{"id":2256,"date":"2013-07-13T01:40:25","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2256"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:40:25","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:25","slug":"21-the-determinism-of-nature-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\/21-the-determinism-of-nature-vol-19-essays-on-the-gita","title":{"rendered":"-21_The Determinism of Nature.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n  <\/p>\n

\n
\n The Determinism of Nature <\/font><\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n
\n W<\/font>HEN<\/b> we can live in the higher Self by the unity of
\nworks and self-knowledge, we become superior to the method of the lower workings of Prakriti. We
\nare no longer enslaved to Nature and her gunas, but, one with the Ishwara, the master of our nature, we are able to use her
\nwithout subjection to the chain of Karma, for the purposes of the Divine Will in us; for that is what the greater Self in us is, he
\nis the Lord of her works and unaffected by the troubled stress of her reactions. The soul ignorant in Nature, on the contrary, is
\nenslaved by that ignorance to her modes, because it is identified there, not felicitously with its true self, not with the Divine who
\nis seated above her, but stupidly and unhappily with the ego-mind which is a subordinate factor in her operations in spite
\nof the exaggerated figure it makes, a mere mental knot and point of reference for the play of the natural workings. To break
\nthis knot, no longer to make the ego the centre and beneficiary of our works, but to derive all from and refer all to the divine
\nSupersoul is the way to become superior to all the restless trouble of Nature’s modes. For it is to live in the supreme consciousness,
\nof which the ego-mind is a degradation, and to act in an equal and unified Will and Force and not in the unequal play of the
\ngunas which is a broken seeking and striving, a disturbance, an inferior Maya.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe passages in which the Gita lays stress on the subjection of the ego-soul to Nature, have by some been understood as
\nthe enunciation of an absolute and a mechanical determinism which leaves no room for any freedom within the cosmic existence. Certainly, the language it uses is emphatic and seems very absolute. But we must take, here as elsewhere, the thought of the
\nGita as a whole and not force its affirmations in their solitary sense quite detached from each other,
\n\u2014 as indeed every truth,
\n  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 212<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nhowever true in itself, yet, taken apart from others which at once limit and complete it, becomes a snare to bind the intellect
\nand a misleading dogma; for in reality each is one thread of a complex weft and no thread must be taken apart from the
\nweft. Everything in the Gita is even so interwoven and must be understood in its relation to the whole. The Gita itself makes
\na distinction between those who have not the knowledge of the whole,
\nakrtsnavidah<\/i>, and are misled by the partial truths of <\/p>\n

existence, and the Yogin who has the synthetic knowledge of the totality,
\nkrtsna-vit<\/i>. To see all existence steadily and see it whole <\/p>\n

and not be misled by its conflicting truths, is the first necessity
\nfor the calm and complete wisdom to which the Yogin is called upon to rise. A certain absolute freedom is one aspect of the
\nsoul’s relations with Nature at one pole of our complex being; a certain absolute determinism by Nature is the opposite aspect
\nat its opposite pole; and there is also a partial and apparent, therefore an unreal eidolon of liberty which the soul receives
\nby a contorted reflection of these two opposite truths in the developing mentality. It is the latter to which we ordinarily give,
\nmore or less inaccurately, the name of free will; but the Gita regards nothing as freedom which is not a complete liberation
\nand mastery. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nWe have always to keep in mind the two great doctrines
\nwhich stand behind all the Gita’s teachings with regard to the soul and Nature,
\n\u2014 the Sankhya truth of the Purusha and
\nPrakriti corrected and completed by the Vedantic truth of the threefold Purusha and the double Prakriti of which the lower
\nform is the Maya of the three gunas and the higher is the divine nature and the true soul-nature. This is the key which
\nreconciles and explains what we might have otherwise to leave as contradictions and inconsistencies. There are, in fact, different
\nplanes of our conscious existence, and what is practical truth on one plane ceases to be true, because it assumes a quite different
\nappearance, as soon as we rise to a higher level from which we can see things more in the whole. Recent scientific discovery
\nhas shown that man, animal, plant and even the metal have essentially the same vital reactions and they would, therefore,
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 213<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

if each has a certain kind of what for want of a better word we must call nervous consciousness, possess the same basis of
\nmechanical psychology. Yet if each of these could give its own mental account of what it experiences, we should have four
\nquite different and largely contradictory statements of the same reactions and the same natural principles, because they get, as
\nwe rise in the scale of being, a different meaning and value and have to be judged by a different outlook. So it is with the
\nlevels of the human soul. What we now call in our ordinary mentality our free will and have a certain limited justification for
\nso calling it, yet appears to the Yogin who has climbed beyond and to whom our night is day and our day night, not free will
\nat all, but a subjection to the modes of Nature. He regards the same facts, but from the higher outlook of the whole-knower,
\nkrtsna-vit<\/i>, while we view it altogether from the more limited <\/p>\n

