{"id":2140,"date":"2013-07-13T01:39:42","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2140"},"modified":"2013-12-02T01:55:52","modified_gmt":"2013-12-02T09:55:52","slug":"08-chapter-iii-self-surrender-in-works-the-way-of-the-gita-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga\/08-chapter-iii-self-surrender-in-works-the-way-of-the-gita-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","title":{"rendered":"-08_Chapter III Self-Surrender in Works -The Way of the Gita.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tChapter III <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSelf-Surrender in Works \u2014<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t The Way of the Gita <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tL<\/font>IFE, NOT<\/b> a remote silent or high-uplifted ecstatic Beyond-Life alone, is the field of our Yoga. The transformation of
\nour superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual
\nconsciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life must
\nbe its central purpose. The means towards this supreme end is a self-giving of all our nature to the Divine. Everything must be
\ngiven to the Divine within us, to the universal All and to the transcendent Supreme. An absolute concentration of our will,
\nour heart and our thought on that one and manifold Divine, an unreserved self-consecration of our whole being to the Divine
\nalone \u2014 this is the decisive movement, the turning of the ego to That which is infinitely greater than itself, its self-giving and
\nindispensable surrender. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe life of the human creature, as it is ordinarily lived, is
\ncomposed of a half-fixed, half-fluid mass of very imperfectly ruled thoughts, perceptions, sensations, emotions, desires, enjoyments, acts, mostly customary and self-repeating, in part only dynamic and self-developing, but all centred around a superficial
\nego. The sum of movement of these activities eventuates in an internal growth which is partly visible and operative in this life,
\npartly a seed of progress in lives hereafter. This growth of the conscious being, an expansion, an increasing self-expression,
\na more and more harmonised development of his constituent members is the whole meaning and all the pith of human
\nexistence. It is for this meaningful development of consciousness by thought, will, emotion, desire, action and experience, leading
\nin the end to a supreme divine self-discovery, that Man, the <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>89<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t mental being, has entered into the material body. All the rest
\nis either auxiliary and subordinate or accidental and otiose; that only matters which sustains and helps the evolution of his
\nnature and the growth or rather the progressive unfolding and discovery of his self and spirit. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe aim set before our Yoga is nothing less than to hasten this supreme object of our existence here. Its process leaves behind the ordinary tardy method of slow and confused growth through the evolution of Nature. For the natural evolution is
\nat its best an uncertain growth under cover, partly by the pressure of the environment, partly by a groping education and
\nan ill-lighted purposeful effort, an only partially illumined and half-automatic use of opportunities with many blunders and
\nlapses and relapses; a great portion of it is made up of apparent accidents and circumstances and vicissitudes,
\n\t\t\t\u2014 though veiling
\na secret divine intervention and guidance. In Yoga we replace this confused crooked crab-motion by a rapid, conscious and
\nself-directed evolution which is planned to carry us, as far as can be, in a straight line towards the goal set before us. In a
\ncertain sense it may be an error to speak of a goal anywhere in a progression which may well be infinite. Still we can conceive
\nof an immediate goal, an ulterior objective beyond our present achievement towards which the soul in man can aspire. There
\nlies before him the possibility of a new birth; there can be an ascent into a higher and wider plane of being and its descent to
\ntransform his members. An enlarged and illumined consciousness is possible that shall make of him a liberated spirit and a
\nperfected force \u2014 and, if spread beyond the individual, it might even constitute a divine humanity or else a new, a supramental
\nand therefore a superhuman race. It is this new birth that we make our aim: a growth into a divine consciousness is the whole
\nmeaning of our Yoga, an integral conversion to divinity not only of the soul but of all the parts of our nature. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t* *<\/font><\/p>\n

\nOur purpose in Yoga is to exile the limited outward-looking   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>90<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t ego and to enthrone God in its place as the ruling Inhabitant
\nof the nature. And this means, first, to disinherit desire and no longer accept the enjoyment of desire as the ruling human
\nmotive. The spiritual life will draw its sustenance not from desire but from a pure and selfless spiritual delight of essential
\nexistence. And not only the vital nature in us whose stamp is desire, but the mental being too must undergo a new birth and a
\ntransfiguring change. Our divided, egoistic, limited and ignorant thought and intelligence must disappear; in its place there must
