{"id":2187,"date":"2013-07-13T01:40:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2187"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:40:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:00","slug":"17-chapter-xii-the-divine-work-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\/17-chapter-xii-the-divine-work-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","title":{"rendered":"-17_Chapter XII The Divine Work.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

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

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

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Divine Work<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tO<\/font>NE QUESTION<\/b> remains for the seeker
\n\t\t\tupon the way of works, when his quest is or seems to have come to
\n\t\t\tits natural end, \u2014 whether any work or what work is left for the
\n\t\t\tsoul after liberation and to what purpose? Equality has been seated
\n\t\t\tin the nature or governs the whole nature; there has been achieved a
\n\t\t\tradical deliverance from the ego-idea, from the pervading ego-sense,
\n\t\t\tfrom all feelings and impulsions of the ego and its self-will and
\n\t\t\tdesires. The entire self-consecration has been made not only in
\n\t\t\tthought and heart but in all the complexities of the being. A
\n\t\t\tcomplete purity or transcendence of the three gunas has been
\n\t\t\tharmoniously established. The soul has seen the Master of its works
\n\t\t\tand lives in his presence or is consciously contained in his being
\n\t\t\tor is unified with him or feels him in the heart or above and obeys
\n\t\t\this dictates. It has known its true being and cast away the veil of
\n\t\t\tthe Ignorance. What work then remains for the worker in man and with
\n\t\t\twhat motive, to what end, in what spirit will it be done? <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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

\n\t\t\tThere is one answer with which we are very familiar in India; no
\n\t\t\twork at all remains, for the rest is quiescence. When the soul can
\n\t\t\tlive in the eternal presence of the Supreme or when it is unified
\n\t\t\twith the Absolute, the object of our existence in the world, if it
\n\t\t\tcan be said to have an object, at once ceases. Man, released from
\n\t\t\tthe curse of self-division and the curse of Ignorance, is released
\n\t\t\ttoo from that other affliction, the curse of works. All action would
\n\t\t\tthen be a derogation from the supreme state and a return into the
\n\t\t\tIgnorance. This attitude towards life is supported by an idea
\n\t\t\tfounded on the error of the vital nature to which action is dictated
\n\t\t\tonly by one or all of three inferior <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>264<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tmotives, necessity, restless instinct and impulse or desire. The
\n\t\t\tinstinct or impulse quiescent, desire extinguished, what place is
\n\t\t\tthere for works? Some mechanical necessity might remain but no
\n\t\t\tother, and even that would cease for ever with the fall of the body.
\n\t\t\tBut after all, even so, while life remains, action is unavoidable.
\n\t\t\tMere thinking or, in the absence of thought, mere living is itself
\n\t\t\tan act and a cause of many effects. All existence in the world is
\n\t\t\twork, force, potency, and has a dynamic effect in the whole by its
\n\t\t\tmere presence, even the inertia of the clod, even the silence of the
\n\t\t\timmobile Buddha on the verge of Nirvana. There is the question only
\n\t\t\tof the manner of the action, the instruments that are used or that
\n\t\t\tact of themselves, and the spirit and knowledge of the worker. For
\n\t\t\tin reality, no man works, but Nature works through him for the
\n\t\t\tself-expression of a Power within that proceeds from the Infinite.
\n\t\t\tTo know that and live in the presence and in the being of the Master
\n\t\t\tof Nature, free from desire and the illusion of personal impulsion,
\n\t\t\tis the one thing needful. That and not the bodily cessation of
\n\t\t\taction is the true release; for the bondage of works at once ceases.
\n\t\t\tA man might sit still and motionless for ever and yet be as much
\n\t\t\tbound to the Ignorance as the animal or the insect. But if he can
\n\t\t\tmake this greater consciousness dynamic within him, then all the
\n\t\t\twork of all the worlds could pass through him and yet he would
\n\t\t\tremain at rest, absolute in calm and peace, free from all bondage.
