{"id":2176,"date":"2013-07-13T01:39:56","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2176"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:39:56","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:56","slug":"62-chapter-viii-the-liberation-of-the-spirit-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\/62-chapter-viii-the-liberation-of-the-spirit-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","title":{"rendered":"-62_Chapter VIII The Liberation of the Spirit.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t<\/p>\n

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

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Liberation of the Spirit
\n<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tT<\/font>HE PURIFICATION<\/b> of the mental being and the psychic prana \u2014 we will leave aside for the time the question of the physical purification, that of the body and physical
\nprana, though that too is necessary to an integral perfection, \u00b4<\/i>
\n\u2014 prepares the ground for a spiritual liberation.
\n\t\t\tŚ<\/font>uddhi <\/i>is the condition for
\nmukti<\/i>. All purification is a release, a delivery; for it
\nis a throwing away of limiting, binding, obscuring imperfections and confusions: purification from desire brings the freedom of
\nthe psychic prana, purification from wrong emotions and troubling reactions the freedom of the heart, purification from the
\nobscuring limited thought of the sense mind the freedom of the intelligence, purification from mere intellectuality the freedom of
\nthe gnosis. But all this is an instrumental liberation. The freedom of the soul,
\nmukti<\/i>, is of a larger and more essential character;
\nit is an opening out of mortal limitation into the illimitable immortality of the Spirit. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor certain ways of thinking liberation is a throwing off of all nature, a silent state of pure being, a nirvana or extinction, a
\ndissolution of the natural existence into some indefinable Absolute, moks<\/font>a<\/i>. But an absorbed and immersed bliss, a wideness of  actionless peace, a release of self-extinction or a self-drowning
\nin the Absolute is not our aim. We shall give to the idea of liberation, mukti<\/i>, only the connotation of that inner change which
\nis common to all experience of this kind, essential to perfection and indispensable to spiritual freedom. We shall find that it then
\nimplies always two things, a rejection and an assumption, a negative and a positive side; the negative movement of freedom
\nis a liberation from the principal bonds, the master-knots of the lower soul-nature, the positive side an opening or growth into
\nthe higher spiritual existence. But what are these master-knots \u2014 other and deeper twistings than the instrumental knots of
\n  
\n  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>674<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tthe mind, heart, psychic life-force? We find them pointed out
\nfor us and insisted on with great force and a constant emphatic repetition in the Gita; they are four, desire, ego, the dualities and
\nthe three gunas of Nature; for to be desireless, ego-less, equal of mind and soul and spirit and
\nnistraigun<\/font>ya<\/i>, is in the idea of
\n.<\/i> the Gita to be free, mukta<\/i>. We may accept this description; for
\neverything essential is covered by its amplitude. On the other hand, the positive sense of freedom is to be universal in soul,
\ntranscendently one in spirit with God, possessed of the highest divine nature,
\n\u2014 as we may say, like to God, or one with him in
\nthe law of our being. This is the whole and full sense of liberation and this is the integral freedom of the spirit. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe have already had to speak of purification from the psychic desire of which the craving of the prana is the evolutionary
\nor, as we may put it, the practical basis. But this is in the mental and psychic nature; spiritual desirelessness has a wider and more
\nessential meaning: for desire has a double knot, a lower knot in the prana, which is a craving in the instruments, and a very
\nsubtle knot in the soul itself with the buddhi as its first support 
\nor pratis<\/font>thā<\/font><\/i>, which is the inmost origin of this mesh of our bondage. When we look from below, desire presents itself to us
\nas a craving of the life force which subtilises in the emotions into a craving of the heart and is farther subtilised in the intelligence into a craving, preference, passion of the aesthetic, ethical, dynamic or rational turn of the buddhi. This desire is essential to
\nthe ordinary man; he cannot live or act as an individual without knotting up all his action into the service of some kind of lower
\nor higher craving, preference or passion. But when we are able to look at desire from above, we see that what supports this
\ninstrumental desire is a will of the spirit. There is a will, tapas<\/i>,
\nś<\/font>akti<\/i>, by which the secret spirit imposes on its outer members all their action and draws from it an active delight of its being, an
\nananda, in which they very obscurely and imperfectly, if at all consciously, partake. This tapas is the will of the transcendent
\nspirit who creates the universal movement, of the universal spirit who supports and informs it, of the free individual spirit who is
