{"id":2154,"date":"2013-07-13T01:39:48","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2154"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:39:48","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:48","slug":"15-chapter-x-the-three-modes-of-nature-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\/15-chapter-x-the-three-modes-of-nature-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","title":{"rendered":"-15_Chapter X The Three Modes of Nature.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

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

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

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Three Modes of Nature<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tT<\/font>O TRANSCEND<\/b> the natural action of the
\n\t\t\tlower Prakriti is indispensable to the soul, if it is to be free in
\n\t\t\tits self and free in its works. Harmonious subjection to this actual
\n\t\t\tuniversal Nature, a condition of good and perfect work for the
\n\t\t\tnatural instruments, is not an ideal for the soul, which should
\n\t\t\trather be subject to God and his Shakti, but master of its own
\n\t\t\tnature. As agent or as channel of the Supreme Will it must determine
\n\t\t\tby its vision and sanction or refusal the use that shall be made of
\n\t\t\tthe storage of energy, the conditions of environment, the rhythm of
\n\t\t\tcombined movement which are provided by Prakriti for the labour of
\n\t\t\tthe natural instruments, mind, life and body. But this inferior
\n\t\t\tNature can only be mastered if she is surmounted and used from
\n\t\t\tabove. And this can only be done by a transcendence of her forces,
\n\t\t\tqualities and modes of action; otherwise we are subject to her
\n\t\t\tconditions and helplessly dominated by her, not free in the spirit. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe idea of the three essential modes of Nature
\n\t\t\tis a creation of the ancient Indian thinkers and its truth is not at
\n\t\t\tonce obvious, because it was the result of long psychological
\n\t\t\texperiment and profound internal experience. Therefore without a
\n\t\t\tlong inner experience, without intimate self-observation and
\n\t\t\tintuitive perception of the Nature-forces it is difficult to grasp
\n\t\t\taccurately or firmly utilise. Still certain broad indications may
\n\t\t\thelp the seeker on the Way of Works to understand, analyse and
\n\t\t\tcontrol by his assent or refusal the combinations of his own nature.
\n\t\t\tThese modes are termed in the Indian books qualities, gunas<\/i>,
\n\t\t\tand .<\/i>
\n\t\t\tare given the names sattva<\/i>, rajas<\/i>, tamas<\/i>.
\n\t\t\tSattwa is the force of equilibrium and translates in quality as good
\n\t\t\tand harmony and happiness and light; rajas is the force of kinesis
\n\t\t\tand translates in quality as struggle and effort, passion and
\n\t\t\taction; tamas is the force of inconscience and inertia and
\n\t\t\ttranslates in quality <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>232<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tas obscurity and incapacity and inaction. Ordinarily used for
\n\t\t\tpsychological self-analysis, these distinctions are valid also in
\n\t\t\tphysical Nature. Each thing and every existence in the lower
\n\t\t\tPrakriti contains them and its process and dynamic form are the
\n\t\t\tresult of the interaction of these qualitative powers. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEvery form of things, whether animate or inanimate, is a constantly
\n\t\t\tmaintained poise of natural forces in motion and is subject to an
\n\t\t\tunending stream of helpful, disturbing or disintegrating contacts
\n\t\t\tfrom other combinations of forces that surround it. Our own nature
\n\t\t\tof mind, life and body is nothing else than such a formative
\n\t\t\tcombination and poise. In the reception of the environing contacts
\n\t\t\tand the reaction to them the three modes determine the temper of the
\n\t\t\trecipient and the character of the response. Inert and inapt, he may
\n\t\t\tsuffer them without any responsive reaction, any motion of
\n\t\t\tself-defence or any capacity of assimilation and adjustment; this is