\n\t\t\tAction in the world is given us first as a means for our
\n\t\t\tself-development and self-fulfilment; but even if we reached a last
\n\t\t\tpossible divine self-completeness, it would still remain as a means
\n\t\t\tfor the fulfilment of the divine intention in the world and of the
\n\t\t\tlarger universal self of which each being is a portion \u2014 a portion
\n\t\t\tthat has come down with it from the Transcendence. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn a certain sense, when his Yoga has reached a certain culmination,
\n\t\t\tworks cease for a man; for he has no further personal necessity of
\n\t\t\tworks, no sense of works being done by him; but there is no need to
\n\t\t\tflee from action or to take refuge in a blissful inertia. For now he
\n\t\t\tacts as the Divine Existence acts without any binding necessity and
\n\t\t\twithout any compelling ignorance. Even in doing works
\nhe <\/i>does not work at all; he undertakes  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>265<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tno personal initiative. It is the Divine Shakti
\n\t\t\tthat works in him through his nature; his action develops through
\n\t\t\tthe spontaneity of a supreme Force by which his instruments are
\n\t\t\tpossessed, of which he is a part, with whose will his will is
\n\t\t\tidentical and his power is her power. The spirit within him
\n\t\t\tcontains, supports and watches this action; it presides over it in
\n\t\t\tknowledge but is not glued or clamped to the work by attachment or
\n\t\t\tneed, is not bound by desire of its fruit, is not enslaved to any
\n\t\t\tmovement or impulse. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is a common error to suppose that action is impossible or at
\n\t\t\tleast meaningless without desire. If desire ceases, we are told,
\n\t\t\taction also must cease. But this, like other too simply
\n\t\t\tcomprehensive generalisations, is more attractive to the cutting and
\n\t\t\tdefining mind than true. The major part of the work done in the
\n\t\t\tuniverse is accomplished without any interference of desire; it
\n\t\t\tproceeds by the calm necessity and spontaneous law of Nature. Even
\n\t\t\tman constantly does work of various kinds by a spontaneous impulse,
\n\t\t\tintuition, instinct or acts in obedience to a natural necessity and
\n\t\t\tlaw of forces without either mental planning or the urge of a
\n\t\t\tconscious vital volition or emotional desire. Often enough his act
\n\t\t\tis contrary to his intention or his desire; it proceeds out of him
\n\t\t\tin subjection to a need or compulsion, in submission to an impulse,
\n\t\t\tin obedience to a force in him that pushes for self-expression or in
\n\t\t\tconscious pursuance of a higher principle. Desire is an additional
\n\t\t\tlure to which Nature has given a great part in the life of animated
\n\t\t\tbeings in order to produce a certain kind of rajasic action
\n\t\t\tnecessary for her intermediate ends; but it is not her sole or even
\n\t\t\ther chief engine. It has its great use while it endures: it helps us
\n\t\t\tto rise out of inertia, it contradicts many tamasic forces which
\n\t\t\twould otherwise inhibit action. But the seeker who has advanced far
\n\t\t\ton the way of works has passed beyond this intermediate stage in
\n\t\t\twhich desire is a helpful engine. Its push is no longer
\n\t\t\tindispensable for his action, but is rather a terrible hindrance and
\n\t\t\tsource of stumbling, inefficiency and failure. Others are obliged to
\n\t\t\tobey a personal choice or motive, but he has to learn to act with an
\n\t\t\timpersonal or a universal mind or as a part or an instrument of an
\n\t\t\tinfinite Person. A <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>267<\/font>   <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tcalm indifference, a joyful impartiality or a blissful response to a
\n\t\t\tdivine Force, whatever its dictate, is the condition of his doing
\n\t\t\tany effective work or undertaking any worth-while action. Not
\n\t\t\tdesire, not attachment must drive him, but a Will that stirs in a
\n\t\t\tdivine peace, a Knowledge that moves from the transcendent Light, a
\n\t\t\tglad Impulse that is a force from the supreme Ananda. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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

\n\t\t\tIn an advanced stage of the Yoga it is indifferent to the seeker, in
\n\t\t\tthe sense of any personal preference, what action he shall do or not
\n\t\t\tdo; even whether he shall act or not, is not decided by his personal
\n\t\t\tchoice or pleasure. Always he is moved to do whatever is in
\n\t\t\tconsonance with the Truth or whatever the Divine demands through his
\n\t\t\tnature. A false conclusion is sometimes drawn from this that the
\n\t\t\tspiritual man, accepting the position in which Fate or God or his
