{"id":2171,"date":"2013-07-13T01:39:54","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2171"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:39:54","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:54","slug":"27-chapter-ix-the-release-from-the-ego-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\/27-chapter-ix-the-release-from-the-ego-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","title":{"rendered":"-27_Chapter IX The Release from the Ego.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

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

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

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Release from the Ego<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tT<\/font>HE FORMATION<\/b> of a mental and
\n\t\t\tvital ego tied to the body-sense was the first great labour of the
\n\t\t\tcosmic Life in its progressive evolution; for this was the means it
\n\t\t\tfound for creating out of matter a conscious individual. The
\n\t\t\tdissolution of this limiting ego is the one condition, the necessary
\n\t\t\tmeans for this very same Life to arrive at its divine fruition: for
\n\t\t\tonly so can the conscious individual find either his transcendent
\n\t\t\tself or his true Person. This double movement is usually represented
\n\t\t\tas a fall and a redemption or a creation and a destruction, \u2014 the
\n\t\t\tkindling of a light and its extinction or the formation first of a
\n\t\t\tsmaller temporary and unreal self and a release from it into our
\n\t\t\ttrue self’s eternal largeness. For human thought falls apart towards
\n\t\t\ttwo opposite extremes: one, mundane and pragmatic, regards the
\n\t\t\tfulfilment and satisfaction of the mental, vital and physical
\n\t\t\tego-sense individual or collective as the object of life and looks
\n\t\t\tno farther, while the other, spiritual, philosophic or religious,
\n\t\t\tregards the conquest of the ego in the interests of the soul, spirit
\n\t\t\tor whatever be the ultimate entity, as the one thing supremely worth
\n\t\t\tdoing. Even in the camp of the ego there are two divergent attitudes
\n\t\t\twhich divide the mundane or materialist theory of the universe. One
\n\t\t\ttendency of this thought regards the mental ego as a creation of our
\n\t\t\tmentality which will be dissolved with the dissolution of mind by
\n\t\t\tthe death of the body; the one abiding truth is eternal Nature
\n\t\t\tworking in the race \u2014 this or another \u2014 and her purpose should be
\n\t\t\tfollowed, not ours, \u2014 the fulfilment of the race, the collective
\n\t\t\tego, and not that of the individual should be the rule of life.
\n\t\t\tAnother trend of thought, more vitalistic in its tendencies, fixes
\n\t\t\ton the conscious ego as the supreme achievement of Nature, no matter
\n\t\t\thow transitory, ennobles it into a human representative of the
\n\t\t\tWill-to-be and holds up its greatness and satisfaction as the
\n\t\t\thighest aim of our  <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\texistence. In the more numerous systems that take their stand on
\n\t\t\tsome kind of religious thought or spiritual discipline there is a
\n\t\t\tcorresponding divergence. The Buddhist denies the existence of a
\n\t\t\treal self or ego, admits no universal or transcendent Being. The
\n\t\t\tAdwaitin declares the apparently individual soul to be none other
\n\t\t\tthan the supreme Self and Brahman, its individuality an illusion;
\n\t\t\tthe putting off of individual existence is the only true release.