\nthe soul centre of its multiplicities. It is one will, free in all these <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>675<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tat once, comprehensive, harmonious, unified; we find it, when
\nwe live and act in the spirit, to be an effortless and desireless, a spontaneous and illumined, a self-fulfilling and self-possessing,
\na satisfied and blissful will of the spiritual delight of being. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut the moment the individual soul leans away from the
\nuniversal and transcendent truth of its being, leans towards ego, tries to make this will a thing of its own, a separate personal
\nenergy, that will changes its character: it becomes an effort, a straining, a heat of force which may have its fiery joys of
\neffectuation and of possession, but has also its afflicting recoils and pain of labour. It is this that turns in each instrument into
\nan intellectual, emotional, dynamic, sensational or vital will of desire, wish, craving. Even when the instruments
\nper se <\/i>are
\npurified of their own apparent initiative and particular kind of desire, this imperfect tapas may still remain, and so long as it
\nconceals the source or deforms the type of the inner action, the soul has not the bliss of liberty, or can only have it by refraining
\nfrom all action; even, if allowed to persist, it will rekindle the pranic or other desires or at least throw a reminiscent shadow
\nof them on the being. This spiritual seed or beginning of desire too must be expelled, renounced, cast away: the sadhaka must
\neither choose an active peace and complete inner silence or lose  individual initiation, sankalpā<\/font>rambha<\/i>, in a unity with the universal will, the tapas of the divine Shakti. The passive way is to be inwardly immobile, without effort, wish, expectation or 
\nany turn to action, niś<\/font>ces<\/font>t<\/font>a<\/i>, anī<\/font>ha<\/i>, nirapeks<\/font>a<\/i>, nivr<\/font>tta<\/i>; the active
\n\t\t\tway is to be thus immobile and impersonal in the mind, but
\nto allow the supreme Will in its spiritual purity to act through the purified instruments. Then, if the soul abides on the level
\nof the spiritualised mentality, it becomes an instrument only, 
\nbut is itself without initiative or action, nis<\/font>kriya<\/i>, sarvā<\/font>rambha<\/i> – parityāgī<\/font><\/i>. But if it rises to the gnosis, it is at once an instrument
\nand a participant in the bliss of the divine action and the bliss of the divine Ananda; it unifies in itself the
\nprakr<\/font>ti <\/i>and the purus<\/font>a<\/i>. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe ego turn, the separative turn of the being, is the fulcrum of the whole embarrassed labour of the ignorance and the
\nbondage. So long as one is not free from the ego sense, there <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>676<\/font>  <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tcan be no real freedom. The seat of the ego is said to be in
\nthe buddhi; it is an ignorance of the discriminating mind and reason which discriminate wrongly and take the individuation
\nof mind, life and body for a truth of separative existence and are turned away from the greater reconciling truth of the oneness
\nof all existence. At any rate in man it is the ego idea which chiefly supports the falsehood of a separative existence; to get
\nrid of this idea, to dwell on the opposite idea of unity, of the one self, the one spirit, the one being of nature is therefore
\nan effective remedy; but it is not by itself absolutely effective. For the ego, though it supports itself by this ego idea,
\nahambuddhi<\/i>, finds its most powerful means for a certain obstinacy or passion of persistence in the normal action of the sense-mind,
\nthe prana and the body. To cast out of us the ego idea is not entirely possible or not entirely effective until these instruments
\nhave undergone purification; for, their action being persistently egoistic and
\nseparative, the buddhi is carried away by them, \u2014
\nas a boat by winds on the sea, says the Gita, \u2014 the knowledge in the intelligence is being constantly obscured or lost temporarily
\nand has to be restored again, a very labour of Sisyphus. But if the lower instruments have been purified of egoistic desire, wish,
\nwill, egoistic passion, egoistic emotion and the buddhi itself of egoistic idea and preference, then the knowledge of the spiritual
\ntruth of oneness can find a firm foundation. Till then, the ego takes all sorts of subtle forms and we imagine ourselves to be
\nfree from it, when we are really acting as its instruments and all we have attained is a certain intellectual poise which is not
\nthe true spiritual liberation. Moreover, to throw away the active sense of ego is not enough; that may merely bring an inactive
\nstate of the mentality, a certain passive inert quietude of separate being may take the place of the kinetic egoism, which is also not
\nthe true liberation. The ego sense must be replaced by a oneness with the transcendental Divine and with universal being. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis necessity arises from the fact that the buddhi is only a  <\/i> pratis<\/font>t<\/font>hā<\/font> <\/i>or chief support of the ego-sense in its manifold play, 
\nahankā<\/font>ra<\/i>; but in its source it is a degradation or deformation of a truth of our spiritual being. The truth of being is that there is <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>677<\/font> 