\n\t\t\tpast Karma has placed him, content to work in the field and cadre of
\n\t\t\tthe family, clan, caste, nation, occupation which are his by birth
\n\t\t\tand circumstance, will not and even perhaps ought not to make any
\n\t\t\tmovement to exceed them or to pursue any great mundane end. Since he
\n\t\t\thas really no work to do, since he has only to use works, no matter
\n\t\t\twhat works, as long as he is in the body in order to arrive at
\n\t\t\tliberation or, having arrived, only to obey the supreme Will and do
\n\t\t\twhatever it dictates, the actual field given him is sufficient for
\n\t\t\tthe purpose. Once free, he has only to continue working in the
\n\t\t\tsphere assigned to him by Fate and circumstances till the great hour
\n\t\t\tarrives when he can at last disappear into the Infinite. To insist
\n\t\t\ton any particular end or to work for some great mundane object is to
\n\t\t\tfall into the illusion of works; it is to entertain the error that
\n\t\t\tterrestrial life has an intelligible intention and contains objects
\n\t\t\tworthy of pursuit. The great theory of Illusion, which is a
\n\t\t\tpractical denial of the Divine in the world, even when in idea it
\n\t\t\tacknowledges the Presence, is once more before us. But the Divine is
\n\t\t\there in the world, \u2014 not only in status but in dynamis, not only as
\n\t\t\ta spiritual self and presence but as power, force, energy, \u2014 and
\n\t\t\ttherefore a divine work in the world is possible.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>267<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t   
\n\t\t\tThere is no narrow principle, no field of cabined action that can be
\n\t\t\timposed on the Karmayogin as his rule or his province. This much is
\n\t\t\ttrue that every kind of works, whether small to man’s imagination or
\n\t\t\tgreat, petty in scope or wide, can be equally used in the progress
\n\t\t\ttowards liberation or for self-discipline. This much is also true
\n\t\t\tthat after liberation a man may dwell in any sphere of life and in
\n\t\t\tany kind of action and fulfil there his existence in the Divine.
\n\t\t\tAccording as he is moved by the Spirit, he may remain in the sphere
\n\t\t\tassigned to him by birth and circumstances or break that framework
\n\t\t\tand go forth to an untrammelled action which shall be the fitting
\n\t\t\tbody of his greatened consciousness and higher knowledge. To the
\n\t\t\toutward eyes of men the inner liberation may make no apparent
\n\t\t\tdifference in his outward acts; or, on the contrary, the freedom and
\n\t\t\tinfinity within may translate itself into an outward dynamic working
\n\t\t\tso large and new that all regards are drawn by this novel force. If
\n\t\t\tsuch be the intention of the Supreme within him, the liberated soul
\n\t\t\tmay be content with a subtle and limited action within the old human
\n\t\t\tsurroundings which will in no way seek to change their outward
\n\t\t\tappearance. But it may too be called to a work which will not only
\n\t\t\talter the forms and sphere of its own external life but, leaving
\n\t\t\tnothing around it unchanged or unaffected, create a new world or a
\n\t\t\tnew order. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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

\n\t\t\tA prevalent idea would persuade us that the sole aim of liberation
\n\t\t\tis to secure for the individual soul freedom from physical rebirth
\n\t\t\tin the unstable life of the universe. If this freedom is once
\n\t\t\tassured, there is no further work for it in life here or elsewhere
\n\t\t\tor only that which the continued existence of the body demands or
\n\t\t\tthe unfulfilled effects of past lives necessitate. This little,
\n\t\t\trapidly exhausted or consumed by the fire of Yoga, will cease with
\n\t\t\tthe departure of the released soul from the body. The aim of escape
\n\t\t\tfrom rebirth, now long fixed in the Indian mentality as the highest
\n\t\t\tobject of the soul, has replaced the enjoyment of a heaven beyond
\n\t\t\tfixed in the mentality of the devout by many religions<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>268<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tas their divine lure. Indian religion also upheld that earlier and
\n\t\t\tlower call when the gross external interpretation of the Vedic hymns
\n\t\t\twas the dominant creed, and the dualists in later India also have
\n\t\t\tkept that as part of their supreme spiritual motive. Undoubtedly a
\n\t\t\trelease from the limitations of the mind and body into an eternal
\n\t\t\tpeace, rest, silence of the Spirit, makes a higher appeal than the
\n\t\t\toffer of a heaven of mental joys or eternised physical pleasures,
\n\t\t\tbut this too after all is a lure; its insistence on the mind’s
\n\t\t\tworld-weariness, the life-being’s shrinking from the adventure of
\n\t\t\tbirth, strikes a chord of weakness and cannot be the supreme motive.