\n\t\t\tOther systems assert, in flat contradiction of this view, the
\n\t\t\teternal persistence of the human soul; a basis of multiple
\n\t\t\tconsciousness in the One or else a dependent but still separate
\n\t\t\tentity, it is constant, real, imperishable. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAmidst these various and conflicting opinions the seeker of the
\n\t\t\tTruth has to decide for himself which shall be for him the
\n\t\t\tKnowledge. But if our aim is a spiritual release or a spiritual
\n\t\t\tfulfilment, then the exceeding of this little mould of ego is
\n\t\t\timperative. In human egoism and its satisfaction there can be no
\n\t\t\tdivine culmination and deliverance. A certain purification from
\n\t\t\tegoism is the condition even of ethical progress and elevation, for
\n\t\t\tsocial good and perfection; much more is it indispensable for inner
\n\t\t\tpeace, purity and joy. But a much more radical deliverance, not only
\n\t\t\tfrom egoism but from ego-idea and ego-sense, is needed if our aim is
\n\t\t\tto raise human into divine nature. Experience shows that, in
\n\t\t\tproportion as we deliver ourselves from the limiting mental and
\n\t\t\tvital ego, we command a wider life, a larger existence, a higher
\n\t\t\tconsciousness, a happier soul-state, even a greater knowledge, power
\n\t\t\tand scope. Even the aim which the most mundane philosophy pursues,
\n\t\t\tthe fulfilment, perfection, satisfaction of the individual, is best
\n\t\t\tassured not by satisfying the narrow ego but by finding freedom in a
\n\t\t\thigher and larger self. There is no happiness in smallness of the
\n\t\t\tbeing, says the Scripture, it is with the large being that happiness
\n\t\t\tcomes. The ego is by its nature a smallness of being; it brings
\n\t\t\tcontraction of the consciousness and with the contraction limitation
\n\t\t\tof knowledge, disabling ignorance, \u2014 confinement and a diminution of
\n\t\t\tpower and by that diminution incapacity and weakness, \u2014 scission of
\n\t\t\toneness and by that scission disharmony and failure of sympathy and
\n\t\t\tlove and understanding, \u2014 inhibition or fragmentation of <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tdelight of being and by that fragmentation pain and sorrow. To
\n\t\t\trecover what is lost we must break out of the walls of ego. The ego
\n\t\t\tmust either disappear in impersonality or fuse into a larger I: it
\n\t\t\tmust fuse into the wider cosmic "I" which comprehends all these
\n\t\t\tsmaller selves or the transcendent of which even the cosmic self is
\n\t\t\ta diminished image. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut this cosmic self is spiritual in essence and in experience; it
\n\t\t\tmust not be confused with the collective existence, with any group
\n\t\t\tsoul or the life and body of a human society or even of all mankind.
\n\t\t\tThe subordination of the ego to the progress and happiness of the
\n\t\t\thuman race is now a governing idea in the world’s thought and
\n\t\t\tethics; but this is a mental and moral and not a spiritual ideal.
\n\t\t\tFor that progress is a series of constant mental, vital and physical
\n\t\t\tvicissitudes, it has no firm spiritual content, and offers no sure
\n\t\t\tstanding-ground to the soul of man. The consciousness of collective
\n\t\t\thumanity is only a larger comprehensive edition or a sum of
\n\t\t\tindividual egos. Made of the same substance, in the same mould of
\n\t\t\tnature, it has not in it any greater light, any more eternal sense
\n\t\t\tof itself, any purer source of peace, joy and deliverance. It is
\n\t\t\trather even more tortured, troubled and obscured, certainly more
\n\t\t\tvague, confused and un-progressive. The individual is in this
\n\t\t\trespect greater than the mass and cannot be called on to subordinate
\n\t\t\this more luminous possibilities to this darker entity. If light,
\n\t\t\tpeace, deliverance, a better state of existence are to come, they
\n\t\t\tmust descend into the soul from something wider than the individual,
\n\t\t\tbut also from something higher than the collective ego. Altruism,
\n\t\t\tphilanthropy, the service of mankind are in themselves mental or
\n\t\t\tmoral ideals, not laws of the spiritual life. If into the spiritual
\n\t\t\taim there enters the impulse to deny the personal self or to serve
\n\t\t\thumanity or the world at large, it comes not from the ego nor from
\n\t\t\tthe collective sense of the race, but from something more occult and