\nstream in the catholic and faultless play of a shadowless divine illumination which shall culminate in the end in a natural
\nself-existent Truth-consciousness free from groping half-truth and stumbling error. Our confused and embarrassed ego-centred
\nsmall-motived will and action must cease and make room for the total working of a swiftly powerful, lucidly automatic, divinely
\nmoved and guided unfallen Force. There must be implanted and activised in all our doings a supreme, impersonal, unfaltering
\nand unstumbling will in spontaneous and untroubled unison with the will of the Divine. The unsatisfying surface play of
\nour feeble egoistic emotions must be ousted and there must be revealed instead a secret deep and vast psychic heart within that
\nwaits behind them for its hour; all our feelings, impelled by this inner heart in which dwells the Divine, will be transmuted
\ninto calm and intense movements of a twin passion of divine Love and manifold Ananda. This is the definition of a divine
\nhumanity or a supramental race. This, not an exaggerated or even a sublimated energy of human intellect and action, is the
\ntype of the superman whom we are called to evolve by our Yoga. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the ordinary human existence an outgoing action is obviously three-fourths or even more of our life. It is only the exceptions, the saint and the seer, the rare thinker, poet and
\nartist who can live more within themselves; these indeed, at least in the most intimate parts of their nature, shape themselves
\nmore in inner thought and feeling than in the surface act. But it is not either of these sides separated from the other, but rather a
\nharmony of the inner and the outer life made one in fullness and transfigured into a play of something that is beyond them which<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>91<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t will create the form of a perfect living. A Yoga of works, a union
\nwith the Divine in our will and acts \u2014 and not only in knowledge and feeling
\n\t\t\t\u2014 is then an indispensable, an inexpressibly
\nimportant element of an integral Yoga. The conversion of our thought and feeling without a corresponding conversion of the
\nspirit and body of our works would be a maimed achievement. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut if this total conversion is to be done, there must be a consecration of our actions and outer movements as much as of our mind and heart to the Divine. There must be accepted and progressively accomplished a surrender of our capacities of working into the hands of a greater Power behind us and our sense of being the doer and worker must disappear. All must be given for a more direct use into the hands of the divine Will which is hidden
\nby these frontal appearances; for by that permitting Will alone is our action possible. A hidden Power is the true Lord and overruling Observer of our acts and only he knows through all the ignorance and perversion and deformation brought in by the ego
\ntheir entire sense and ultimate purpose. There must be effected a complete transformation of our limited and distorted egoistic
\nlife and works into the large and direct outpouring of a greater divine Life, Will and Energy that now secretly supports us. This
\ngreater Will and Energy must be made conscious in us and master; no longer must it remain, as now, only a superconscious,
\nupholding and permitting Force. There must be achieved an undistorted transmission through us of the all-wise purpose and
\nprocess of a now hidden omniscient Power and omnipotent Knowledge which will turn into its pure, unobstructed, happily
\nconsenting and participating channel all our transmuted nature. This total consecration and surrender and this resultant entire
\ntransformation and free transmission make up the whole fundamental means and the ultimate aim of an integral Karmayoga. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven for those whose first natural movement is a consecration, a surrender and a resultant entire transformation of
\nthe thinking mind and its knowledge, or a total consecration, surrender and transformation of the heart and its emotions, the
\nconsecration of works is a needed element in that change. Otherwise, although they may find God in other-life, they will not be<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>92<\/font>  <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t able to fulfil the Divine in life; life for them will be a meaningless
\nundivine inconsequence. Not for them the true victory that shall be the key to the riddle of our terrestrial existence; their love
\nwill not be the absolute love triumphant over self, their knowledge will not be the total consciousness and the all-embracing
\nknowledge. It is possible, indeed, to begin with knowledge or Godward emotion solely or with both together and to leave
\nworks for the final movement of the Yoga. But there is then this disadvantage that we may tend to live too exclusively within,
\nsubtilised in subjective experience, shut off in our isolated inner parts; there we may get incrusted in our spiritual seclusion and
\nfind it difficult later on to pour ourselves triumphantly outwards and apply to life our gains in the higher Nature. When we turn
\nto add this external kingdom also to our inner conquests, we shall find ourselves too much accustomed to an activity purely
\nsubjective and ineffective on the material plane. There will be an immense difficulty in transforming the outer life and the body.