\n\t\t\tThe desire of personal salvation, however high its form, is an
\n\t\t\toutcome of ego; it rests on the idea of our own individuality and
\n\t\t\tits desire for its personal good or welfare, its longing for a
\n\t\t\trelease from suffering or its cry for the extinction of the trouble
\n\t\t\tof becoming and makes that the supreme aim of our existence. To rise
\n\t\t\tbeyond the desire of personal salvation is necessary for the
\n\t\t\tcomplete rejection of this basis of ego. If we seek the Divine, it
\n\t\t\tshould be for the sake of the Divine and for nothing else, because
\n\t\t\tthat is the supreme call of our being, the deepest truth of the
\n\t\t\tspirit. The pursuit of liberation, of the soul’s freedom, of the
\n\t\t\trealisation of our true and highest self, of union with the Divine,
\n\t\t\tis justified only because it is the highest law of our nature,
\n\t\t\tbecause it is the attraction of that which is lower in us to that
\n\t\t\twhich is highest, because it is the Divine Will in us. That is its
\n\t\t\tsufficient justification and its one truest reason; all other
\n\t\t\tmotives are excrescences, minor or incidental truths or useful lures
\n\t\t\twhich the soul must abandon, the moment their utility has passed and
\n\t\t\tthe state of oneness with the Supreme and with all beings has become
\n\t\t\tour normal consciousness and the bliss of that state our spiritual
\n\t\t\tatmosphere. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOften, we see this desire of personal salvation overcome by another
\n\t\t\tattraction which also belongs to the higher turn of our nature and
\n\t\t\twhich indicates the essential character of the action the liberated
\n\t\t\tsoul must pursue. It is that which is implied in the great legend of
\n\t\t\tthe Amitabha Buddha who turned away when his spirit was on the
\n\t\t\tthreshold of Nirvana and took the vow never to cross it while a
\n\t\t\tsingle being remained in the sorrow<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>269<\/font>    <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tand the Ignorance. It is that which underlies
\n\t\t\tthe sublime verse of the Bhagavata Purana, "I desire not the supreme
\n\t\t\tstate with all its eight siddhis nor the cessation of rebirth; may I
\n\t\t\tassume the sorrow of all creatures who suffer and enter into them so
\n\t\t\tthat they may be made free from grief." It is that which inspires a
\n\t\t\tremarkable passage in a letter of Swami Vivekananda. "I have lost
\n\t\t\tall wish for my salvation," wrote the great Vedantin, "may I be born
\n\t\t\tagain and again and suffer thousands of miseries so that I may
\n\t\t\tworship the only God that exists, the only God I believe in, the
\n\t\t\tsum-total of all souls, \u2014 and above all, my God the wicked, my God
\n\t\t\tthe miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all species is the
\n\t\t\tspecial object of my worship. He who is the high and low, the saint
\n\t\t\tand the sinner, the god and the worm, Him worship, the visible, the
\n\t\t\tknowable, the real, the omnipresent; break all other idols. In whom
\n\t\t\tthere is neither past life nor future birth, nor death nor going nor
\n\t\t\tcoming, in whom we always have been and always will be one, Him
\n\t\t\tworship; break all other idols." <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe last two sentences contain indeed the whole gist of the matter.