\n\t\t\tthe mode of tamas, the way of inertia. The stigmata of tamas are
\n\t\t\tblindness and unconsciousness and incapacity and unintelligence,
\n\t\t\tsloth and indolence and inactivity and mechanical routine and the
\n\t\t\tmind’s torpor and the life’s sleep and the soul’s slumber. Its
\n\t\t\teffect, if uncorrected by other elements, can be nothing but
\n\t\t\tdisintegration of the form or the poise of the nature without any
\n\t\t\tnew creation or new equilibrium or force of kinetic progress. At the
\n\t\t\theart of this inert impotence is the principle of ignorance and an
\n\t\t\tinability or slothful unwillingness to comprehend, seize and manage
\n\t\t\tthe stimulating or assailing contact, the suggestion of environing
\n\t\t\tforces and their urge towards fresh experience. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOn the other hand, the recipient of Nature’s
\n\t\t\tcontacts, touched and stimulated, solicited or assailed by her
\n\t\t\tforces, may react to the pressure or against it. She allows,
\n\t\t\tencourages, impels him to strive, to resist, to attempt, to dominate
\n\t\t\tor engross his environment, to assert his will, to fight and create
\n\t\t\tand conquer. This is the mode of rajas, the way of passion and
\n\t\t\taction and the thirst of desire. Struggle and change and new
\n\t\t\tcreation, victory and defeat and joy and suffering and hope and
\n\t\t\tdisappointment are its children and build the many-coloured house of
\n\t\t\tlife in which it takes its pleasure. But its knowledge is an
\n\t\t\timperfect<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>233<\/font>  <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tor a false knowledge and brings with it ignorant effort, error, a
\n\t\t\tconstant misadjustment, pain of attachment, disappointed desire,
\n\t\t\tgrief of loss and failure. The gift of rajas is kinetic force,
\n\t\t\tenergy, activity, the power that creates and acts and can overcome;
\n\t\t\tbut it moves in the wrong lights or the half-lights of the Ignorance
\n\t\t\tand it is perverted by the touch of the Asura, Rakshasa and Pishacha.
\n\t\t\tThe arrogant ignorance of the human mind and its self-satisfied
\n\t\t\tperversions and presumptuous errors, the pride and vanity and
\n\t\t\tambition, the cruelty and tyranny and beast wrath and violence, the
\n\t\t\tselfishness and baseness and hypocrisy and treachery and vile
\n\t\t\tmeanness, the lust and greed and rapacity, the jealousy, envy and
\n\t\t\tbottomless ingratitude that disfigure the earth-nature are the
\n\t\t\tnatural children of this indispensable but strong and dangerous turn
\n\t\t\tof Nature. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut the embodied being is not limited to these two modes of
\n\t\t\tPrakriti; there is a better and more enlightened way in which he can
\n\t\t\tdeal with surrounding impacts and the stream of the world-forces.
\n\t\t\tThere is possible a reception and reaction with clear comprehension,
\n\t\t\tpoise and balance. This way of natural being has the power that,
\n\t\t\tbecause it understands, sympathises; it fathoms and controls and
\n\t\t\tdevelops Nature’s urge and her ways: it has an intelligence that
\n\t\t\tpenetrates her processes and her significances and can assimilate
\n\t\t\tand utilise; there is a lucid response that is not overpowered but
\n\t\t\tadjusts, corrects, adapts, harmonises, elicits the best in all
\n\t\t\tthings. This is the mode of sattwa, the turn of Nature that is full
\n\t\t\tof light and poise, directed to good, to knowledge, to delight and
\n\t\t\tbeauty, to happiness, right understanding, right equilibrium, right
\n\t\t\torder: its temperament is the opulence of a bright clearness of
\n\t\t\tknowledge and a lucent warmth of sympathy and closeness. A fineness
\n\t\t\tand enlightenment, a governed energy, an accomplished harmony and
\n\t\t\tpoise of the whole being is the consummate achievement of the
\n\t\t\tsattwic nature. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNo existence is cast entirely in the single mould
\n\t\t\tof any of these three modes of the cosmic Force; all three are
\n\t\t\tpresent in everyone and everywhere. There is a constant combining