\n\t\t\tprofound transcendent of both these things; for it is founded on a
\n\t\t\tsense of the Divine in all and it works not for the sake of the ego
\n\t\t\tor the race but for the sake of the Divine and its purpose in the
\n\t\t\tperson or group or collective. It is this transcendent Source which
\n\t\t\twe must seek and serve, this vaster     <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tbeing and consciousness to which the race and the individual
\n\t\t\tare minor terms of its existence. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere is indeed a truth behind the pragmatic impulse which an
\n\t\t\texclusive one-sided spirituality is apt to ignore or deny or
\n\t\t\tbelittle. It is this that since the individual and the universal are
\n\t\t\tterms of that higher and vaster Being, their fulfilment must have
\n\t\t\tsome real place in the supreme Existence. There must be behind them
\n\t\t\tsome high purpose in the supreme Wisdom and Knowledge, some eternal
\n\t\t\tstrain in the supreme Delight: they cannot have been, they were not
\n\t\t\tcreated in vain. But the perfection and satisfaction of humanity
\n\t\t\tlike the perfection and satisfaction of the individual, can only be
\n\t\t\tsecurely compassed and founded upon a more eternal yet unseized
\n\t\t\ttruth and right of things. Minor terms of some greater Existence,
\n\t\t\tthey can fulfil themselves only when that of which they are the
\n\t\t\tterms is known and possessed. The greatest service to humanity, the
\n\t\t\tsurest foundation for its true progress, happiness and perfection is
\n\t\t\tto prepare or find the way by which the individual and the
\n\t\t\tcollective man can transcend the ego and live in its true self, no
\n\t\t\tlonger bound to ignorance, incapacity, disharmony and sorrow. It is
\n\t\t\tby the pursuit of the eternal and not by living bound in the slow
\n\t\t\tcollective evolution of Nature that we can best assure even that
\n\t\t\tevolutionary, collective, altruistic aim our modern thought and
\n\t\t\tidealism have set before us. But it is in itself a secondary aim; to
\n\t\t\tfind, know and possess the Divine existence, consciousness and
\n\t\t\tnature and to live in it for the Divine is our true aim and the one
\n\t\t\tperfection to which we must aspire. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is then in the way of the spiritual philosophies and religions,
\n\t\t\tnot in that of any earth-bound materialistic doctrine, that the
\n\t\t\tseeker of the highest knowledge has to walk, even if with enriched
\n\t\t\taims and a more comprehensive spiritual purpose. But how far has he
\n\t\t\tto proceed in the elimination of the ego? In the ancient way of
\n\t\t\tknowledge we arrive at the elimination of the ego-sense which
\n\t\t\tattaches itself to the body, to the life, to the mind and says of
\n\t\t\tall or any of them, "This is I". Not only do we, as in the way of
\n\t\t\tworks, get rid of the "I" of the worker and see the Lord alone as
\n\t\t\tthe true source of all works and sanction   <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tof works and His executive Nature-power or else His supreme
\n\t\t\tShakti as the sole agent and worker, \u2014 but we get rid also of the
\n\t\t\tego-sense which mistakes the instruments or the expressions of our
\n\t\t\tbeing for our true self and spirit. But even if all this has been
\n\t\t\tdone, something remains still; there remains a substratum of all
\n\t\t\tthese, a general sense of the separate I. This substratum ego is
\n\t\t\tsomething vague, indefinable, elusive; it does not or need not
\n\t\t\tattach itself to anything in particular as the self; it does not
\n\t\t\tidentify itself with anything collective; it is a sort of
\n\t\t\tfundamental form or power of the mind which compels the mental being
\n\t\t\tto feel himself as a perhaps indefinable but still a limited being
\n\t\t\twhich is not mind, life or body, but under which their activities
\n\t\t\tproceed in Nature. The others were a qualified ego-idea and
\n\t\t\tego-sense supporting themselves on the play of the Prakriti; but
\n\t\t\tthis is the pure fundamental ego-power supporting itself on the
\n\t\t\tconsciousness of the mental Purusha. And because it seems to be
\n\t\t\tabove or behind the play and not in it, because it does not say "I
\n\t\t\tam the mind, life or body," but "I am a being on whom the action of
\n\t\t\tmind, life and body depends," many think themselves released and