\n\t\t\tThe true salvation or the true freedom from the chain of rebirth is
\n\t\t\tnot the rejection of terrestrial life or the individual’s escape by
\n\t\t\ta spiritual self-annihilation, even as the true renunciation is not
\n\t\t\tthe mere physical abandonment of family and society; it is the inner
\n\t\t\tidentification with the Divine in whom there is no limitation of
\n\t\t\tpast life and future birth but instead the eternal existence of the
\n\t\t\tunborn Soul. He who is free inwardly, even doing actions, does
\n\t\t\tnothing at all, says the Gita; for it is Nature that works in him
\n\t\t\tunder the control of the Lord of Nature. Equally, even if he assumes
\n\t\t\ta hundred times the body, he is free from any chain of birth or
\n\t\t\tmechanical wheel of existence since he lives in the unborn and
\n\t\t\tundying spirit and not in the life of the body. Therefore attachment
\n\t\t\tto the escape from rebirth is one of the idols which, whoever keeps,
\n\t\t\tthe sadhaka of the integral Yoga must break and cast away from him.
\n\t\t\tFor his Yoga is not limited to the realisation of the Transcendent
\n\t\t\tbeyond all world by the individual soul; it embraces also the
\n\t\t\trealisation of the Universal, "the sum-total of all souls", and
\n\t\t\tcannot therefore be confined to the movement of a personal salvation
\n\t\t\tand escape. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>270<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tEven in his transcendence of cosmic limitations he is still one with
\n\t\t\tall in God; a divine work remains for him in the universe. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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

\n\t\t\tThat work cannot be fixed by any mind-made rule or human standard;
\n\t\t\tfor his consciousness has moved away from human law and limits and
\n\t\t\tpassed into the divine liberty, away from government by the external
\n\t\t\tand transient into the self-rule of the inner and eternal, away from
\n\t\t\tthe binding forms of the finite into the free self-determination of
\n\t\t\tthe Infinite. "Howsoever he lives and acts," says the Gita, "he
\n\t\t\tlives and acts in Me." The rules which the intellect of men lays
\n\t\t\tdown cannot apply to the liberated soul, \u2014 by the external criteria
\n\t\t\tand tests which their mental associations and prejudgments
\n\t\t\tprescribe, such a one cannot be judged; he is outside the narrow
\n\t\t\tjurisdiction of these fallible tribunals. It is immaterial whether
\n\t\t\the wears the garb of the ascetic or lives the full life of the
\n\t\t\thouseholder; whether he spends his days in what men call holy works
\n\t\t\tor in the many-sided activities of the world; whether he devotes
\n\t\t\thimself to the direct leading of men to the Light like Buddha,
\n\t\t\tChrist or Shankara or governs kingdoms like Janaka or stands before
\n\t\t\tmen like Sri Krishna as a politician or a leader of armies; what he
\n\t\t\teats or drinks; what are his habits or his pursuits; whether he
\n\t\t\tfails or succeeds; whether his work be one of construction or of
\n\t\t\tdestruction; whether he supports or restores an old order or labours
\n\t\t\tto replace it by a new; whether his associates are those whom men
\n\t\t\tdelight to honour or those whom their sense of superior
\n\t\t\trighteousness outcastes and reprobates; whether his life and deeds
\n\t\t\tare approved by his contemporaries or he is condemned as a misleader
\n\t\t\tof men and a fomenter of religious, moral or social heresies. He is
\n\t\t\tnot governed by the judgments of men or the laws laid down by the
\n\t\t\tignorant; he obeys an inner voice and is moved by an unseen Power.
