{"id":2241,"date":"2013-07-13T01:40:19","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2241"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:40:19","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:19","slug":"11-works-and-sacrifice-vol-19-essays-on-the-gita","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/19-essays-on-the-gita\/11-works-and-sacrifice-vol-19-essays-on-the-gita","title":{"rendered":"-11_Works and Sacrifice.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n
\nXI <\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nWorks and Sacrifice <\/font> <\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nT<\/font>HE YOGA <\/b>of the intelligent will and its culmination in
\nthe Brahmic status, which occupies all the close of the second chapter, contains the seed of much of the teaching
\nof the Gita, \u2014 its doctrine of desireless works, of equality, of the rejection of outward renunciation, of devotion to the Divine;
\nbut as yet all this is slight and obscure. What is most strongly emphasised as yet is the withdrawal of the will from the ordinary
\nmotive of human activities, desire, from man’s normal temperament of the sense-seeking thought and will with its passions
\nand ignorance, and from its customary habit of troubled many-branching ideas and wishes to the desireless calm unity and
\npassionless serenity of the Brahmic poise. So much Arjuna has understood. He is not unfamiliar with all this; it is the substance
\nof the current teaching which points man to the path of knowledge and to the renunciation of life and works as his way of
\nperfection. The intelligence withdrawing from sense and desire and human action and turning to the Highest, to the One, to the
\nactionless Purusha, to the immobile, to the featureless Brahman, that surely is the eternal seed of knowledge. There is no room
\nhere for works, since works belong to the Ignorance; action is the very opposite of knowledge; its seed is desire and its fruit
\nis bondage. That is the orthodox philosophical doctrine, and Krishna seems quite to admit it when he says that works are
\nfar inferior to the Yoga of the intelligence. And yet works are insisted upon as part of the Yoga; so that there seems to be in
\nthis teaching a radical inconsistency. Not only so; for some kind of work no doubt may persist for a while, the minimum, the
\nmost inoffensive; but here is a work wholly inconsistent with knowledge, with serenity and with the motionless peace of the
\nself-delighted soul, \u2014 a work terrible, even monstrous, a bloody strife, a ruthless battle, a giant massacre. Yet it is this that is
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 105<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

enjoined, this that it is sought to justify by the teaching of inner peace and desireless equality and status in the Brahman! Here
\nthen is an unreconciled contradiction. Arjuna complains that he has been given a contradictory and confusing doctrine, not the
\nclear, strenuously single road by which the human intelligence can move straight and trenchantly to the supreme good. It is in
\nanswer to this objection that the Gita begins at once to develop more clearly its positive and imperative doctrine of Works.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe Teacher first makes a distinction between the two means of salvation on which in this world men can concentrate
\nseparately, the Yoga of knowledge, the Yoga of works, the one implying, it is usually supposed, renunciation of works as an
\nobstacle to salvation, the other accepting works as a means of salvation. He does not yet insist strongly on any fusion of
\nthem, on any reconciliation of the thought that divides them, but begins by showing that the renunciation of the Sankhyas,
\nthe physical renunciation, Sannyasa, is neither the only way, nor at all the better way.
\nNaiskarmya<\/i>, a calm voidness from works, <\/p>\n

is no doubt that to which the soul, the Purusha has to attain;
\nfor it is Prakriti which does the work and the soul has to rise above involution in the activities of the being and attain to a
\nfree serenity and poise watching over the operations of Prakriti, but not affected by them. That, and not cessation of the works
\nof Prakriti, is what is really meant by the soul’s naiskarmya<\/i>. <\/p>\n

