea of Samadhi is quite different from the ordinary notion of
\nthe Yogic trance; and while Patanjali gives to works only an initial importance
\nfor moral purification and religious concentration, the Gita goes so far as to
\nmake works the distinctive characteristic of Yoga. Action to Patanjali is only
\na preliminary, in the Gita <\/p>\n

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\n

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it
\nis a permanent foundation; in the Rajayoga it has practically to be put aside
\nwhen its result has been attained or at any rate ceases very soon to be a means
\nfor the Yoga, for the Gita it is a means of the highest ascent and continues even
\nafter the complete liberation of the soul. <\/p>\n

This much has to be said in order to avoid any confusion of
\nthought that might be created by the use of familiar words in a connotation
\nwider than the technical sense now familiar to us. Still, all that is essential
\nin the Sankhya and Yoga systems, all in them that is large, catholic and
\nuniversally true, is admitted by the Gita, even though it does not limit itself
\nby them like the opposing schools. Its Sankhya is the catholic and Vedantic
\nSankhya such as we find it in its first principles and elements in the great
\nVedantic synthesis of the Upanishads and in the later developments of the
\nPuranas. Its idea of Yoga is that large idea of a principally subjective
\npractice and inner change, necessary for the finding of the Self or the union
\nwith God, of which the Rajayoga is only one special application. The Gita
\ninsists that Sankhya and Yoga are not two different, incompatible and
\ndiscordant systems, but one in their principle and aim; they differ only in
\ntheir method and starting-point. The Sankhya also is a Yoga, but it proceeds by
\nknowledge; it starts, that is to say, by intellectual discrimination and
\nanalysis of the principles of our being and attains its aim through the vision
\nand possession of the Truth. Yoga, on the other hand, proceeds by works; it is
\nin its first principle Karmayoga; but it is evident from the whole teaching of
\nthe Gita and its later definitions that the word karma<\/i> is used in a very wide sense and that by Yoga is meant the
\nselfless devotion of all the inner as well as the outer activities as a
\nsacrifice to the Lord of all works, offered to the Eternal as Master of all the
\nsoul’s energies and austerities. Yoga is the practice of the Truth of which
\nknowledge gives the vision, and its practice has for its motor-power a spirit
\nof illumined devotion, of calm or fervent consecration to that which knowledge
\nsees to be the Highest.<\/p>\n

But what are the truths of Sankhya? The philosophy drew its
\nname from its analytical process. Sankhya is the analysis, the enumeration, the
\nseparative and discriminative setting forth <\/p>\n

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\n

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 of
\nthe principles of our being of which the ordinary mind sees only the
\ncombinations and results of combination. It did not seek at all to synthetise.
\nIts original standpoint is in fact dualistic, not with the very relative
\ndualism of the Vedantic schools which call themselves by that name, Dwaita, but
\nin a very absolute and trenchant fashion. For it explains existence not by one,
\nbut by two original principles whose inter-relation is the cause of the
\nuniverse, \u2013 Purusha, the inactive, Prakriti, the active. Purusha is the Soul,
\nnot in the ordinary or popular sense of the word, but of pure conscious Being
\nimmobile, immutable and self-luminous. Prakriti is Energy and its process. Purusha
\ndoes nothing, but it reflects the action of Energy and its processes; Prakriti
\nis mechanical, but by being reflected in Purusha it assumes the appearance of
\nconsciousness in its activities, and thus there are created those phenomena of
\ncreation, conservation, dissolution, birth and life and death, consciousness
\nand unconsciousness, sense-knowledge and intellectual knowledge and ignorance,
\naction and inaction, happiness and suffering which the Purusha under the
\ninfluence of Prakriti attributes to itself although they belong not at all to
\nitself but to the action or movement of Prakriti alone. <\/p>\n