\n\t\t\tmistake this elusive Ego for the One, the Divine, the true Purusha
\n\t\t\tor at the very least for the true Person within them, \u2014 mistaking
\n\t\t\tthe indefinable for the Infinite. But so long as this fundamental
\n\t\t\tego-sense remains, there is no absolute release. The egoistic life,
\n\t\t\teven if diminished in force and intensity, can still continue well
\n\t\t\tenough with this support. If there is the error in identification,
\n\t\t\tthe ego life may under that pretext get rather an exaggerated
\n\t\t\tintensity and force. Even if there is no such error, the ego life
\n\t\t\tmay be wider, purer, more flexible and release may be now much
\n\t\t\teasier to attain and nearer to accomplishment, but still there is as
\n\t\t\tyet no definitive release. It is imperative to go farther, to get
\n\t\t\trid of this indefinable but fundamental ego-sense also and get back
\n\t\t\tto the Purusha on whom it is supporting itself, of whom it is a
\n\t\t\tshadow; the shadow has to disappear and by its disappearance reveal
\n\t\t\tthe spirit’s unclouded substance. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat substance is the self of the man called in European thought the
\n\t\t\tMonad, in Indian philosophy, Jiva or Jivatman, the living entity,
\n\t\t\tthe self of the living creature. This Jiva is not the <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tmental ego-sense constructed by the workings of Nature for her
\n\t\t\ttemporary purpose. It is not a thing bound, as the mental being, the
\n\t\t\tvital, the physical are bound, by her habits, laws or processes. The
\n\t\t\tJiva is a spirit and self, superior to Nature. It is true that it
\n\t\t\tconsents to her acts, reflects her moods and upholds the triple
\n\t\t\tmedium of mind, life and body through which she casts them upon the
\n\t\t\tsoul’s consciousness; but it is itself a living reflection or a
\n\t\t\tsoul-form or a self-creation of the Spirit universal and
\n\t\t\ttranscendent. The One Spirit who has mirrored some of His modes of
\n\t\t\tbeing in the world and in the soul, is multiple in the Jiva. That
\n\t\t\tSpirit is the very Self of our self, the One and the Highest, the
\n\t\t\tSupreme we have to realise, the infinite existence into which we
\n\t\t\thave to enter. And so far the teachers walk in company, all agreeing
\n\t\t\tthat this is the supreme object of knowledge, of works and of
\n\t\t\tdevotion, all agreeing that if it is to be attained, the Jiva must
\n\t\t\trelease himself from the ego-sense which belongs to the lower Nature
\n\t\t\tor Maya. But here they part company and each goes his own way. The
\n\t\t\tMonist fixes his feet on the path of an exclusive Knowledge and sets
\n\t\t\tfor us as sole ideal an entire return, loss, immersion or extinction
\n\t\t\tof the Jiva in the Supreme. The Dualist or the partial Monist turns
\n\t\t\tto the path of Devotion and directs us to shed indeed the lower ego
\n\t\t\tand material life, but to see as the highest destiny of the spirit
\n\t\t\tof man, not the self-annihilation of the Buddhist, not the
\n\t\t\tself-immersion of the Adwaitin, not a swallowing up of the many by
\n\t\t\tthe One, but an eternal existence absorbed in the thought, love and
\n\t\t\tenjoyment of the Supreme, the One, the All-Lover. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor the disciple of an integral Yoga there can be no hesitation; as
\n\t\t\ta seeker of knowledge it is the integral knowledge and not anything
\n\t\t\teither half-way and attractive or high-pinnacled and exclusive he
\n\t\t\tmust seek. He must soar to the utmost height, but also circle and
\n\t\t\tspread to the most all-embracing wideness, not binding himself to
\n\t\t\tany rigid structure of metaphysical thought, but free to admit and
\n\t\t\tcombine all the soul’s highest and greatest and fullest and most
\n\t\t\tnumerous experiences. If the highest height of spiritual experience,
\n\t\t\tthe sheer summit of all realisation is the absolute union of the
\n\t\t\tsoul with the Transcendent  <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\twho exceeds the individual and the universe, the widest scope
\n\t\t\tof that union is the discovery of that very Transcendent as the
\n\t\t\tsource, support, continent, informing and constituent spirit and
\n\t\t\tsubstance of both these manifesting powers of the divine Essence and
\n\t\t\tthe divine Nature. Whatever the path, this must be for him the goal.