\nOr we shall find that our action does not correspond with the inner light: it still follows the old accustomed mistaken paths,
\nstill obeys the old normal imperfect influences; the Truth within us continues to be separated by a painful gulf from the ignorant
\nmechanism of our external nature. This is a frequent experience because in such a process the Light and Power come to be self-contained and unwilling to express themselves in life or to use the physical means prescribed for the Earth and her processes.
\nIt is as if we were living in another, a larger and subtler world and had no divine hold, perhaps little hold of any kind, upon
\nthe material and terrestrial existence. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut still each must follow his nature, and there are always
\ndifficulties that have to be accepted for some time if we are to pursue our natural path of Yoga. Yoga is after all primarily a
\nchange of the inner consciousness and nature, and if the balance of our parts is such that this must be done first with an initial
\nexclusiveness and the rest left for later handling, we must accept the apparent imperfection of the process. Yet would the ideal
\nworking of an integral Yoga be a movement, even from the beginning, integral in its process and whole and many-sided in
\n  
\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t its progress. In any case our present preoccupation is with a
\nYoga, integral in its aim and complete movement, but starting from works and proceeding by works although at each step
\nmore and more moved by a vivifying divine love and more and more illumined by a helping divine knowledge. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t* *<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe greatest gospel of spiritual works ever yet given to the race, the most perfect system of Karmayoga known to man in the past,
\nis to be found in the Bhagavad Gita. In that famous episode of the Mahabharata the great basic lines of Karmayoga
\n\t\t\tare laid down for all time with an incomparable mastery and the
\n\t\t\tinfallible eye of an assured experience. It is true that the path
\n\t\t\talone, as the ancients saw it, is worked out fully: the perfect
\n\t\t\tfulfilment, the highest secret\u00b9<\/font> is hinted rather than developed; it is kept back
\nas an unexpressed part of a supreme mystery. There are obvious reasons for this reticence; for the fulfilment is in any case a
\nmatter for experience and no teaching can express it. It cannot be described in a way that can really be understood by a mind
\nthat has not the effulgent transmuting experience. And for the soul that has passed the shining portals and stands in the blaze
\nof the inner light, all mental and verbal description is as poor as it is superfluous, inadequate and an impertinence. All divine
\nconsummations have perforce to be figured by us in the inapt and deceptive terms of a language which was made to fit the normal
\nexperience of mental man; so expressed, they can be rightly understood only by those who already know, and, knowing,
\nare able to give these poor external terms a changed, inner and transfigured sense. As the Vedic Rishis insisted in the beginning,
\nthe words of the supreme wisdom are expressive only to those who are already of the wise. The Gita at its cryptic close may
\nseem by its silence to stop short of that solution for which we are seeking; it pauses at the borders of the highest spiritual mind
\nand does not cross them into the splendours of the supramental <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\u00b9<\/font>
\nrahasyam uttamam<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>94<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t Light. And yet its secret of dynamic, and not only static, identity
\nwith the inner Presence, its highest mystery of absolute surrender to the Divine Guide, Lord and Inhabitant of our nature, is the
\ncentral secret. This surrender is the indispensable means of the supramental change and, again, it is through the supramental
\nchange that the dynamic identity becomes possible. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhat then are the lines of Karmayoga laid down by the
\nGita? Its key principle, its spiritual method, can be summed up as the union of two largest and highest states or powers of
\nconsciousness, equality and oneness. The kernel of its method is an unreserved acceptance of the Divine in our life as in our