For Prakriti is constituted of three Gunas or essential modes
\nof energy; sattwa, the seed of intelligence, conserves the workings of energy;
\nrajas, the seed of force and action, creates the workings of energy; tamas, the
\nseed of inertia and non-intelligence, the denial of sattwa and rajas, dissolves
\nwhat they create and conserve. When these three powers of the energy of
\nPrakriti are in a state of equilibrium, all is in rest, there is no movement,
\naction or creation and there is therefore nothing to be reflected in the
\nimmutable luminous being of the conscious Soul. But when the equilibrium is
\ndisturbed, then the three gunas fall into a state of inequality in which they
\nstrive with and act upon each other and the whole inextricable business of
\nceaseless creation, conservation and dissolution begins, unrolling the
\nphenomena of the cosmos. This continues so long as the Purusha consents to
\nreflect the disturbance which obscures his eternal nature and attributes to it
\nthe nature of Prakriti; but when he withdraws his consent, the gunas fall into
\nequilibrium and the soul returns <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 65<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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 to
\nits eternal, unchanging immobility; it is delivered from phenomena. This
\nreflection and this giving or withdrawal of consent seem to be the only powers
\nof Purusha; he is the witness of Nature by virtue of reflection and the giver
\nof the sanction, sāksī<\/i>
\nand anumantā<\/i> of the Gita, but
\nnot actively the Ishwara. Even his giving of consent is passive and his
\nwithdrawing of consent is only another passivity. All action subjective or
\nobjective is foreign to the Soul; it has neither an active will nor an active
\nintelligence. It cannot therefore be the sole cause of the cosmos and the
\naffirmation of a second cause becomes necessary. Not Soul alone by its nature
\nof conscious knowledge, will and delight is the cause of the universe, but Soul
\nand Nature are the dual cause, a passive Consciousness and an active Energy. So
\nthe Sankhya explains the existence of the cosmos. <\/p>\n

But whence then come this conscious intelligence and
\nconscious will which we perceive to be so large a part of our being and which
\nwe commonly and instinctively refer not to the Prakriti, but to the Purusha?
\nAccording to the Sankhya this intelligence and will are entirely a part of the
\nmechanical energy of Nature and are not properties of the soul; they are the principle
\nof Buddhi, one of the twenty-four Tattvas, the twenty-four cosmic principles.
\nPrakriti in the evolution of the world bases herself with her three Gunas in
\nher as the original substance of things, unmanifest, inconscient, out of which
\nare evolved successively five elemental conditions of energy or matter, \u2013 for
\nMatter and Force are the same in the Sankhya philosophy. These are called by
\nthe names of the five concrete elements of ancient thought, ether, air, fire,
\nwater and earth; but it must be remembered that they are not elements in the
\nmodern scientific sense but subtle conditions of material energy and nowhere to
\nbe found in their purity in the gross material world. All objects are created
\nby the combination of these five subtle conditions or elements. Again, each of
\nthese five is the base of one of five subtle properties of energy or matter,
\nsound, touch, form, taste and smell, which constitute the way in which the
\nmind-sense perceives objects. Thus by these five elements of Matter put forth
\nfrom primary energy and these five sense relations through which Matter is
\nknown is evolved what we would call in modern <\/p>\n

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\n

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 language
\nthe objective aspect of cosmic existence. <\/p>\n