\n\t\t\tand separation of their shifting relations and interpenetrating<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>234<\/font>  <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tinfluences, often a conflict, a wrestling of forces, a struggle to
\n\t\t\tdominate each other. All have in great or in small extent or degree,
\n\t\t\teven if sometimes in a hardly appreciable minimum, their sattwic
\n\t\t\tstates and clear tracts or inchoate tendencies of light, clarity and
\n\t\t\thappiness, fine adaptation and sympathy with the environment,
\n\t\t\tintelligence, poise, right mind, right will and feeling, right
\n\t\t\timpulse, virtue, order. All have their rajasic moods and impulses
\n\t\t\tand turbid parts of desire and passion and struggle, perversion and
\n\t\t\tfalsehood and error, unbalanced joy and sorrow, aggressive push to
\n\t\t\twork and eager creation and strong or bold or fiery or fierce
\n\t\t\treactions to the pressure of the environment and to life’s assaults
\n\t\t\tand offers. All have their tamasic states and constant obscure
\n\t\t\tparts, their moments or points of unconsciousness, their long habit
\n\t\t\tor their temporary velleities of weak resignation or dull
\n\t\t\tacceptance, their constitutional feeblenesses or movements of
\n\t\t\tfatigue, negligence and indolence and their lapses into ignorance
\n\t\t\tand incapacity, depression and fear and cowardly recoil or
\n\t\t\tsubmission to the environment and to the pressure of men and events
\n\t\t\tand forces. Each one of us is sattwic in some directions of his
\n\t\t\tenergy of Nature or in some parts of his mind or character, in
\n\t\t\tothers rajasic, tamasic in others. According as one or other of the
\n\t\t\tmodes usually dominates his general temperament and type of mind and
\n\t\t\tturn of action, it is said of him that he is the sattwic, the
\n\t\t\trajasic or the tamasic man; but few are always of one kind and none
\n\t\t\tis entire in his kind. The wise are not always or wholly wise, the
\n\t\t\tintelligent are intelligent only in patches; the saint suppresses in
\n\t\t\thimself many unsaintly movements and the evil are not entirely evil:
\n\t\t\tthe dullest has his unexpressed or unused and undeveloped
\n\t\t\tcapacities, the most timorous his moments or his way of courage, the
\n\t\t\thelpless and the weakling a latent part of strength in his nature.
\n\t\t\tThe dominant gunas are not the essential soul-type of the embodied
\n\t\t\tbeing but only the index of the formation he has made for this life
\n\t\t\tor during his present existence and at a given moment of his
\n\t\t\tevolution in Time. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>235<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tWhen the sadhaka has once stood back from the
\n\t\t\taction of Prakriti within him or upon him and, not interfering, not
\n\t\t\tamending or inhibiting, not choosing or deciding, allowed its play
\n\t\t\tand analysed and watched the process, he soon discovers that her
\n\t\t\tmodes are self-dependent and work as a machine once put in action
\n\t\t\tworks by its own structure and propelling forces. The force and the
\n\t\t\tpropulsion come from Prakriti and not from the creature. Then he
\n\t\t\trealises how mistaken was his impression that his mind was the doer
\n\t\t\tof his works; his mind was only a small part of him and a creation
\n\t\t\tand engine of Nature. Nature was acting all the while in her own
\n\t\t\tmodes moving the three general qualities about as a girl might play
\n\t\t\twith her puppets. His ego was all along a tool and plaything; his
\n\t\t\tcharacter and intelligence, his moral qualities and mental powers,
\n\t\t\this creations and works and exploits, his anger and forbearance, his
\n\t\t\tcruelty and mercy, his love and his hatred, his sin and his virtue,
\n\t\t\this light and his darkness, his passion of joy and his anguish of
\n\t\t\tsorrow were the play of Nature to which the soul, attracted, won and
\n\t\t\tsubjected, lent its passive concurrence. And yet the determinism of
\n\t\t\tNature or Force is not all; the soul has a word to say in the
\n\t\t\tmatter, \u2014 but the secret soul, the Purusha, not the mind or the ego,
\n\t\t\tsince these are not independent entities, they are parts of Nature.