\ninner self and spirit. An inner renunciation of personal desire leads to equality, accomplishes our total surrender to the Divine,
\nsupports a delivery from dividing ego which brings us oneness. But this must be a oneness in dynamic force and not only in
\nstatic peace or inactive beatitude. The Gita promises us freedom for the spirit even in the midst of works and the full energies of
\nNature, if we accept subjection of our whole being to that which is higher than the separating and limiting ego. It proposes an
\nintegral dynamic activity founded on a still passivity; a largest possible action irrevocably based on an immobile calm is its
\nsecret, \u2014 free expression out of a supreme inward silence. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll things here are the one and indivisible eternal transcendent and cosmic Brahman that is in its seeming divided in things and creatures; in seeming only, for in truth it is always one
\nand equal in all things and creatures and the division is only a phenomenon of the surface. As long as we live in the ignorant
\nseeming, we are the ego and are subject to the modes of Nature. Enslaved to appearances, bound to the dualities, tossed between
\ngood and evil, sin and virtue, grief and joy, pain and pleasure, good fortune and ill fortune, success and failure, we follow helplessly the iron or gilt and iron round of the wheel of Maya. At best we have only the poor relative freedom which by us is ignorantly called free-will. But that is at bottom illusory, since it is the modes of Nature that express themselves through our personal
\nwill; it is force of Nature, grasping us, ungrasped by us that determines what we shall will and how we shall will it. Nature, not
\n  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t an independent ego, chooses what object we shall seek, whether
\nby reasoned will or unreflecting impulse, at any moment of our existence. If, on the contrary, we live in the unifying reality of
\nthe Brahman, then we go beyond the ego and overstep Nature. For then we get back to our true self and become the spirit; in
\nthe spirit we are above the impulsion of Nature, superior to her modes and forces. Attaining to a perfect equality in the soul,
\nmind and heart, we realise our true self of oneness, one with all beings, one too with That which expresses itself in them and in
\nall that we see and experience. This equality and this oneness are the indispensable twin foundation we must lay down for a
\ndivine being, a divine consciousness, a divine action. Not one with all, we are not spiritual, not divine. Not equal-souled to
\nall things, happenings and creatures, we cannot see spiritually, cannot know divinely, cannot feel divinely towards others. The
\nSupreme Power, the one Eternal and Infinite is equal to all things and to all beings; and because it is equal, it can act with an absolute wisdom according to the truth of its works and its force and according to the truth of each thing and of every creature. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis is also the only true freedom possible to man, \u2014 a freedom which he cannot have unless he outgrows his mental
\nseparativeness and becomes the conscious soul in Nature. The only free will in the world is the one divine Will of which Nature
\nis the executrix; for she is the master and creator of all other wills. Human free-will can be real in a sense, but, like all things
\nthat belong to the modes of Nature, it is only relatively real. The mind rides on a swirl of natural forces, balances on a poise
\nbetween several possibilities, inclines to one side or another, settles and has the sense of choosing: but it does not see, it is
\nnot even dimly aware of the Force behind that has determined its choice. It cannot see it, because that Force is something
\ntotal and to our eyes indeterminate. At most mind can only distinguish with an approach to clarity and precision some out
\nof the complex variety of particular determinations by which this Force works out her incalculable purposes. Partial itself, the
\nmind rides on a part of the machine, unaware of nine-tenths of its motor agencies in Time and environment, unaware of its past <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t preparation and future drift; but because it rides, it thinks that