\n  <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\ta transcendent existence, supreme self or spirit, a timeless soul
\nof existence, an eternal, a Divine, or even we may speak of it in relation to current mental ideas of the Godhead as a supraDivine,
\n\t\t\twhich is here immanent, all-embracing, all-initiating and
\n\t\t\tall-governing, a great universal Spirit; and the individual is a
\n\t\t\tconscious power of being of the Eternal, capable eternally of
\n\t\t\trelations with him, but one with him too in the very core of reality
\n\t\t\tof its own eternal existence. This is a truth which the intelligence
\n\t\t\tcan apprehend, can, when once purified, reflect, transmit, hold in a
\n\t\t\tderivative fashion, but it can only be entirely realised, lived and
\n\t\t\tmade effective in the spirit. When we live in the spirit, then we
\n\t\t\tnot only know, but are this truth of our being. The individual then
\n\t\t\tenjoys in the spirit, in the bliss of the spirit, his oneness with
\n\t\t\tthe universal existence, his oneness with the timeless Divine and
\n\t\t\this oneness with all other beings and that is the essential sense of
\n\t\t\ta spiritual liberation from the ego. But the moment the soul leans
\n\t\t\ttowards the mental limitation, there is a certain sense of spiritual
\n\t\t\tseparativeness which has its joys, but may at any moment lapse into
\n\t\t\tthe entire ego-sense, ignorance, oblivion of oneness. To get rid of
\n\t\t\tthis separativeness an attempt is made to absorb oneself in the idea
\n\t\t\tand realisation of the Divine, and this takes in certain forms of
\n\t\t\tspiritual askesis the turn of a strain towards the abolition of all
\n\t\t\tindividual being and a casting away, in the trance of immersion, of
\n\t\t\tall individual or universal relations with the Divine, in others it
\n\t\t\tbecomes an absorbed dwelling in him and not in this world or a
\n\t\t\tcontinual absorbed or intent living in his presence, sā<\/font>yujya<\/i>, sā<\/font>lokya<\/i>,  sā<\/font>mī<\/font>pya mukti<\/i>. The way proposed for the integral Yoga is a
\nlifting up and surrender of the whole being to him, by which not only do we become one with him in our spiritual existence, but
\ndwell too in him and he in us, so that the whole nature is full of his presence and changed into the divine nature; we become one
\nspirit and consciousness and life and substance with the Divine and at the same time we live and move in and have a various
\njoy of that oneness. This integral liberation from the ego into the divine spirit and nature can only be relatively complete on
\nour present level, but it begins to become absolute as we open  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>678<\/font>
\n  <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tto and mount into the gnosis. This is the liberated perfection. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe liberation from ego, the liberation from desire together found
\n\t\t\tthe central spiritual freedom. The sense, the idea, the experience
\n\t\t\tthat I am a separately self-existent being in the universe, and the
\n\t\t\tforming of consciousness and force of being into the mould of that
\n\t\t\texperience are the root of all suffering, ignorance and evil. And it
\n\t\t\tis so because that falsifies both in practice and in cognition the
\n\t\t\twhole real truth of things; it limits the being, limits the
\n\t\t\tconsciousness, limits the power of our being, limits the bliss of
\n\t\t\tbeing; this limitation again produces a wrong way of existence,
\n\t\t\twrong way of consciousness, wrong way of using the power of our
\n\t\t\tbeing and consciousness, and wrong, perverse and contrary forms of
\n\t\t\tthe delight of existence. The soul limited in being and
\n\t\t\tself-isolated in its environment feels itself no longer in unity and
\n\t\t\tharmony with its Self, with God, with the universe, with all around
\n\t\t\tit; but rather it finds itself at odds with the universe, in
\n\t\t\tconflict and disaccord with other beings who are its other selves,
\n\t\t\tbut whom it treats as not-self; and so long as this disaccord and
\n\t\t\tdisagreement last, it cannot possess its world and it cannot enjoy
\n\t\t\tthe universal life, but is full of unease, fear, afflictions of all
\n\t\t\tkinds, in a painful struggle to preserve and increase itself and
\n\t\t\tpossess its surroundings, \u2014 for to possess its world is the nature
\n\t\t\tof infinite spirit and the necessary urge in all being. The
\n\t\t\tsatisfactions it gets from this labour and effort are of a stinted,
\n\t\t\tperverse and unsatisfying kind: for the one real satisfaction it has
\n\t\t\tis that of growth, of an increasing return towards itself, of some
\n\t\t\trealisation of accord and harmony, of successful self-creation and
\n\t\t\tself-realisation, but the little of these things that it can achieve
\n\t\t\ton the basis of ego-consciousness is always limited, insecure,
\n\t\t\timperfect, transitory. It is at war too with its own self, \u2014 first
\n\t\t\tbecause, since it is no longer in possession of the central
\n\t\t\tharmonising truth of its own being, it cannot properly control its
\n\t\t\tnatural members or accord their tendencies, powers and demands; it
\n\t\t\thas not the secret of harmony, because it has not the secret of its
\n\t\t\town unity and self-possession; and, secondly, not being in