Thirteen
\nother principles constitute the subjective aspect of the cosmic Energy, \u2013 Buddhi
\nor Mahat, Ahankara, Manas\u00a0 <\/span>and its ten
\nsense-functions, five of knowledge, five of action. Manas, mind, is the
\noriginal sense which perceives all objects and reacts upon them; for it has at
\nonce an inferent and an efferent activity, receives by perception what the Gita
\ncalls the outward touches of things, bāhya
\nsparśa<\/i>, and so forms its idea of the world and exercises its reactions
\nof active vitality. But it specialises its most ordinary functions of reception
\nby aid of the five perceptive senses of hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell,
\nwhich make the five properties of things their respective objects, and
\nspecialises certain necessary vital functions of reaction by aid of the five
\nactive senses which operate for speech, locomotion, the seizing of things,
\nejection and generation. Buddhi, the discriminating principle, is at once
\nintelligence and will; it is that power in Nature which discriminates and
\ncoordinates. Ahankara, the ego-sense, is the subjective principle in Buddhi by
\nwhich the Purusha is induced to identify himself with Prakriti and her
\nactivities. But these subjective principles are themselves as mechanical, as
\nmuch a part of the inconscient energy as those which constitute her objective
\noperations. If we find it difficult to realise how intelligence and will can be
\nproperties of the mechanical Inconscient and themselves mechanical (jada<\/i>), we have only to remember
\nthat modern Science itself has been driven to the same conclusion. Even in the
\nmechanical action of the atom there is a power which can only be called an
\ninconscient will and in all the works of Nature that pervading will does
\ninconsciently the works of intelligence. What we call mental intelligence is
\nprecisely the same thing in its essence as that which discriminates and coordinates
\nsubconsciously in all the activities of the material universe, and conscious
\nMind itself, Science has tried to demonstrate, is only a result and transcript
\nof the mechanical action of the inconscient. But Sankhya explains what modern
\nScience leaves in obscurity, the process by which the mechanical and
\ninconscient takes on the appearance of consciousness. It is because of the
\nreflection of Prakriti in Purusha; the light of consciousness of the Soul is
\nattributed to the workings <\/p>\n

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 of
\nthe mechanical energy and it is thus that the Purusha, observing Nature as the
\nwitness and forgetting himself, is deluded with the idea generated in her that
\nit is he who thinks, feels, wills, acts, while all the time the operation of
\nthinking, feeling, willing, acting is conducted really by her and her three
\nmodes and not by himself at all. To get rid of this delusion is the first step
\ntowards the liberation of the soul from Nature and her works. <\/p>\n

There are certainly plenty of things in our existence which
\nthe Sankhya does not explain at all or does not explain satisfactorily, but if
\nall we need is a rational explanation of the cosmic processes in their
\nprinciples as a basis for the great object common to the ancient philosophies,
\nthe liberation of the soul from the obsession of cosmic Nature, then the
\nSankhya explanation of the world and the Sankhya way of liberation seem as good
\nand as effective as any other. What we do not seize at first is why it should
\nbring in an element of pluralism into its dualism by affirming one Prakriti,
\nbut many Purushas. It would seem that the existence of one Purusha and one
\nPrakriti should be sufficient to account for the creation and procession of the
\nuniverse. But the Sankhya was bound to evolve pluralism by its rigidly
\nanalytical observation of the principles of things. First, actually, we find
\nthat there are many conscious beings in the world and each regards the same world
\nin his own way and has his independent experience of its subjective and
\nobjective things, his separate dealings with the same perceptive and reactive
\nprocesses. If there were only one Purusha, there would not be this central
\nindependence and separativeness, but all would see the world in an identical
\nfashion and with a common subjectivity and objectivity. Because Prakriti is
\none, all witness the same world; because her principles are everywhere the
\nsame, the general principles which constitute internal and external experience
\nare the same for all; but the infinite difference of view and outlook and
\nattitude, action and experience and escape from experience, \u2013 a difference not
\nof the natural operations which are the same but of the witnessing
\nconsciousness, \u2013 are utterly inexplicable except on the supposition that there
\nis a multiplicity of witnesses, many Purushas. The separative ego-sense, we may
\nsay, is a sufficient explanation? But the ego-sense is a common principle of
\nNature <\/p>\n

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 and
\nneed not vary; for by itself it simply induces the Purusha to identify himself
\nwith Prakriti, and if there is only one Purusha, all beings would be one,
\njoined and alike in their egoistic consciousness; however different in detail
\nmight be the mere forms and combinations of their natural parts, there would be
\nno difference of soul-outlook and soul-experience. The variations of Nature
\nought not to make all this central difference, this multiplicity of outlook and
\nfrom beginning to end this separateness of experience in one Witness, one
\nPurusha. Therefore the pluralism of souls is a logical necessity to a pure
\nSankhya system divorced from the Vedantic elements of the ancient knowledge
\nwhich first gave it birth. The cosmos and its process can be explained by the
\ncommerce of one Prakriti with one Purusha, but not the multiplicity of
\nconscious beings in the cosmos. <\/p>\n