\nit is directing the machine. In a sense it counts: for that clear inclination of the mind which we call our will, that firm settling
\nof the inclination which presents itself to us as a deliberate choice, is one of Nature’s most powerful determinants; but it
\nis never independent and sole. Behind this petty instrumental action of the human will there is something vast and powerful
\nand eternal that oversees the trend of the inclination and presses on the turn of the will. There is a total Truth in Nature greater
\nthan our individual choice. And in this total Truth, or even beyond and behind it, there is something that determines all
\nresults; its presence and secret knowledge keep up steadily in the process of Nature a dynamic, almost automatic perception
\nof the right relations, the varying or persistent necessities, the inevitable steps of the movement. There is a secret divine Will,
\neternal and infinite, omniscient and omnipotent, that expresses itself in the universality and in each particular of all these
\napparently temporal and finite inconscient or half-conscient things. This is the Power or Presence meant by the Gita when it
\nspeaks of the Lord within the heart of all existences who turns all creatures as if mounted on a machine by the illusion of Nature. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis divine Will is not an alien Power or Presence; it is intimate to us and we ourselves are part of it: for it is our own
\nhighest Self that possesses and supports it. Only, it is not our conscious mental will; it rejects often enough what our conscious will accepts and accepts what our conscious will rejects. For while this secret One knows all and every whole and each
\ndetail, our surface mind knows only a little part of things. Our will is conscious in the mind, and what it knows, it knows by
\nthe thought only; the divine Will is superconscious to us because it is in its essence supra-mental, and it knows all because it is
\nall. Our highest Self which possesses and supports this universal Power is not our ego-self, not our personal nature; it is something
\ntranscendent and universal of which these smaller things are only foam and flowing surface. If we surrender our conscious will and
\nallow it to be made one with the will of the Eternal, then, and then only, shall we attain to a true freedom; living in the divine
\n  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t liberty, we shall no longer cling to this shackled so-called freewill, a puppet freedom ignorant, illusory, relative, bound to the error of its own inadequate vital motives and mental figures. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t* *<\/font><\/p>\n

\nA distinction has to be firmly seized in our consciousness, the capital distinction between mechanical Nature and the free Lord
\nof Nature, between the Ishwara or single luminous divine Will and the many executive modes and forces of the universe. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNature, \u2014 not as she is in her divine Truth, the conscious Power of the Eternal, but as she appears to us in the Ignorance,
\n\t\t\t\u2014 is executive Force, mechanical in her steps, not consciously intelligent to our experience of her, although all her works are
\ninstinct with an absolute intelligence. Not in herself master, she is full of a self-aware Power\u00b2<\/font> which has an infinite mastery and,
\nbecause of this Power driving her, she rules all and exactly fulfils the work intended in her by the Ishwara. Not enjoying but enjoyed, she bears in herself the burden of all enjoyments. Nature as Prakriti is an inertly active Force,
\n\t\t\t\u2014 for she works out a
\nmovement imposed upon her; but within her is One that knows, \u2014 some Entity sits there that is aware of all her motion and process. Prakriti works containing the knowledge, the mastery, the delight of the Purusha, the Being associated with her or seated
\nwithin her; but she can participate in them only by subjection and reflection of that which fills her. Purusha knows and is still
\nand inactive; he contains the action of Prakriti within his consciousness and knowledge and enjoys it. He gives the sanction
\nto Prakriti’s works and she works out what is sanctioned by him for his pleasure. Purusha himself does not execute; he maintains
\nPrakriti in her action and allows her to express in energy and process and formed result what he perceives in his knowledge.