\n\t\t\tHis real life is within and this is its description that he lives,
\n\t\t\tmoves and acts in God, in the Divine, in the Infinite. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut if his action is governed by no external rule, one rule it will
\n\t\t\tobserve that is not external; it will be dictated by no personal <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>271<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tdesire or aim, but will be a part of a conscious
\n\t\t\tand eventually a well-ordered because self-ordered divine working in
\n\t\t\tthe world. The Gita declares that the action of the liberated man
\n\t\t\tmust be directed not by desire, but towards the keeping together of
\n\t\t\tthe world, its government, guidance, impulsion, maintenance in the
\n\t\t\tpath appointed to it. This injunction has been interpreted in the
\n\t\t\tsense that the world being an illusion in which most men must be
\n\t\t\tkept, since they are unfit for liberation, he must so act outwardly
\n\t\t\tas to cherish in them an attachment to their customary works laid
\n\t\t\tdown for them by the social law. If so, it would be a poor and petty
\n\t\t\trule and every noble heart would reject it to follow rather the
\n\t\t\tdivine vow of Amitabha Buddha, the sublime prayer of the Bhagavata,
\n\t\t\tthe passionate aspiration of Vivekananda. But if we accept rather
\n\t\t\tthe view that the world is a divinely guided movement of Nature
\n\t\t\temerging in man towards God and that this is the work in which the
\n\t\t\tLord of the Gita declares that he is ever occupied although he
\n\t\t\thimself has nothing ungained that he has yet to win, then a deep and
\n\t\t\ttrue sense will appear for this great injunction. To participate in
\n\t\t\tthat divine work, to live for God in the world will be the rule of
\n\t\t\tthe Karmayogin; to live for God in the world and therefore so to act
\n\t\t\tthat the Divine may more and more manifest himself and the world go
\n\t\t\tforward by whatever way of its obscure pilgrimage and move nearer to
\n\t\t\tthe divine ideal. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHow he shall do this, in what particular way, can be decided by no
\n\t\t\tgeneral rule. It must develop or define itself from within; the
\n\t\t\tdecision lies between God and our self, the Supreme Self and the
\n\t\t\tindividual self that is the instrument of the work; even before
\n\t\t\tliberation, it is from the inner self, as soon as we become
\n\t\t\tconscious of it, that there rises the sanction, the spiritually
\n\t\t\tdetermined choice. It is altogether from within that must come the
\n\t\t\tknowledge of the work that has to be done. There is no particular
\n\t\t\twork, no law or form or outwardly fixed or invariable way of works
\n\t\t\twhich can be said to be that of the liberated being. The phrase used
\n\t\t\tin the Gita to express this work that has to be done has indeed been
\n\t\t\tinterpreted in the sense that we must do our duty without regard to
\n\t\t\tthe fruit. But this is a conception born of European culture which
\n\t\t\tis ethical rather than spiritual and  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\texternal rather than inwardly profound in its concepts. No such
\n\t\t\tgeneral thing as duty exists; we have only duties, often in conflict
\n\t\t\twith each other, and these are determined by our environment, our
\n\t\t\tsocial relations, our external status in life. They are of great
\n\t\t\tvalue in training the immature moral nature and setting up a
\n\t\t\tstandard which discourages the action of selfish desire. It has
\n\t\t\talready been said that so long as the seeker has no inner light, he
\n\t\t\tmust govern himself by the best light he has, and duty, a principle,
\n\t\t\ta cause are among the standards he may temporarily erect and
\n\t\t\tobserve. But for all that, duties are external things, not stuff of
\n\t\t\tthe soul and cannot be the ultimate standard of action in this path.