There is another difficulty quite as formidable. Liberation
\nis the object set before itself by this philosophy as by others. This
\nliberation is effected, we have said, by the Purusha’s withdrawal of his
\nconsent from the activities of Prakriti which she conducts only for his
\npleasure; but, in sum, this is only a way of speaking. The Purusha is passive
\nand the act of giving or withdrawing consent cannot really belong to it, but
\nmust be a movement in Prakriti itself. If we consider, we shall see that it is,
\nso far as it is an operation, a movement of reversal or recoil in the principle
\nof Buddhi, the discriminative will. Buddhi has been lending itself to the
\nperceptions of the mind-sense; it has been busy discriminating and coordinating
\nthe operations of the cosmic energy and by the aid of the ego-sense identifying
\nthe Witness with her works of thought, sense and action. It arrives by the
\nprocess of discriminating things at the acid and dissolvent realisation that
\nthis identity is a delusion; it discriminates finally the Purusha from Prakriti
\nand perceives that all is mere disturbance of the equilibrium of the gunas; the
\nBuddhi, at once intelligence and will, recoils from the falsehood which it has
\nbeen supporting and the Purusha, ceasing to be bound, no longer associates
\nhimself with the interest of the mind in the cosmic play. The ultimate result
\nwill be that Prakriti will lose her power to reflect herself in the Purusha;
\nfor the effect of the ego-sense is destroyed and the intelligent will becoming
\nindifferent ceases to<\/p>\n

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 be the
\nmeans of her sanction: necessarily then her gunas must fall into a state of
\nequilibrium, the cosmic play must cease, the Purusha return to his immobile
\nrepose. But if there were only the one Purusha and this recoil of the
\ndiscriminating principle from its delusions took place, all cosmos would cease.
\nAs it is, we see that nothing of the kind happens. A few beings among
\ninnumerable millions attain to liberation or move towards it; the rest are in
\nno way affected, nor is cosmic Nature in her play with them one whit
\ninconvenienced by this summary rejection which should be the end of all her processes.
\nOnly by the theory of many independent Purushas can this fact be explained. The
\nonly at all logical explanation from the point of view of Vedantic monism is
\nthat of the Mayavada; but there the whole thing becomes a dream, both bondage
\nand liberation are circumstances of the unreality, the empirical blunderings of
\nMaya; in reality there is none freed, none bound. The more realistic Sankhya
\nview of things does not admit this phantasmagoric idea of existence and
\ntherefore cannot adopt this solution. Here too we see that the multiplicity of
\nsouls is an inevitable conclusion from the data of the Sankhya analysis of existence. <\/p>\n

The Gita starts from this analysis and seems at first, even
\nin its setting forth of Yoga, to accept it almost wholly. It accepts Prakriti
\nand her three gunas and twenty-four principles; accepts the attribution of all
\naction to the Prakriti and the passivity of the Purusha; accepts the
\nmultiplicity of conscious beings in the cosmos; accepts the dissolution of the
\nidentifying ego-sense, the discriminating action of the intelligent will and
\nthe transcendence of the action of the three modes of energy as the means of
\nliberation. The Yoga which Arjuna is asked to practise from the outset is Yoga
\nby the Buddhi, the intelligent will. But there is one deviation of capital
\nimportance, \u2013 the Purusha is regarded as one, not many; for the free,
\nimmaterial, immobile, eternal, immutable Self of the Gita, but for one detail,
\nis a Vedantic description of the eternal, passive, immobile, immutable Purusha
\nof the Sankhyas. But the capital difference is that there is One and not many.
\nThis brings in the whole difficulty which the Sankhya multiplicity avoids and
\nnecessitates a quite different solution. This the Gita provides by bringing
\ninto its <\/p>\n