\nThis is the distinction made by the Sankhyas; and although it is not all the true truth, not in any way the highest truth either<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\u00b2<\/font> This Power is the conscious divine Shakti of the Ishwara, the transcendent and
\nuniversal Mother.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t of Purusha or of Prakriti, still it is a valid and indispensable
\npractical knowledge in the lower hemisphere of existence. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe individual soul or the conscious being in a form may
\nidentify itself with this experiencing Purusha or with this active Prakriti. If it identifies itself with Prakriti, it is not master,
\nenjoyer and knower, but reflects the modes and workings of Prakriti. It enters by its identification into that subjection and
\nmechanical working which is characteristic of her. And even, by an entire immersion in Prakriti, this soul becomes inconscient or
\nsubconscient, asleep in her forms as in the earth and the metal or almost asleep as in plant life. There, in that inconscience, it
\nis subject to the domination of tamas, the principle, the power, the qualitative mode of obscurity and inertia: sattwa and rajas
\nare there, but they are concealed in the thick coating of tamas. Emerging into its own proper nature of consciousness but not yet
\ntruly conscious, because there is still too great a domination of tamas in the nature, the embodied being becomes more and more
\nsubject to rajas, the principle, the power, the qualitative mode of action and passion impelled by desire and instinct. There is then
\nformed and developed the animal nature, narrow in consciousness, rudimentary in intelligence, rajaso-tamasic in vital habit
\nand impulse. Emerging yet farther from the great Inconscience towards a spiritual status the embodied being liberates sattwa,
\nthe mode of light, and acquires a relative freedom and mastery and knowledge and with it a qualified and conditioned sense
\nof inner satisfaction and happiness. Man, the mental being in a physical body, should be but is not, except in a few among
\nthis multitude of ensouled bodies, of this nature. Ordinarily he has too much in him of the obscure earth-inertia and a troubled
\nignorant animal life-force to be a soul of light and bliss or even a mind of harmonious will and knowledge. There is here in man an
\nincomplete and still hampered and baffled ascension towards the true character of the Purusha, free, master, knower and enjoyer.
\nFor these are in human and earthly experience relative modes, none giving its single and absolute fruit; all are intermixed with
\neach other and there is not the pure action of any one of them anywhere. It is their confused and inconstant interaction that <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t determines the experiences of the egoistic human consciousness
\nswinging in Nature’s uncertain balance. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe sign of the immersion of the embodied soul in Prakriti is the
\n\t\t\tlimitation of consciousness to the ego. The vivid stamp of this
\n\t\t\tlimited consciousness can be seen in a constant inequality of the
\n\t\t\tmind and heart and a confused conflict and disharmony in their
\n\t\t\tvaried reactions to the touches of experience. The human reactions
\n\t\t\tsway perpetually between the dualities created by the soul’s
\n\t\t\tsubjection to Nature and by its often intense but narrow struggle
\n\t\t\tfor mastery and enjoyment, a struggle for the most part ineffective.
\n\t\t\tThe soul circles in an unending round of Nature’s alluring and
\n\t\t\tdistressing opposites, success and failure, good fortune and ill
\n\t\t\tfortune, good and evil, sin and virtue, joy and grief, pain and
\n\t\t\tpleasure. It is only when, awaking from its immersion in Prakriti,
\n\t\t\tit perceives its oneness with the One and its oneness with all
\n\t\t\texistences that it can become free from these things and found its
\n\t\t\tright relation to this executive world-Nature. Then it becomes
\n\t\t\tindifferent to her inferior modes, equal-minded to her dualities,
\n\t\t\tcapable of mastery and freedom; it is seated above her as the
\n\t\t\thigh-throned knower and witness filled with the calm intense
\n\t\t\tunalloyed delight of his own eternal existence. The embodied spirit
\n\t\t\tcontinues to express its powers in action, but it is no longer
\n\t\t\tinvolved in ignorance, no longer bound by its works; its actions
\n\t\t\thave no longer a consequence within it, but only a consequence
\n\t\t\toutside in Prakriti. The whole movement of Nature becomes to its
\n\t\t\texperience a rising and falling of waves on the surface that make no
\n\t\t\tdifference to its own unfathomable peace, its wide delight, its vast
\n\t\t\tuniversal equality or its boundless God-existence.\u00b3<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t* *<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\u00b3<\/font>  It is not indispensable for the Karmayoga to accept implicitly all the philosophy of
\nthe Gita. We may regard it, if we like, as a statement of psychological experience useful as a practical basis for the Yoga; here it is perfectly valid and in entire consonance with