\n\t\t\tIt is the duty of the soldier to fight when called upon, even to
\n\t\t\tfire upon his own kith and kin; but such a standard or any akin to
\n\t\t\tit cannot be imposed on the liberated man. On the other hand, to
\n\t\t\tlove or have compassion, to obey the highest truth of our being, to
\n\t\t\tfollow the command of the Divine are not duties; these things are a
\n\t\t\tlaw of the nature as it rises towards the Divine, an outflowing of
\n\t\t\taction from a soul-state, a high reality of the spirit. The action
\n\t\t\tof the liberated doer of works must be even such an outflowing from
\n\t\t\tthe soul; it must come to him or out of him as a natural result of
\n\t\t\this spiritual union with the Divine and not be formed by an edifying
\n\t\t\tconstruction of the mental thought and will, the practical reason or
\n\t\t\tthe social sense. In the ordinary life a personal, social or
\n\t\t\ttraditional constructed rule, standard or ideal is the guide; once
\n\t\t\tthe spiritual journey has begun, this must be replaced by an inner
\n\t\t\tand outer rule or way of living necessary for our self-discipline,
\n\t\t\tliberation and perfection, a way of living proper to the path we
\n\t\t\tfollow or enjoined by the spiritual guide and master, the Guru, or
\n\t\t\telse dictated by a Guide within us. But in the last state of the
\n\t\t\tsoul’s infinity and freedom all outward standards are replaced or
\n\t\t\tlaid aside and there is left only a spontaneous and integral
\n\t\t\tobedience to the Divine with whom we are in union and an action
\n\t\t\tspontaneously fulfilling the integral spiritual truth of our being
\n\t\t\tand nature. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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

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\n

\n\t\t\tIt is this deeper sense in which we must accept
\n\t\t\tthe dictum of the Gita that action determined and governed by the
\n\t\t\tnature must be our law of works. It is not, certainly, the
\n\t\t\tsuperficial temperament or the character or habitual impulses that
\n\t\t\tare meant, but in the literal sense of the Sanskrit word our "own
\n\t\t\tbeing", our essential nature, the divine stuff of our souls.
\n\t\t\tWhatever springs from this root or flows from these sources is
\n\t\t\tprofound, essential, right; the rest \u2014 opinions, impulses, habits,
\n\t\t\tdesires \u2014 may be merely surface formations or casual vagaries of the
\n\t\t\tbeing or impositions from outside. They shift and change, but this
\n\t\t\tremains constant. It is not the executive forms taken by Nature in
\n\t\t\tus that are ourselves or the abidingly constant and expressive shape
\n\t\t\tof ourselves; it is the spiritual being in us \u2014 and this includes
\n\t\t\tthe soul-becoming of it \u2014 that persists through time in the
\n\t\t\tuniverse. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe cannot, however, easily distinguish this true inner law of our
\n\t\t\tbeing; it is kept screened from us so long as the heart and
\n\t\t\tintellect remain unpurified from egoism: till then we follow
\n\t\t\tsuperficial and impermanent ideas, impulses, desires, suggestions
\n\t\t\tand impositions of all kinds from our environment or work out
\n\t\t\tformations of our temporary mental, vital, physical personality \u2014
\n\t\t\tthat passing experimental and structural self which has been made
\n\t\t\tfor us by an interaction between our being and the pressure of a
\n\t\t\tlower cosmic Nature. In proportion as we are purified, the true
\n\t\t\tbeing within declares itself more clearly; our will is less
\n\t\t\tentangled in suggestions from outside or shut up in our own
\n\t\t\tsuperficial mental constructions. Egoism renounced, the nature
\n\t\t\tpurified, action will come from the soul’s dictates, from the depths
\n\t\t\tor the heights of the spirit, or it will be openly governed by the
\n\t\t\tLord who was all the time seated secretly within our hearts. The
\n\t\t\tsupreme and final word of the Gita for the Yogin is that he should
\n\t\t\tleave all conventional formulas of belief and action, all fixed and
\n\t\t\texternal rules of conduct, all constructions of the outward or
\n\t\t\tsurface Nature,
\ndharmas<\/i>, and take refuge in the Divine alone. Free from desire and
\n\t\t\tattachment, one with all beings, living in the infinite Truth and
\n\t\t\tPurity and acting out of the profoundest deeps of his inner
\n\t\t\tconsciousness, governed by his immortal, divine and highest Self,