\n\t\t\tFor the soul’s sanction is needed for the play and by an inner
\n\t\t\tsilent will as the lord and giver of the sanction it can determine
\n\t\t\tthe principle of the play and intervene in its combinations,
\n\t\t\talthough the execution in thought and will and act and impulse must
\n\t\t\tstill be Nature’s part and privilege. The Purusha can dictate a
\n\t\t\tharmony for Nature to execute, not by interfering in her functions
\n\t\t\tbut by a conscious regard on her which she transmutes at once or
\n\t\t\tafter much difficulty into translating idea and dynamic impetus and
\n\t\t\tsignificant figure. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn escape from the action of the two inferior
\n\t\t\tgunas is very evidently indispensable if we are to transmute our
\n\t\t\tpresent nature into a power and form of the divine consciousness and
\n\t\t\tan instrument of its forces. Tamas obscures and prevents the light
\n\t\t\tof the divine knowledge from penetrating into the dark and dull
\n\t\t\tcorners of our nature. Tamas incapacitates and takes <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n \t\t\taway the power to respond to divine impulse and the energy to change and
\n\t\t\tthe will to progress and make ourselves plastic to a greater Shakti.
\n\t\t\tRajas perverts knowledge, makes our reason the accomplice of
\n\t\t\tfalsehood and the abettor of every wrong movement, disturbs and
\n\t\t\ttwists our life-force and its impulses, oversets the balance and
\n\t\t\thealth of the body. Rajas captures all high-born ideas and
\n\t\t\thigh-seated movements and turns them to a false and egoistic use;
\n\t\t\teven divine Truth and divine influences, when they descend into the
\n\t\t\tearthly plane, cannot escape this misuse and seizure. Tamas
\n\t\t\tunenlightened and rajas unconverted, no divine change or divine life
\n\t\t\tis possible. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn exclusive resort to sattwa would seem to be the way of escape:
\n\t\t\tbut there is this difficulty that no one of the qualities can
\n\t\t\tprevail by itself against its two companions and rivals. If,
\n\t\t\tenvisaging the quality of desire and passion as the cause of
\n\t\t\tdisturbance, suffering, sin and sorrow, we strain and labour to
\n\t\t\tquell and subdue it, rajas sinks but tamas rises. For, the principle
\n\t\t\tof activity dulled, inertia takes its place. A quiet peace,
\n\t\t\thappiness, knowledge, love, right sentiment can be founded by the
\n\t\t\tprinciple of light, but, if rajas is absent or completely
\n\t\t\tsuppressed, the quiet in the soul tends to become a tranquillity of
\n\t\t\tinaction, not the firm ground of a dynamic change. Ineffectively
\n\t\t\tright-thinking, right-doing, good, mild and even, the nature may
\n\t\t\tbecome in its dynamic parts sattwa-tamasic, neutral, pale-tinted,
\n\t\t\tuncreative or emptied of power. Mental and moral obscurity may be
\n\t\t\tabsent, but so are the intense springs of action, and this is a
\n\t\t\thampering limitation and another kind of incompetence. For tamas is
\n\t\t\ta double principle; it contradicts rajas by inertia, it contradicts
\n\t\t\tsattwa by narrowness, obscurity and ignorance and, if either is
\n\t\t\tdepressed, it pours in to occupy its place. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIf we call in rajas again to correct this error and bid it ally
\n\t\t\titself to sattwa and by their united agency endeavour to get rid of
\n\t\t\tthe dark principle, we find that we have elevated our action, but
\n\t\t\tthat there is again subjection to rajasic eagerness, passion,
\n\t\t\tdisappointment, suffering, anger. These movements may be more
\n\t\t\texalted in their scope and spirit and action than before, but they
\n\t\t\tare not the peace, the freedom, the power, the self-mastery <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tat which we long to arrive. Wherever desire and
\n\t\t\tego harbour, passion and disturbance harbour with them and share
\n\t\t\ttheir life. And if we seek a compromise between the three modes,
\n\t\t\tsattwa leading, the others subordinate, still we have only arrived
\n\t\t\tat a more temperate action of the play of Nature. A new poise has
\n\t\t\tbeen reached, but a spiritual freedom and mastery are not in sight
\n\t\t\tor else are still only a far-off prospect. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA radically different movement has to draw us back from the gunas
\n\t\t\tand lift us above them. The error that accepts the action of the
\n\t\t\tmodes of Nature must cease; for as long as it is accepted, the soul
\n\t\t\tis involved in their operations and subjected to their law. Sattwa
\n\t\t\tmust be transcended as well as rajas and tamas; the golden chain
\n\t\t\tmust be broken no less than the leaden fetters and the
\n\t\t\tbond-ornaments of a mixed alloy. The Gita prescribes to this end a
\n\t\t\tnew method of self-discipline. It is to stand back in oneself from
\n\t\t\tthe action of the modes and observe this unsteady flux as the
\n\t\t\tWitness seated above the surge of the forces of Nature. He is one
\n\t\t\twho watches but is impartial and indifferent, aloof from them on
\n\t\t\ttheir own level and in his native posture high above them. As they
\n\t\t\trise and fall in their waves, the Witness looks, observes, but
\n\t\t\tneither accepts nor for the moment interferes with their course.