\na high and wide experience. For this reason I have thought it well to state it here, as far as possible in the language of modern thought, omitting all that belongs to metaphysics
\nrather than to psychology. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t These are the conditions of our effort and they point to an ideal
\nwhich can be expressed in these or in equivalent formulae. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo live in God and not in the ego; to move, vastly founded,
\nnot in the little egoistic consciousness, but in the consciousness of the All-Soul and the Transcendent. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo be perfectly equal in all happenings and to all beings, and to see and feel them as one with oneself and one with the
\nDivine; to feel all in oneself and all in God; to feel God in all, oneself in all. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo act in God and not in the ego. And here, first, not to choose action by reference to personal needs and standards, but
\nin obedience to the dictates of the living highest Truth above us. Next, as soon as we are sufficiently founded in the spiritual
\nconsciousness, not to act any longer by our separate will or movement, but more and more to allow action to happen and
\ndevelop under the impulsion and guidance of a divine Will that surpasses us. And last, the supreme result, to be exalted into an
\nidentity in knowledge, force, consciousness, act, joy of existence with the Divine Shakti; to feel a dynamic movement not dominated by mortal desire and vital instinct and impulse and illusive mental free-will, but luminously conceived and evolved in an
\nimmortal self-delight and an infinite self-knowledge. For this is the action that comes by a conscious subjection and merging of
\nthe natural man into the divine Self and eternal Spirit; it is the Spirit that for ever transcends and guides this world-Nature. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t* *<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut by what practical steps of self-discipline can we arrive at this consummation? <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe elimination of all egoistic activity and of its foundation, the egoistic consciousness, is clearly the key to the consummation we desire. And since in the path of works action is the knot we have first to loosen, we must endeavour to loosen it
\nwhere it is centrally tied, in desire and in ego; for otherwise we shall cut only stray strands and not the heart of our bondage.
\nThese are the two knots of our subjection to this ignorant and  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t divided Nature, desire and ego-sense. And of these two desire
\nhas its native home in the emotions and sensations and instincts and from there affects thought and volition; ego-sense lives indeed in these movements, but it casts its deep roots also in the thinking mind and its will and it is there that it becomes fully selfconscious. These are the twin obscure powers of the obsessing world-wide Ignorance that we have to enlighten and eliminate. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the field of action desire takes many forms, but the most powerful of all is the vital self’s craving or seeking after the fruit
\nof our works. The fruit we covet may be a reward of internal pleasure; it may be the accomplishment of some preferred idea or
\nsome cherished will or the satisfaction of the egoistic emotions, or else the pride of success of our highest hopes and ambitions.
\nOr it may be an external reward, a recompense entirely material, \u2014 wealth, position, honour, victory, good fortune or any other
\nfulfilment of vital or physical desire. But all alike are lures by which egoism holds us. Always these satisfactions delude us with
\nthe sense of mastery and the idea of freedom, while really we are harnessed and guided or ridden and whipped by some gross
\nor subtle, some noble or ignoble, figure of the blind Desire that drives the world. Therefore the first rule of action laid down
\nby the Gita is to do the work that should be done without any . \u00af<\/i>
\ndesire for the fruit, niskama karma<\/i>. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA simple rule in appearance, and yet how difficult to carry
\nout with anything like an absolute sincerity and liberating entireness! In the greater part of our action we use the principle very
\nlittle if at all, and then even mostly as a sort of counterpoise to the normal principle of desire and to mitigate the extreme action
\nof that tyrant impulse. At best, we are satisfied if we arrive at a modified and disciplined egoism not too shocking to our moral
\nsense, not too brutally offensive to others. And to our partial self-discipline we give various names and forms; we habituate
\nourselves by practice to the sense of duty, to a firm fidelity to principle, a stoical fortitude or a religious resignation, a quiet
\nor an ecstatic submission to God’s will. But it is not these things that the Gita intends, useful though they are in their place; it
\naims at something absolute, unmitigated, uncompromising, a  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t turn, an attitude that will change the whole poise of the soul.