\n\t\t\tpossession of its highest self, it has to struggle towards that, is
\n\t\t\tnot allowed to be at peace till it is in possession of its own   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>679<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\ttrue highest being. All this means that it is not at one with God;
\nfor to be at one with God is to be at one with oneself, at one with the universe and at one with all beings. This oneness is the
\nsecret of a right and a divine existence. But the ego cannot have it, because it is in its very nature separative and because even
\nwith regard to ourselves, to our own psychological existence it is a false centre of unity; for it tries to find the unity of our
\nbeing in an identification with a shifting mental, vital, physical personality, not with the eternal self of our total existence. Only
\nin the spiritual self can we possess the true unity; for there the individual enlarges to his own total being and finds himself one
\nwith universal existence and with the transcending Divinity. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll the trouble and suffering of the soul proceeds from this
\nwrong egoistic and separative way of existence. The soul not  in possession of its free self-existence, anā<\/font>tmavā<\/font>n<\/i>, because it
\nis limited in its consciousness, is limited in knowledge; and this limited knowledge takes the form of a falsifying knowledge. The
\nstruggle to return to a true knowing is imposed upon it, but the ego in the separative mind is satisfied with shows and fragments
\nof knowledge which it pieces together into some false or some imperfect total or governing notion, and this knowledge fails it
\nand has to be abandoned for a fresh pursuit of the one thing to be known. That one thing is the Divine, the Self, the Spirit
\nin whom universal and individual being find at last their right foundation and their right harmonies. Again, because it is limited
\nin force, the ego-prisoned soul is full of many incapacities; wrong knowledge is accompanied by wrong will, wrong tendencies and
\nimpulses of the being, and the acute sense of this wrongness is the root of the human consciousness of sin. This deficiency of
\nits nature it tries to set right by standards of conduct which will help it to remove the egoistic consciousness and satisfactions of
\nsin by the egoistic consciousness and self-satisfaction of virtue, the rajasic by the sattwic egoism. But the original sin has to be
\ncured, the separation of its being and will from the divine Being and the divine Will; when it returns to unity with the divine
\nWill and Being, it rises beyond sin and virtue to the infinite self-existent purity and the security of its own divine nature.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>680<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n \t\t\tIts incapacities it tries to set right by organising its imperfect
\nknowledge and disciplining its half-enlightened will and force
\n\t\t\tand directing them by some systematic effort of the reason; but the
\n\t\t\tresult must always be a limited, uncertain, mutable and stumbling
\n\t\t\tway and standard of capacity in action. Only when  it returns
\n\t\t\tagain to the large unity of the free spirit,
\nbhūmā<\/font><\/i>, can
\nthe action of its nature move perfectly as the instrument of the infinite Spirit and in the steps of the Right and Truth and Power
\nwhich belong to the free soul acting from the supreme centre of its existence. Again, because it is limited in the delight of
\nbeing, it is unable to lay hold on the secure, self-existent perfect bliss of the spirit or the delight, the Ananda of the universe
\nwhich keeps the world in motion, but is only able to move in a mixed and shifting succession of pleasures and pains, joys and
\nsorrows, or must take refuge in some conscient inconscience or neutral indifference. The ego mind cannot do otherwise, and
\nthe soul which has externalised itself in ego, is subjected to this unsatisfactory, secondary, imperfect, often perverse, troubled or
\nannulled enjoyment of existence; yet all the time the spiritual and universal Ananda is within, in the self, in the spirit, in its
\nsecret unity with God and existence. To cast away the chain of ego and go back to free self, immortal spiritual being is the soul’s
\nreturn to its own eternal divinity. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe will to the imperfect separative being, that wrong Tapas
\nwhich makes the soul in Nature attempt to individualise itself, to individualise its being, consciousness, force of being, delight
\nof existence in a separative sense, to have these things as its own, in its own right, and not in the right of God and of the universal
\noneness, is that which brings about this wrong turn and creates the ego. To turn from this original desire is therefore essential,
\nto get back to the will without desire whose whole enjoyment of being and whole will in being is that of a free universal and
\nunifying Ananda. These two things are one, liberation from the will that is of the nature of desire and liberation from the ego,
\nand the oneness which is brought about by the happy loss of the will of desire and the ego, is the essence of Mukti.
\n   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>681<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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