\n\t\t\tFirst there must be the freedom of the impersonal Witness;
\n\t\t\tafterwards there can be the control of the Master, the Ishwara. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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

\n\t\t\tThe initial advantage of this process of detachment is that one
\n\t\t\tbegins to understand one’s own nature and all Nature. The detached
\n\t\t\tWitness is able to see entirely without the least blinding by egoism
\n\t\t\tthe play of her modes of the Ignorance and to pursue it into all its
\n\t\t\tramifications, coverings and subtleties \u2014 for it is full of
\n\t\t\tcamouflage and disguise and snare and treachery and ruse. Instructed
\n\t\t\tby long experience, conscious of all act and condition as their
\n\t\t\tinteraction, made wise of their processes, he cannot any longer be
\n\t\t\tovercome by their assaults, surprised in their nets or deceived by
\n\t\t\ttheir disguises. At the same time he perceives the ego<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>238<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tto be nothing better than a device and the sustaining knot of their
\n\t\t\tinteraction and, perceiving it, he is delivered from the illusion of
\n\t\t\tthe lower egoistic Nature. He escapes from the sattwic egoism of the
\n\t\t\taltruist and the saint and the thinker; he shakes off from its
\n\t\t\tcontrol on his life-impulses the rajasic egoism of the self-seeker
\n\t\t\tand ceases to be the laborious caterer of self-interest and the
\n\t\t\tpampered prisoner or toiling galley-slave of passion and desire; he
\n\t\t\tslays with the light of knowledge the tamasic egoism of the ignorant
\n\t\t\tor passive being, dull, unintelligent, attached to the common round
\n\t\t\tof human life. Thus convinced and conscious of the essential vice of
\n\t\t\tthe ego-sense in all our personal action, he seeks no longer to find
\n\t\t\ta means of self-correction and self-liberation in the rajasic or
\n\t\t\tsattwic ego but looks above, beyond the instruments and the working
\n\t\t\tof Nature, to the Master of works alone and his supreme Shakti, the
\n\t\t\tsupreme Prakriti. There alone all the being is pure and free and the
\n\t\t\trule of a divine Truth possible. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn this progression the first step is a certain detached superiority
\n\t\t\tto the three modes of Nature. The soul is inwardly separated and
\n\t\t\tfree from the lower Prakriti, not involved in its coils, indifferent
\n\t\t\tand glad above it. Nature continues to act in the triple round of
\n\t\t\ther ancient habits, \u2014 desire, grief and joy attack the heart, the
\n\t\t\tinstruments fall into inaction and obscurity and weariness, light
\n\t\t\tand peace come back into the heart and mind and body; but the soul
\n\t\t\tstands unchanged and untouched by these changes. Observing and
\n\t\t\tunmoved by the grief and desire of the lower members, smiling at
\n\t\t\ttheir joys and their strainings, regarding and unoverpowered by the
\n\t\t\tfailing and the darknesses of the thought and the wildness or the
\n\t\t\tweaknesses of the heart and nerves, uncompelled and unattached to
\n\t\t\tthe mind’s illuminations and its relief and sense of ease or of
\n\t\t\tpower in the return of light and gladness, it throws itself into
\n\t\t\tnone of these things, but waits unmoved for the intimations of a
\n\t\t\thigher Will and the intuitions of a greater luminous knowledge. Thus
\n\t\t\tdoing always, it becomes eventually free even in its nature parts
\n\t\t\tfrom the strife of the three modes and their insufficient values and
\n\t\t\timprisoning limits. For now this lower Prakriti feels progressively
\n\t\t\ta compulsion from a higher Shakti. The old habits to which it  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>239<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tclung receive no further sanction and begin
\n\t\t\tsteadily to lose their frequency and force of recurrence. At last it
\n\t\t\tunderstands that it is called to a higher action and a better state
\n\t\t\tand, however slowly, however reluctantly, with whatever initial or