Therefore it is an error to think that by not engaging in any kind of action this actionless state of the soul can be attained
\nand enjoyed. Mere renunciation of works is not a sufficient, not even quite a proper means for salvation. “Not by abstention from works does a man enjoy actionlessness, nor by mere renunciation (of works) does he attain to his perfection,”
\n\u2014 to
\nsiddhi<\/i>, the accomplishment of the aims of his self-discipline by Yoga.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut at least it must be one necessary means, indispensable, imperative? For how, if the works of Prakriti continue, can the
\nsoul help being involved in them? How can I fight and yet in my soul not think or feel that I the individual am fighting, not desire
\nvictory nor be inwardly touched by defeat? This is the teaching of  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 106<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nthe Sankhyas that the intelligence of the man who engages in the activities of Nature, is entangled in egoism, ignorance and desire
\nand therefore drawn to action; on the contrary, if the intelligence draws back, then the action must cease with the cessation of the
\ndesire and the ignorance. Therefore the giving up of life and works is a necessary part, an inevitable circumstance and an
\nindispensable last means of the movement to liberation. This objection of a current logic,
\n\u2014 it is not expressed by Arjuna,
\nbut it is in his mind as the turn of his subsequent utterances shows, \u2014 the Teacher immediately anticipates. No, he says, such
\nrenunciation, far from being indispensable, is not even possible. “For none stands even for a moment not doing work; everyone
\nis made to do action helplessly by the modes born of Prakriti.” The strong perception of the great cosmic action and the eternal
\nactivity and power of the cosmic energy which was so much emphasised afterwards by the teaching of the Tantric Shaktas
\nwho even made Prakriti or Shakti superior to Purusha, is a very remarkable feature of the Gita. Although here an undertone, it is
\nstill strong enough, coupled with what we might call the theistic and devotional elements of its thought, to bring in that activism
\nwhich so strongly modifies in its scheme of Yoga the quietistic tendencies of the old metaphysical Vedanta. Man embodied in
\nthe natural world cannot cease from action, not for a moment, not for a second; his very existence here is an action; the whole
\nuniverse is an act of God, mere living even is His movement. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nOur physical life, its maintenance, its continuance is a journey, a pilgrimage of the body,
\nś<\/font><\/i><\/font>ar<\/i>ī<\/font><\/i><\/font>ra-y<\/i>ā<\/font><\/i><\/font>tr<\/i>ā<\/font><\/i><\/font>, and that cannot be effected without action. But even if a man could leave his body
\nunmaintained, otiose, if he could stand still always like a tree or sit inert like a stone,
\ntisthati<\/i>, that vegetable or material immobility would not save him from the hands of Nature; he would
\nnot be liberated from her workings. For it is not our physical movements and activities alone which are meant by works, by
\nkarma<\/i>; our mental existence also is a great complex action, it is even the greater and more important part of the works of
\nthe unresting energy, \u2014 subjective cause and determinant of the physical. We have gained nothing if we repress the effect but
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 107<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

retain the activity of the subjective cause. The objects of sense are only an occasion for our bondage, the mind’s insistence on
\nthem is the means, the instrumental cause. A man may control his organs of action and refuse to give them their natural play,
\nbut he has gained nothing if his mind continues to remember and dwell upon the objects of sense. Such a man has bewildered himself with false notions of self-discipline; he has not understood its object or its truth, nor the first principles of his subjective
\nexistence; therefore all his methods of self-discipline are false and null.1<\/font><\/sup> The body’s actions, even the mind’s actions are nothing in
\nthemselves, neither a bondage, nor the first cause of bondage. What is vital is the mighty energy of Nature which will have
\nher way and her play in her great field of mind and life and body; what is dangerous in her, is the power of her three
\ngunas<\/i>, <\/p>\n

modes or qualities to confuse and bewilder the intelligence and
\nso obscure the soul. That, as we shall see later, is the whole crux of action and liberation for the Gita. Be free from obscuration
\nand bewilderment by the three gunas <\/i>and action can continue, as <\/p>\n

it must continue, and even the largest, richest or most enormous and violent action; it does not matter, for nothing then touches
\nthe Purusha, the soul has naiskarmya.<\/i> <\/p>\n

<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut at present the Gita does not proceed to that larger point. Since the mind is the instrumental cause, since inaction is impossible, what is rational, necessary, the right way is a controlled action of the subjective and objective organism. The mind must
\nbring the senses under its control as an instrument of the intelligent will and then the organs of action must be used for their
\nproper office, for action, but for action done as Yoga. But what is the essence of this self-control, what is meant by action done
\nas Yoga, Karmayoga<\/i>? It is non-attachment, it is to do works without clinging with the mind to the objects of sense and the
\nfruit of the works. Not complete inaction, which is an error, a confusion, a self-delusion, an impossibility, but action full and
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1
\nI cannot think that mithyā<\/font>cā<\/font>ra <\/i>means a hypocrite. How is a man a hypocrite who inflicts on himself so severe and complete a privation? He is mistaken and deluded,
\n vimūdhātm<\/i>, and his ācāra<\/i>, his formally regulated method of self-discipline, is a false and vain method,
\n\u2014 this surely is all that the Gita means.
\n  
\n<\/font><\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 108<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nfree done without subjection to sense and passion, desireless and unattached works, are the first secret of perfection. Do
\n action thus self-controlled, says Krishna, niyatam kuru karma<\/i>
\ntvam<\/i>: I have said that knowledge, the intelligence, is greater
\nthan works, jyāyasī karmano buddhih<\/i>, but I did not mean that <\/p>\n