\n\t\t\tThe Yoga of Action also is not fulfilled, is not absolute, is not
\n\t\t\tvictoriously complete until the seeker has felt and lives in his
\n\t\t\tessential and integral oneness with the Supreme. One he must be with
\n\t\t\tthe Divine both in his highest and inmost and in his widest being
\n\t\t\tand consciousness, in his work, his will, his power of action, his
\n\t\t\tmind, body, life. Otherwise he is only released from the illusion of
\n\t\t\tindividual works, but not released from the illusion of separate
\n\t\t\tbeing and instrumentality. As the servant and instrument of the
\n\t\t\tDivine he works, but the crown of his labour and its perfect base or
\n\t\t\tmotive is oneness with that which he serves and fulfils. The Yoga of
\n\t\t\tdevotion too is complete only when the lover and the Beloved are
\n\t\t\tunified and difference is abolished in the ecstasy of a divine
\n\t\t\toneness; and yet in the mystery of this unification there is the
\n\t\t\tsole existence of the Beloved but no extinction or absorption of the
\n\t\t\tlover. It is the highest unity which is the express direction of the
\n\t\t\tpath of knowledge, the call to absolute oneness is its impulse, the
\n\t\t\texperience of it its magnet, but it is this very highest unity which
\n\t\t\ttakes as its field of manifestation in him the largest possible
\n\t\t\tcosmic wideness. Obeying the necessity to withdraw successively from
\n\t\t\tthe practical egoism of our triple nature and its fundamental
\n\t\t\tego-sense, we come to the realisation of the spirit, the self, lord
\n\t\t\tof this individual human manifestation, but our knowledge is not
\n\t\t\tintegral if we do not make this self in the individual one with the
\n\t\t\tcosmic spirit and find their greater reality above in an
\n\t\t\tinexpressible but not unknowable Transcendence. The Jiva, possessed
\n\t\t\tof himself, must give himself up into the being of the Divine. The
\n\t\t\tself of the man must be made one with the Self of all; the self of
\n\t\t\tthe finite individual must pour itself into the boundless finite and
\n\t\t\tthat cosmic spirit too must be exceeded in the transcendent
\n\t\t\tInfinite. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis cannot be done without an uncompromising abolition <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tof the ego-sense at its very basis and source. In the path of
\n\t\t\tKnowledge one attempts this abolition, negatively by a denial of the
\n\t\t\treality of the ego, positively by a constant fixing of the thought
\n\t\t\tupon the idea of the One and the Infinite in itself or the One and
\n\t\t\tInfinite everywhere. This, if persistently done, changes in the end
\n\t\t\tthe mental outlook on oneself and the whole world and there is a
\n\t\t\tkind of mental realisation; but afterwards by degrees or perhaps
\n\t\t\trapidly and imperatively and almost at the beginning the mental
\n\t\t\trealisation deepens into spiritual experience \u2014 a realisation in the
\n\t\t\tvery substance of our being. More and more frequent conditions come
\n\t\t\tof something indefinable and illimitable, a peace, a silence, a joy,
\n\t\t\ta bliss beyond expression, a sense of absolute impersonal Power, a
\n\t\t\tpure existence, a pure consciousness, an all-pervading Presence. The
\n\t\t\tego persists in itself or in its habitual movements, but the place
\n\t\t\tof the one becomes more and more loosened, the others are broken,
\n\t\t\tcrushed, more and more rejected, becoming weak in their intensity,
\n\t\t\tlimp or mechanical in their action. In the end there is a constant
\n\t\t\tgiving up of the whole consciousness into the being of the Supreme.
\n\t\t\tIn the beginning when the restless confusion and obscuring impurity
\n\t\t\tof our outward nature is active, when the mental, vital, physical
\n\t\t\tego-sense are still powerful, this new mental outlook, these
\n\t\t\texperiences may be found difficult in the extreme: but once that
\n\t\t\ttriple egoism is discouraged or moribund and the instruments of the
\n\t\t\tSpirit are set right and purified, in an entirely pure, silent,
\n\t\t\tclarified, widened consciousness the purity, infinity, stillness of
\n\t\t\tthe One reflects itself like the sky in a limpid lake. A meeting or
\n\t\t\ta taking in of the reflected Consciousness by that which reflects it
\n\t\t\tbecomes more and more pressing and possible; the bridging or
\n\t\t\tabolition of the atmospheric gulf between that immutable ethereal
\n\t\t\timpersonal vastness and this once mobile whirl or narrow stream of
\n\t\t\tpersonal existence is no longer an arduous improbability and may be
\n\t\t\teven a frequent experience, if not yet an entirely permanent state.