\n\t\t\tprolonged ill-will and stumbling ignorance, it submits, turns and
\n\t\t\tprepares itself for the change. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe static freedom of the soul, no longer witness only and knower,
\n\t\t\tis crowned by a dynamic transformation of the nature. The constant
\n\t\t\tmixture, the uneven operation of the three modes acting upon each
\n\t\t\tother in our three instruments ceases from its normal confused,
\n\t\t\ttroubled and improper action and movement. Another action becomes
\n\t\t\tpossible, commences, grows, culminates, a working more truly right,
\n\t\t\tmore luminous, natural and normal to the deepest divine interplay of
\n\t\t\tPurusha and Prakriti although supernatural and supernormal to our
\n\t\t\tpresent imperfect nature. The body conditioning the physical mind
\n\t\t\tinsists no longer on its tamasic inertia that repeats always the
\n\t\t\tsame ignorant movement: it becomes a passive field and instrument of
\n\t\t\ta greater force and light, it responds to every demand of the
\n\t\t\tspirit’s force, holds and supports every variety and intensity of
\n\t\t\tnew divine experience. Our kinetic and dynamic vital parts, our
\n\t\t\tnervous and emotional and sensational and volitional being, expand
\n\t\t\tin power and admit a tireless action and a blissful enjoyment of
\n\t\t\texperience, but learn at the same time to stand on a foundation of
\n\t\t\twide self-possessed and self-poised calm, sublime in force, divine
\n\t\t\tin rest, neither exulting and excited nor tortured by sorrow and
\n\t\t\tpain, neither harried by desire and importunate impulses nor dulled
\n\t\t\tby incapacity and indolence. The intelligence, the thinking,
\n\t\t\tunderstanding and reflective mind, renounces its sattwic limitations
\n\t\t\tand opens to an essential light and peace. An infinite knowledge
\n\t\t\toffers to us its splendid ranges, a knowledge not made up of mental
\n\t\t\tconstructions, not bound by opinion and idea or dependent on a
\n\t\t\tstumbling uncertain logic and the petty support of the senses, but
\n\t\t\tself-sure, authentic, all-penetrating, all-comprehending; a
\n\t\t\tboundless bliss and peace, not dependent on deliverance from the
\n\t\t\thampered strenuousness of creative energy and dynamic action, not
\n\t\t\tconstituted by a <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>240<\/font>  \n\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tfew limited felicities but self-existent and all-including, pour into
\n\t\t\tever-enlarging fields and through ever-widening and always more
\n\t\t\tnumerous channels to possess the nature. A higher force, bliss and
\n\t\t\tknowledge from a source beyond mind and life and body seize on them
\n\t\t\tto remould in a diviner image. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHere the disharmonies of the triple mode of our inferior existence
\n\t\t\tare overpassed and there begins a greater triple mode of a divine
\n\t\t\tNature. There is no obscurity of tamas or inertia. Tamas is replaced
\n\t\t\tby a divine peace and tranquil eternal repose out of which is
\n\t\t\treleased from a supreme matrix of calm concentration the play of
\n\t\t\taction and knowledge. There is no rajasic kinesis, no desire, no
\n\t\t\tjoyful and sorrowful striving of action, creation and possession, no
\n\t\t\tfruitful chaos of troubled impulse. Rajas is replaced by a
\n\t\t\tself-possessed power and illimitable act of force, that even in its
\n\t\t\tmost violent intensities does not shake the immovable poise of the
\n\t\t\tsoul or stain the vast and profound heavens and luminous abysses of
\n\t\t\tits peace. There is no constructing light of mind casting about to
\n\t\t\tseize and imprison the Truth, no insecure or inactive ease. Sattwa
\n\t\t\tis replaced by an illumination and a spiritual bliss identical with
\n\t\t\tthe depth and infinite existence of the soul and instinct with a
\n\t\t\tdirect and authentic knowledge that springs straight from the veiled
\n\t\t\tglories of the secret Omniscience. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis is the greater consciousness into which our inferior