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\n

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

 Vedantic
\nSankhya the ideas and principles of Vedantic Yoga. <\/p>\n

The first important new element we find is in the conception
\nof Purusha itself. Prakriti conducts her activities for the pleasure of
\nPurusha; but how is that pleasure determined? In the strict Sankhya analysis it
\ncan only be by a passive consent of the silent Witness. Passively the Witness
\nconsents to the action of the intelligent will and the ego-sense, passively he consents
\nto the recoil of that will from the ego-sense. He is Witness, source of the
\nconsent, by reflection upholder of the work of Nature, sāksī anumantā <\/i>bhartā, but nothing
\nmore. But the Purusha of the Gita is also the Lord of Nature; he is Ishwara. If
\nthe operation of the intelligent will belongs to Nature, the origination and
\npower of the will proceed from the conscious Soul; he is the Lord of Nature. If
\nthe act of intelligence of the Will is the act of Prakriti, the source and
\nlight of the intelligence are actively contributed by the Purusha; he is not
\nonly the Witness, but the Lord and Knower, master of knowledge and will, j\u00f1ātā īśvarah<\/i>.
\nHe is the supreme cause of the action of Prakriti, the supreme cause of its
\nwithdrawal from action. In the Sankhya analysis Purusha and Prakriti in their
\ndualism are the cause of the cosmos; in this synthetic Sankhya Purusha by his
\nPrakriti is the cause of the cosmos. We see at once how far we have travelled
\nfrom the rigid purism of the traditional analysis. <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But what of the one self immutable,
\nimmobile, eternally free, with which the Gita began? That is free from all
\nchange or involution in change, avikārya<\/i>,
\nunborn, unmanifested, the Brahman, yet it is that \u201cby which all this is
\nextended.\u201d Therefore it would seem that the principle of the Ishwara is in its
\nbeing; if it is immobile, it is yet the cause and lord of all action and
\nmobility. But how? And what of the multiplicity of conscious beings in the
\ncosmos? They do not seem to be the Lord, but rather very much not the Lord, anīśsa<\/i>, for they are subject
\nto the action of the three gunas and the delusion of the ego-sense, and if, as
\nthe Gita seems to say, they are all the one self, how did this involution,
\nsubjection and delusion come about or how is it explicable except by the pure
\npassivity of the Purusha? And whence the multiplicity? or how is it that the
\none self in one body and mind attains to liberation while in others it remains
\nunder the delusion of <\/p>\n

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\n

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 bondage?
\nThese are difficulties which cannot be passed by without a solution. <\/p>\n

The Gita answers them in its later chapters by an analysis of
\nPurusha and Prakriti which brings in new elements very proper to a Vedantic
\nYoga, but alien to the traditional Sankhya. It speaks of three Purushas or
\nrather a triple status of the Purusha. The Upanishads in dealing with the
\ntruths of Sankhya seem sometimes to speak only of two Purushas. There is one
\nunborn of three colours, says a text, the eternal feminine principle of
\nPrakriti with its three gunas, ever creating; there are two unborn, two
\nPurushas, of whom one cleaves to and enjoys her, the other abandons her because
\nhe has enjoyed all her enjoyments. In another verse they are described as two
\nbirds on one tree, eternally yoked companions, one of whom eats the fruits of
\nthe tree, \u2013 the Purusha in Nature enjoying her cosmos, \u2013 the other eats not,
\nbut watches his fellow, \u2013 the silent Witness, withdrawn from the enjoyment;
\nwhen the first sees the second and knows that all is his greatness, then he is delivered
\nfrom sorrow. The point of view in the two verses is different, but they have a
\ncommon implication. One of the birds is the eternally silent, unbound Self or
\nPurusha by whom all this is extended and he regards the cosmos he has extended,
\nbut is aloof from it; the other is the Purusha involved in Prakriti. The first
\nverse indicates that the two are the same, represent different states, bound
\nand liberated, of the same conscious being, \u2013 for the second Unborn has
\ndescended into the enjoyment of Nature and withdrawn from her; the other verse
\nbrings out what we would not gather from the former, that in its higher status
\nof unity the self is for ever free, inactive, unattached, though it descends in
\nits lower being into the multiplicity of the creatures of Prakriti and
\nwithdraws from it by reversion in any individual creature to the higher status.
\nThis theory of the double status of the one conscious soul opens a door; but
\nthe process of the multiplicity of the One is still obscure. <\/p>\n