\n\t\t\tFor even before complete purification, if the strings of the
\n\t\t\tegoistic heart and mind are already sufficiently frayed and
\n\t\t\tloosened, the Jiva can by a sudden snapping of the main cords
\n\t\t\tescape, ascending like a <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tbird freed into the spaces or widening
\n\t\t\tlike a liberated flood into the One and Infinite. There is first a
\n\t\t\tsudden sense of a cosmic consciousness, a casting of oneself into
\n\t\t\tthe universal; from that universality one can aspire more easily to
\n\t\t\tthe Transcendent. There is a pushing back and rending or a rushing
\n\t\t\tdown of the walls that imprisoned our conscious being; there is a
\n\t\t\tloss of all sense of individuality and personality, of all placement
\n\t\t\tin Space or Time or action and law of Nature; there is no longer an
\n\t\t\tego, a person definite and definable, but only consciousness, only
\n\t\t\texistence, only peace or bliss; one becomes immortality, becomes
\n\t\t\teternity, becomes infinity. All that is left of the personal soul is
\n\t\t\ta hymn of peace and freedom and bliss vibrating somewhere in the
\n\t\t\tEternal. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhen there is an insufficient purity in the mental being, the
\n\t\t\trelease appears at first to be partial and temporary; the Jiva seems
\n\t\t\tto descend again into the egoistic life and the higher consciousness
\n\t\t\tto be withdrawn from him. In reality, what happens is that a cloud
\n\t\t\tor veil intervenes between the lower nature and the higher
\n\t\t\tconsciousness and the Prakriti resumes for a time its old habit of
\n\t\t\tworking under the pressure but not always with a knowledge or
\n\t\t\tpresent memory of that high experience. What works in it then is a
\n\t\t\tghost of the old ego supporting a mechanical repetition of the old
\n\t\t\thabits upon the remnants of confusion and impurity still left in the
\n\t\t\tsystem. The cloud intervenes and disappears, the rhythm of ascent
\n\t\t\tand descent renews itself until the impurity has been worked out.
\n\t\t\tThis period of alternations may easily be long in the integral Yoga;
\n\t\t\tfor there an entire perfection of the system is required; it must be
\n\t\t\tcapable at all times and in all conditions and all circumstances,
\n\t\t\twhether of action or inaction, of admitting and then living in the
\n\t\t\tconsciousness of the supreme Truth. Nor is it enough for the sadhaka
\n\t\t\tto have the utter realisation only in the trance of Samadhi or in a
\n\t\t\tmotionless quietude, but he must in trance or in waking, in passive
\n\t\t\treflection or energy of action be able to remain in the constant
\n\t\t\tSamadhi of the firmly founded Brahmic consciousness.\u00b9<\/font> But if <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\u00b9<\/font> Gita.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>364<\/font>    <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tor when our conscious being has become sufficiently pure and clear,
\n\t\t\tthen there is a firm station in the higher consciousness. The
\n\t\t\timpersonalised Jiva, one with the universal or possessed by the
\n\t\t\tTranscendent, lives high-seated above\u00b2<\/font> and looks down undisturbed at
\n\t\t\twhatever remnants of the old working of Nature may revisit the
\n\t\t\tsystem. He cannot be moved by the workings of the three modes of
\n\t\t\tPrakriti in his lower being, nor can he be shaken from his station
\n\t\t\tby the attacks even of grief and suffering. And finally, there being
\n\t\t\tno veil between, the higher peace overpowers the lower disturbance
\n\t\t\tand mobility. There is a settled silence in which the soul can take
\n\t\t\tsovereign possession of itself above and below and altogether. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSuch possession is not indeed the aim of the traditional Yoga of
\n\t\t\tknowledge whose object is rather to get away from the above and the
\n\t\t\tbelow and the all into the indefinable Absolute. But whatever the
\n\t\t\taim, the path of knowledge must lead to one first result, an
\n\t\t\tabsolute quietude; for unless the old action of Nature in us be
\n\t\t\tentirely quieted, it is difficult if not impossible to found either
\n\t\t\tany true soul-status or any divine activity. Our nature acts on a
\n\t\t\tbasis of confusion and restless compulsion to action, the Divine
\n\t\t\tacts freely out of a fathomless calm. Into that abyss of
\n\t\t\ttranquillity we must plunge and become that, if we are to annul the
\n\t\t\thold of this lower nature upon the soul. Therefore the universalised
\n\t\t\tJiva first ascends into the Silence; it becomes vast, tranquil,
\n\t\t\tactionless. What action takes place, whether of body and these
\n\t\t\torgans or any working whatever, the Jiva sees but does not take part
\n\t\t\tin, authorise or in any way associate itself with it. There is
\n\t\t\taction, but no personal actor, no bondage, no responsibility. If
\n\t\t\tpersonal action is needed, then the Jiva has to keep or recover what