\n\t\t\tconsciousness has to be transformed, this nature of the Ignorance
\n\t\t\twith its unquiet unbalanced activity of the three modes changed into
\n\t\t\tthis greater luminous supernature. At first we become free from the
\n\t\t\tthree gunas, detached, untroubled, nistraigun<\/font>ya<\/i>; but .<\/i>
\n\t\t\tthis is the recovery of the native state of the soul, the self, the
\n\t\t\tspirit free and watching in its motionless calm the motion of
\n\t\t\tPrakriti in her force of the Ignorance. If on this basis the nature,
\n\t\t\tthe motion of Prakriti, is also to become free, it must be by a
\n\t\t\tquiescence of action in a luminous peace and silence in which all
\n\t\t\tnecessary movements are done without any conscious reaction or
\n\t\t\tparticipation or initiation of action by the mind or by the
\n\t\t\tlife-being, without any ripple of thought or eddy of the vital
\n\t\t\tparts: it must be done under the impulsion, by the initiation, by
\n\t\t\tthe<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>241<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tworking of an impersonal cosmic or a
\n\t\t\ttranscendent Force. A cosmic Mind, Life, Substance must act, or a
\n\t\t\tpure transcendent Self-Power and Bliss other than our own personal
\n\t\t\tbeing or its building of Nature. This is a state of freedom which
\n\t\t\tcan come in the Yoga of works through renunciation of ego and desire
\n\t\t\tand personal initiation and the surrender of the being to the cosmic
\n\t\t\tSelf or to the universal Shakti; it can come in the Yoga of
\n\t\t\tknowledge by the cessation of thought, the silence of the mind, the
\n\t\t\topening of the whole being to the cosmic Consciousness, to the
\n\t\t\tcosmic Self, the cosmic Dynamis or to the supreme Reality; it can
\n\t\t\tcome in the Yoga of devotion by the surrender of the heart and the
\n\t\t\twhole nature into the hands of the All-Blissful as the adored Master
\n\t\t\tof our existence. But the culminating change intervenes by a more
\n\t\t\tpositive and dynamic transcendence: there is a transference or
\n\t\t\ttransmutation into a superior spiritual status,
\n\t\t\ttrigunā<\/font>tī<\/font>ta<\/i>, in which we participate in a greater spiritual
\n\t\t\tdynamisation; for the three lower unequal modes pass into an equal
\n\t\t\ttriune mode of eternal calm, light and force, the repose, kinesis,
\n\t\t\tillumination of the divine Nature. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis supreme harmony cannot come except by the cessation of egoistic
\n\t\t\twill and choice and act and the quiescence of our limited
\n\t\t\tintelligence. The individual ego must cease to strive, the mind fall
\n\t\t\tsilent, the desire-will learn not to initiate. Our personality must
\n\t\t\tjoin its source and all thought and initiation come from above. The
\n\t\t\tsecret Master of our activities will be slowly unveiled to us and
\n\t\t\tfrom the security of the supreme Will and Knowledge give the
\n\t\t\tsanction to the Divine Shakti who will do all works in us with a
\n\t\t\tpurified and exalted nature for her instrument; the individual
\n\t\t\tcentre of personality will be only the upholder of her works here,
\n\t\t\ttheir recipient and channel, the reflector of her power and luminous
\n\t\t\tparticipator in her light, joy and force. Acting it will not act and
\n\t\t\tno reaction of the lower Prakriti will touch it. The transcendence
\n\t\t\tof the three modes of Nature is the first condition, their
\n\t\t\ttransformation the decisive step of this change by which the Way of
\n\t\t\tWorks climbs out of the pit of narrowness of our darkened human
\n\t\t\tnature into the unwalled wideness of the Truth and Light above us.   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>242<\/font> \n\t<\/p>\n

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

Chapter X   The Three Modes of Nature   TO TRANSCEND the natural action of the lower Prakriti is indispensable to the soul, if it…<\/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-2154","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\/2154","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=2154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}