\nNot the mind’s control of vital impulse is its rule, but the strong immobility of an immortal spirit. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe test it lays down is an absolute equality of the mind and the heart to all results, to all reactions, to all happenings. If good
\nfortune and ill fortune, if respect and insult, if reputation and obloquy, if victory and defeat, if pleasant event and sorrowful
\nevent leave us not only unshaken but untouched, free in the emotions, free in the nervous reactions, free in the mental view,
\nnot responding with the least disturbance or vibration in any spot of the nature, then we have the absolute liberation to which
\nthe Gita points us, but not otherwise. The tiniest reaction is a proof that the discipline is imperfect and that some part of us
\naccepts ignorance and bondage as its law and clings still to the old nature. Our self-conquest is only partially accomplished; it
\nis still imperfect or unreal in some stretch or part or smallest spot of the ground of our nature. And that little pebble of
\nimperfection may throw down the whole achievement of the Yoga! <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere are certain semblances of an equal spirit which must not be mistaken for the profound and vast spiritual equality
\nwhich the Gita teaches. There is an equality of disappointed resignation, an equality of pride, an equality of hardness and
\nindifference: all these are egoistic in their nature. Inevitably they come in the course of the sadhana, but they must be rejected
\nor transformed into the true quietude. There is too, on a higher level, the equality of the stoic, the equality of a devout resignation or a sage detachment, the equality of a soul aloof from the world and indifferent to its doings. These too are insufficient; first approaches they can be, but they are at most early soul-phases only or imperfect mental preparations for our entry
\ninto the true and absolute self-existent wide evenness of the spirit. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor it is certain that so great a result cannot be arrived at immediately and without any previous stages. At first we have to
\nlearn to bear the shocks of the world with the central part of our being untouched and silent, even when the surface mind, heart,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>103<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tlife are strongly shaken; unmoved there on the bedrock of our
\nlife, we must separate the soul watching behind or immune deep within from these outer workings of our nature. Afterwards,
\nextending this calm and steadfastness of the detached soul to its instruments, it will become slowly possible to radiate peace from
\nthe luminous centre to the darker peripheries. In this process we may take the passing help of many minor phases; a certain
\nstoicism, a certain calm philosophy, a certain religious exaltation may help us towards some nearness to our aim, or we may call in
\neven less strong and exalted but still useful powers of our mental nature. In the end we must either discard or transform them and
\narrive instead at an entire equality, a perfect self-existent peace within and even, if we can, a total unassailable, self-poised and
\nspontaneous delight in all our members. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut how then shall we continue to act at all? For ordinarily
\nthe human being acts because he has a desire or feels a mental, vital or physical want or need; he is driven by the necessities
\nof the body, by the lust of riches, honours or fame, or by a craving for the personal satisfactions of the mind or the heart
\nor a craving for power or pleasure. Or he is seized and pushed about by a moral need or, at least, the need or the desire of
\nmaking his ideas or his ideals or his will or his party or his country or his gods prevail in the world. If none of these desires
\nnor any other must be the spring of our action, it would seem as if all incentive or motive power had been removed and action
\nitself must necessarily cease. The Gita replies with its third great secret of the divine life. All action must be done in a more
\nand more Godward and finally a God-possessed consciousness; our works must be a sacrifice to the Divine and in the end
\na surrender of all our being, mind, will, heart, sense, life and body to the One must make God-love and God-service our only
\nmotive. This transformation of the motive force and very character of works is indeed its master idea; it is the foundation of
\nits unique synthesis of works, love and knowledge. In the end not desire, but the consciously felt will of the Eternal remains
\nas the sole driver of our action and the sole originator of its initiative.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>104<\/font>
\n  <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tEquality, renunciation of all desire for the fruit of our works,
\naction done as a sacrifice to the supreme Lord of our nature and of all nature,
\n\t\t\t\u2014 these are the three first Godward approaches in
\nthe Gita’s way of Karmayoga.   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>105<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter III Self-Surrender in Works \u2014  The Way of the Gita   LIFE, NOT a remote silent or high-uplifted ecstatic Beyond-Life alone, is the field…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","wpcat-46-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2140","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=2140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9802,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2140\/revisions\/9802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}