\n\t\t\thas been called the form of the ego, a sort of mental image of an
\n\t\t\t"I" that is the knower, devotee, servant or instrument, but an image
\n\t\t\tonly and not a reality. If even that is not there, still action can
\n\t\t\tcontinue by the mere continued force of Prakriti, without any
\n\t\t\tpersonal actor, without indeed there <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\u00b2<\/i><\/font> Udasina<\/i>, the word for the spiritual "indifference", that is to
\n\t\t\tsay the unattached freedom of the soul touched by the supreme
\n\t\t\tknowledge.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>365<\/font>    <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tbeing any sense of an actor at all; for
\n\t\t\tthe Self into which the Jiva has cast its being is the actionless,
\n\t\t\tthe fathomlessly still. The path of works leads to the realisation
\n\t\t\tof the Lord, but here even the Lord is not known; there is only the
\n\t\t\tsilent Self and Prakriti doing her works, even, as it seems at
\n\t\t\tfirst, not with truly living entities but with names and forms
\n\t\t\texisting in the Self but which the Self does not admit as real. The
\n\t\t\tsoul may go even beyond this realisation; it may either rise to the
\n\t\t\tBrahman on the other side of all idea of Self as a Void of
\n\t\t\teverything that is here, a Void of unnameable peace and extinction
\n\t\t\tof all, even of the Sat, even of that Existent which is the
\n\t\t\timpersonal basis of individual or universal personality; or else it
\n\t\t\tmay unite with it as an ineffable "That" of which nothing can be
\n\t\t\tsaid; for the universe and all that is does not even exist in That,
\n\t\t\tbut appears to the mind as a dream more unsubstantial than any dream
\n\t\t\tever seen or imagined, so that even the word dream seems too
\n\t\t\tpositive a thing to express its entire unreality. These experiences
\n\t\t\tare the foundation of that lofty Illusionism which takes such firm
\n\t\t\thold of the human mind in its highest overleapings of itself. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThese ideas of dream and illusion are simply results in our still
\n\t\t\texistent mentality of the new poise of the Jiva and its denial of
\n\t\t\tthe claim made upon it by its old mental associations and view of
\n\t\t\tlife and existence. In reality, the Prakriti does not act for itself
\n\t\t\tor by its own motion, but with the Self as lord; for out of that
\n\t\t\tSilence wells all this action, that apparent Void looses out as if
\n\t\t\tinto movement all these infinite riches of experience. To this
\n\t\t\trealisation the sadhaka of the integral Yoga must arrive by the
\n\t\t\tprocess that we shall hereafter describe. What then, when he so
\n\t\t\tresumes his hold upon the universe and views no longer himself in
\n\t\t\tthe world but the cosmos in himself, will be the position of the
\n\t\t\tJiva or what will fill in his new consciousness the part of the
\n\t\t\tego-sense? There will be no ego-sense even if there is a sort of
\n\t\t\tindividualisation for the purposes of the play of universal
\n\t\t\tconsciousness in an individual mind and frame; and for this reason
\n\t\t\tthat all will be unforgettably the One and every Person or Purusha
\n\t\t\twill be to him the One in many forms or rather in many aspects and
\n\t\t\tpoises, Brahman acting upon Brahman, one <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>366<\/font>    <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tNara-Narayana\u00b3<\/font> everywhere. In that larger play of the Divine the joy
\n\t\t\tof the relations of divine love also is possible without the lapse
\n\t\t\tinto the ego-sense, \u2014 just as the supreme state of human love
\n\t\t\tlikewise is described as the unity of one soul in two bodies. The
\n\t\t\tego-sense is not indispensable to the world-play in which it is so
\n\t\t\tactive and so falsifies the truth of things; the truth is always the
\n\t\t\tOne at work on itself, at play with itself, infinite in unity,
\n\t\t\tinfinite in multiplicity. When the individualised consciousness
\n\t\t\trises to and lives in that truth of the cosmic play, then even in
\n\t\t\tfull action, even in possession of the lower being the Jiva remains
\n\t\t\tstill one with the Lord, and there is no bondage and no delusion. He
\n\t\t\tis in possession of Self and released from the ego. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\u00b3<\/font> The Divine, Narayana, making itself one with humanity even as the
\n\t\t\thuman, Nara becomes one with the Divine<\/font>.   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>367<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter IX   The Release from the Ego   THE FORMATION of a mental and vital ego tied to the body-sense was the first great…<\/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-2171","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\/2171","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=2171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}