\n\t\t\tall his works will be <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tdirected by the Power within through that essential spirit and nature
\n\t\t\tin us which, knowing, warring, working, loving, serving, is always
\n\t\t\tdivine, towards the fulfilment of God in the world, an expression of
\n\t\t\tthe Eternal in Time. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA divine action arising spontaneously, freely, infallibly from the
\n\t\t\tlight and force of our spiritual self in union with the Divine is
\n\t\t\tthe last state of this integral Yoga of Works. The truest reason why
\n\t\t\twe must seek liberation is not to be delivered, individually, from
\n\t\t\tthe sorrow of the world, though that deliverance too will be given
\n\t\t\tto us, but that we may be one with the Divine, the Supreme, the
\n\t\t\tEternal. The truest reason why we must seek perfection, a supreme
\n\t\t\tstatus, purity, knowledge, strength, love, capacity, is not that
\n\t\t\tpersonally we may enjoy the divine Nature or be even as the gods,
\n\t\t\tthough that enjoyment too will be ours, but because this liberation
\n\t\t\tand perfection are the divine Will in us, the highest truth of our
\n\t\t\tself in Nature, the always intended goal of a progressive
\n\t\t\tmanifestation in the universe. The divine Nature, free and perfect
\n\t\t\tand blissful, must be manifested in the individual in order that it
\n\t\t\tmay manifest in the world. Even in the Ignorance the individual
\n\t\t\tlives really in the universal and for the universal Purpose, for in
\n\t\t\tthe very act of pursuing the purposes and desires of his ego, he is
\n\t\t\tforced by Nature to contribute by his egoistic action to her work
\n\t\t\tand purpose in the worlds; but it is without conscious intention,
\n\t\t\timperfectly done, and his contribution is to her half-evolved and
\n\t\t\thalf-conscient, her imperfect and crude movement. To escape from ego
\n\t\t\tand be united with the Divine is at once the liberation and the
\n\t\t\tconsummation of his individuality; so liberated, purified,
\n\t\t\tperfected, the individual \u2014 the divine soul \u2014 lives consciously and
\n\t\t\tentirely, as was from the first intended, in and for the cosmic and
\n\t\t\ttranscendent Divine and for his Will in the universe. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the Way of Knowledge we may arrive at a point where we can leap
\n\t\t\tout of personality and universe, escape from all thought and will
\n\t\t\tand works and all way of Nature and, absorbed and taken up into
\n\t\t\tEternity, plunge into the Transcendence; that, though not obligatory
\n\t\t\ton the God-knower, may be the soul’s decision, the turn pursued by
\n\t\t\tthe self within us. In the Way of <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>275<\/font>  \n\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tDevotion we may reach through an intensity of
\n\t\t\tadoration and joy union with the supreme All-Beloved and remain
\n\t\t\teternally in the ecstasy of his presence, absorbed in him alone,
\n\t\t\tintimately in one world of bliss with him; that then may be our
\n\t\t\tbeing’s impulsion, its spiritual choice. But in the Way of Works
\n\t\t\tanother prospect opens; for travelling on that path, we can enter
\n\t\t\tinto liberation and perfection by becoming of one law and power of
\n\t\t\tnature with the Eternal; we are identified with him in our will and
\n\t\t\tdynamic self as much as in our spiritual status; a divine way of
\n\t\t\tworks is the natural outcome of this union, a divine living in a
\n\t\t\tspiritual freedom the body of its self-expression. In the Integral
\n\t\t\tYoga these three lines of approach give up their exclusions, meet
\n\t\t\tand coalesce or spring out of each other; liberated from the mind’s
\n\t\t\tveil over the self, we live in the Transcendence, enter by the
\n\t\t\tadoration of the heart into the oneness of a supreme love and bliss,
\n\t\t\tand all our forces of being uplifted into the one Force, our will
\n\t\t\tand works surrendered into the one Will and Power, assume the
\n\t\t\tdynamic perfection of the divine Nature. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>276<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Chapter XII   The Divine Work   ONE QUESTION remains for the seeker upon the way of works, when his quest is or seems to…<\/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-2187","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\/2187","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=2187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}