To these two the Gita, developing the thought of other
\npassages in the Upanishads,\u00b9 <\/span>adds
\nyet another, the supreme, the <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font><\/span>Purusah . .
\n. aksarāt paratah parah<\/font><\/span><\/i>, \u2013 although the Akshara is
\nsupreme, there is a supreme Purusha higher than it, says the Upanishad.<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 72<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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 Purushottama,
\nthe highest Purusha, whose greatness all this creation is. Thus there are three,
\nthe Kshara, the Akshara, the Uttama. Kshara, the mobile, the mutable is Nature,
\nsvabhāva<\/i>, it is the various
\nbecoming of the soul; the Purusha here is the multiplicity of the divine Being;
\nit is the Purusha multiple not apart from, but in Prakriti. Akshara, the
\nimmobile, the immutable, is the silent and inactive self, it is the unity of
\nthe divine Being, Witness of Nature, but not involved in its movement; it is
\nthe inactive Purusha free from Prakriti and her works. The Uttama is the Lord,
\nthe supreme Brahman, the supreme Self, who possesses both the immutable unity
\nand the mobile multiplicity. It is by a large mobility and action of His
\nnature, His energy, His will and power, that He manifests Himself in the world
\nand by a greater stillness and immobility of His being that He is aloof from
\nit; yet is He as Purushottama above both the aloofness from Nature and the
\nattachment to Nature. This idea of the Purushottama, though continually implied
\nin the Upanishads, is disengaged and definitely brought out by the Gita and has
\nexercised a powerful influence on the later developments of the Indian
\nreligious consciousness. It is the foundation of the highest Bhaktiyoga which
\nclaims to exceed the rigid definitions of monistic philosophy; it is at the
\nback of the philosophy of the devotional Puranas. <\/p>\n

        The Gita is not content,
\neither, to abide within the Sankhya analysis of Prakriti; for that makes room
\nonly for the ego-sense and not for the multiple Purusha, which is there not a
\npart of Prakriti,
\nbut separate from her. The Gita affirms on the contrary that the Lord by His nature
\nbecomes the Jiva. How is that possible, since there are only the twenty-four
\nprinciples of the cosmic Energy and no others? Yes, says the divine Teacher in
\neffect, that is a perfectly valid account for the apparent operations of the
\ncosmic Prakriti with its three gunas, and the relation attributed to Purusha
\nand Prakriti there is also quite valid and of great use for the practical
\npurposes of the involution and the withdrawal. But this is only the lower Prakriti
\nof the three modes, the inconscient, the apparent; there is a higher, a
\nsupreme, a conscient and divine Nature, and it is that which has become the
\nindividual soul, the Jiva. In the lower nature each <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 73<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 being
\nappears as the ego, in the higher he is the individual Purusha. In other words
\nmultiplicity is part of the spiritual nature of the One. This individual soul
\nis myself, in the creation it is a partial manifestation of me, mamaiva<\/i> amśah<\/i>, and it possesses all my powers; it is witness,
\ngiver of the sanction, upholder, knower, lord. It descends into the lower
\nnature and thinks itself bound by action, so to enjoy the lower being: it can
\ndraw back and know itself as the passive Purusha free from all action. It can
\nrise above the three gunas and, liberated from the bondage of action, yet
\npossess action, even as I do myself, and by adoration of the Purushottama and
\nunion with him it can enjoy wholly its divine Nature.<\/p>\n

Such is the analysis, not confining itself to the apparent
\ncosmic process but penetrating into the occult secrets of superconscious
\nNature, uttamam rahasyam<\/i>, by which
\nthe Gita founds its synthesis of Vedanta, Sankhya and Yoga, its synthesis of
\nknowledge, works and devotion. By the pure Sankhya alone the combining of works
\nand liberation is contradictory and impossible. By pure Monism alone the
\npermanent continuation of works as a part of Yoga and the indulgence of
\ndevotion after perfect knowledge and liberation and union are attained, become
\nimpossible or at least irrational and otiose. The Sankhya knowledge of the Gita
\ndissipates and the Yoga system of the Gita triumphs over all these obstacles. <\/p>\n

 Page 74<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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