inaction is greater than action; the contrary is the truth, karma<\/i> <\/p>\n

jyāyo akarman<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>ah<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>. For knowledge does not mean renunciation of
\n works, it means equality and non-attachment to desire and the
\nobjects of sense; and it means the poise of the intelligent will in the Soul free and high-uplifted above the lower instrumentation
\nof Prakriti and controlling the works of the mind and the senses and body in the power of self-knowledge and the pure objectless
\nself-delight of spiritual realisation, niyatam karma<\/i>.2<\/font><\/sup> Buddhiyoga<\/i>
\n is fulfilled by karmayoga<\/i>; the Yoga of the self-liberating intelligent will finds its full meaning by the Yoga of desireless works.
\nThus the Gita founds its teaching of the necessity of desireless works,
\nniskāma karma<\/i>, and unites the subjective practice of the Sankhyas
\n\u2014 rejecting their merely physical rule \u2014 with the
\npractice of Yoga. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut still there is an essential difficulty unsolved. Desire is
\nthe ordinary motive of all human actions, and if the soul is free from desire, then there is no farther rationale for action.
\nWe may be compelled to do certain works for the maintenance of the body, but even that is a subjection to the desire of the
\nbody which we ought to get rid of if we are to attain perfection. But granting that this cannot be done, the only way is to fix
\na rule for action outside ourselves, not dictated by anything in our subjectivity, the
\nnityakarma <\/i>of the Vedic rule, the routine
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n2 Again, I cannot accept the current interpretation of niyatam karma <\/i>as if it meant fixed and formal works and were equivalent to the Vedic
\nnityakarma<\/i>, the regular works
\nof sacrifice, ceremonial and the daily rule of Vedic living. Surely, niyata
\n<\/i>simply takes up the niyamya <\/i>of the last verse. Krishna makes a statement, “he who controlling the
\nsenses by the mind engages with the organs of action in Yoga of action, he excels,” <\/p>\n

manasā<\/font> niyamya ārabhate karmayogam<\/i>, and he immediately goes on to draw from the
\nstatement an injunction, to sum it up and convert it into a rule. “Do thou do controlled
\n action,” niyatam kuru karma tvam<\/i>: niyatam <\/i>takes up the niyamya<\/i>,
\nkuru karma <\/i>takes <\/p>\n

up the ārabhate karmayogam<\/i>. Not formal works fixed by an external rule, but desireless works controlled by the liberated
\nbuddhi<\/i>, is the Gita’s teaching.
\n   <\/font><\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 109<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

of ceremonial sacrifice, daily conduct and social duty, which the man who seeks liberation may do simply because it is enjoined
\nupon him, without any personal purpose or subjective interest in them, with an absolute indifference to the doing, not because
\nhe is compelled by his nature but because it is enjoined by the Shastra. But if the principle of the action is not to be external
\nto the nature but subjective, if the actions even of the liberated and the sage are to be controlled and determined by his nature, <\/p>\n

svabhāva-niyatam<\/i>, then the only subjective principle of action is
\ndesire of whatever kind, lust of the flesh or emotion of the heart or base or noble aim of the mind, but all subject to the
\ngunas <\/i>of <\/p>\n

Prakriti. Let us then interpret the niyata karma <\/i>of the Gita as the
\nnityakarma <\/i>of the Vedic rule, its kartavya karma <\/i>or work that has to be done as the Aryan rule of social duty and let us take too
\nits work done as a sacrifice to mean simply these Vedic sacrifices and this fixed social duty performed disinterestedly and without
\nany personal object. This is how the Gita’s doctrine of desireless work is often interpreted. But it seems to me that the Gita’s
\nteaching is not so crude and simple, not so local and temporal and narrow as all that. It is large, free, subtle and profound; it is
\nfor all time and for all men, not for a particular age and country. Especially, it is always breaking free from external forms, details,
\ndogmatic notions and going back to principles and the great facts of our nature and our being. It is a work of large philosophic
\ntruth and spiritual practicality, not of constrained religious and philosophical formulas and stereotyped dogmas.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe difficulty is this, how, our nature being what it is and desire the common principle of its action, is it possible to institute
\na really desireless action? For what we call ordinarily disinterested action is not really desireless; it is simply a replacement of
\ncertain smaller personal interests by other larger desires which have only the appearance of being impersonal, virtue, country,
\nmankind. All action, moreover, as Krishna insists, is done by the gunas <\/i>of Prakriti, by our nature; in acting according to the <\/p>\n

Shastra we are still acting according to our nature, \u2014 even if this
\nShastric action is not, as it usually is, a mere cover for our desires, prejudices, passions, egoisms, our personal, national, sectarian
\n  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 110<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nvanities, sentiments and preferences; but even otherwise, even at the purest, still we obey a choice of our nature, and if our nature
\nwere different and the gunas <\/i>acted on our intelligence and will in <\/p>\n

some other combination, we would not accept the Shastra, but live according to our pleasure or our intellectual notions or else
\nbreak free from the social law to live the life of the solitary or the ascetic. We cannot become impersonal by obeying something
\noutside ourselves, for we cannot so get outside ourselves; we can only do it by rising to the highest in ourselves, into our free Soul
\nand Self which is the same and one in all and has therefore no personal interests, to the Divine in our being who possesses
\nHimself transcendent of cosmos and is therefore not bound by His cosmic works or His individual action. That is what the
\nGita teaches and desirelessness is only a means to this end, not an aim in itself. Yes, but how is it to be brought about? By doing
\nall works with sacrifice as the only object, is the reply of the divine Teacher. “By doing works otherwise than for sacrifice,
\nthis world of men is in bondage to works; for sacrifice practise works, O son of Kunti, becoming free from all attachment.” It is
\nevident that all works and not merely sacrifice and social duties can be done in this spirit; any action may be done either from
\nthe ego-sense narrow or enlarged or for the sake of the Divine. All being and all action of Prakriti exist only for the sake of
\nthe Divine; from that it proceeds, by that it endures, to that it is directed. But so long as we are dominated by the ego-sense
\nwe cannot perceive or act in the spirit of this truth, but act for the satisfaction of the ego and in the spirit of the ego, otherwise
\nthan for sacrifice. Egoism is the knot of the bondage. By acting Godwards, without any thought of ego, we loosen this knot and
\nfinally arrive at freedom. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nAt first, however, the Gita takes up the Vedic statement of
\nthe idea of sacrifice and phrases the law of sacrifice in its current terms. This it does with a definite object. We have seen that
\nthe quarrel between renunciation and works has two forms, the opposition of Sankhya and Yoga which is already in principle
\nreconciled and the opposition of Vedism and Vedantism which the Teacher has yet to reconcile. The first is a larger statement of
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 111<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

the opposition in which the idea of works is general and wide. The Sankhya starts from the notion of the divine status as that of
\nthe immutable and inactive Purusha which each soul is in reality and makes an opposition between inactivity of Purusha and
\nactivity of Prakriti; so its logical culmination is cessation of all works. Yoga starts from the notion of the Divine as Ishwara, lord
\nof the operations of Prakriti and therefore superior to them, and its logical culmination is not cessation of works but the soul’s
\nsuperiority to them and freedom even though doing all works. In the opposition of Vedism and Vedantism works,
\nkarma<\/i>, are
\nrestricted to Vedic works and sometimes even to Vedic sacrifice and ritualised works, all else being excluded as not useful to
\nsalvation. Vedism of the Mimansakas insisted on them as the means, Vedantism taking its stand on the Upanishads looked on
\nthem as only a preliminary belonging to the state of ignorance and in the end to be overpassed and rejected, an obstacle to the
\nseeker of liberation. Vedism worshipped the Devas, the gods, with sacrifice and held them to be the powers who assist our
\nsalvation. Vedantism was inclined to regard them as powers of the mental and material world opposed to our salvation (men,
\nsays the Upanishad, are the cattle of the gods, who do not desire man to know and be free); it saw the Divine as the immutable
\nBrahman who has to be attained not by works of sacrifice and worship but by knowledge. Works only lead to material results
\nand to an inferior Paradise; therefore they have to be renounced. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe Gita resolves this opposition by insisting that the Devas
\nare only forms of the one Deva, the Ishwara, the Lord of all Yoga and worship and sacrifice and austerity, and if it is true
\nthat sacrifice offered to the Devas leads only to material results and to Paradise, it is also true that sacrifice offered to the Ishwara
\nleads beyond them to the great liberation. For the Lord and the immutable Brahman are not two different beings, but one and
\nthe same Being, and whoever strives towards either, is striving towards that one divine Existence. All works in their totality
\nfind their culmination and completeness in the knowledge of the <\/p>\n

Divine, sarvam karmākhilam pārtha j\u00f1āne parisamāpyate<\/i>. They are not an obstacle, but the way to the supreme knowledge.
\n  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 112<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nThus this opposition too is reconciled with the help of a large elucidation of the meaning of sacrifice. In fact its conflict is only
\na restricted form of the larger opposition between Yoga and Sankhya. Vedism is a specialised and narrow form of Yoga; the
\nprinciple of the Vedantists is identical with that of the Sankhyas, for to both the movement of salvation is the recoil of the intelligence, the buddhi<\/i>, from the differentiating powers of Nature, from ego, mind, senses, from the subjective and the objective,
\nand its return to the undifferentiated and the immutable. It is with this object of reconciliation in his mind that the Teacher
\nfirst approaches his statement of the doctrine of sacrifice; but throughout, even from the very beginning, he keeps his eye not
\non the restricted Vedic sense of sacrifice and works, but on their larger and universal application,
\n\u2014 that widening of narrow and
\nformal notions to admit the great general truths they unduly restrict which is always the method of the Gita.
\n  
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 113<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XI   Works and Sacrifice   THE YOGA of the intelligent will and its culmination in the Brahmic status, which occupies all the close of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-19-essays-on-the-gita","wpcat-47-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241","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=2241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}