mentality of our partial knowledge, akrtsnavidah<\/i>, which is an <\/p>\n

ignorance. What we vaunt of as our freedom is to him bondage.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe perception of the ignorance of our assumption of freedom while one is all the time in the meshes of this lower nature, is
\nthe view-point at which the Gita arrives and it is in contradiction to this ignorant claim that it affirms the complete subjection of
\nthe ego-soul on this plane to the gunas. “While the actions are being entirely done by the modes of Nature,” it says, “he whose
\nself is bewildered by egoism thinks that it is his `I’ which is doing them. But one who knows the true principles of the divisions of
\nthe modes and of works, realises that it is the modes which are acting and reacting on each other and is not caught in them
\nby attachment. Those who are bewildered by the modes, get attached to the modes and their works; dull minds, not knowers
\nof the whole, let not the knower of the whole disturb them in their mental standpoint. Giving up thy works to Me, free
\nfrom desire and egoism, fight delivered from the fever of thy soul.” Here there is the clear distinction between two levels of
\nconsciousness, two standpoints of action, that of the soul caught in the web of its egoistic nature and doing works with the idea,
\nbut not the reality of free will, under the impulsion of Nature, and that of the soul delivered from its identification with the
\n  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 214<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nego, observing, sanctioning and governing the works of Nature from above her.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nWe speak of the soul being subject to Nature; but on the other hand the Gita in distinguishing the properties of the soul
\nand Nature affirms that while Nature is the executrix, the soul is <\/p>\n

always the lord, īśvara<\/i>. It speaks here of the self being bewildered by egoism, but the real Self to the Vedantin is the divine, eternally
\nfree and self-aware. What then is this self that is bewildered by Nature, this soul that is subject to her? The answer is that we are
\nspeaking here in the common parlance of our lower or mental view of things; we are speaking of the apparent self, of the apparent soul, not of the real self, not of the true Purusha. It is really the ego which is subject to Nature, inevitably, because it is itself
\npart of Nature, one functioning of her machinery; but when the self-awareness in the mind-consciousness identifies itself with
\nthe ego, it creates the appearance of a lower self, an ego-self. And so too what we think of ordinarily as the soul is really the
\nnatural personality, not the true Person, the Purusha, but the desire-soul in us which is a reflection of the consciousness of
\nthe Purusha in the workings of Prakriti: it is, in fact, itself only an action of the three modes and therefore a part of Nature.
\nThus there are, we may say, two souls in us, the apparent or desire-soul, which changes with the mutations of the gunas and
\nis entirely constituted and determined by them, and the free and eternal Purusha not limited by Nature and her gunas. We have
\ntwo selves, the apparent self, which is only the ego, that mental centre in us which takes up this mutable action of Prakriti, this
\nmutable personality, and which says “I am this personality, I am this natural being who am doing these works,”
\n\u2014 but the
\nnatural being is simply Nature, a composite of the gunas, \u2014 and the true self which is, indeed, the upholder, the possessor and the
\nlord of Nature and figured in her, but is not itself the mutable natural personality. The way to be free must then be to get rid
\nof the desires of this desire-soul and the false self-view of this ego. “Having become free from desire and egoism,” cries the
\nTeacher, “fight with all the fever of thy soul passed away from <\/p>\n

thee," \u2014 nirāsīr nirmamo bhūtvā<\/i>.
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 215<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

\nThis view of our being starts from the Sankhya analysis of the dual principle in our nature, Purusha and Prakriti. Purusha is <\/p>\n

inactive, akartā<\/font><\/i>; Prakriti is active,
\nkartrī<\/i>: Purusha is the being full of the light of consciousness; Prakriti is the Nature, mechanical,
\nreflecting all her works in the conscious witness, the Purusha. Prakriti works by the inequality of her three modes, gunas, in
\nperpetual collision and intermixture and mutation with each other; and by her function of ego-mind she gets the Purusha to
\nidentify himself with all this working and so creates the sense of active, mutable, temporal personality in the silent eternity of
\nthe Self. The impure natural consciousness overclouds the pure soul-consciousness; the mind forgets the Person in the ego and
\nthe personality; we suffer the discriminating intelligence to be carried away by the sense-mind and its outgoing functions and
\nby the desire of the life and the body. So long as the Purusha sanctions this action, ego and desire and ignorance must govern
\nthe natural being. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut if this were all, then the only remedy would be to withdraw altogether the sanction, suffer or compel all our nature by this withdrawal to fall into a motionless equilibrium of the
\nthree gunas and so cease from all action. But this is precisely the remedy, \u2014 though it is undoubtedly a remedy, one which
\nabolishes, we might say, the patient along with the disease, \u2014 which the Gita constantly discourages. Especially, to resort to a
\ntamasic inaction is just what the ignorant will do if this truth is thrust upon them; the discriminating mind in them will fall into
\na false division, a false opposition, buddhibheda<\/i>; their active nature and their intelligence will be divided against each other
\nand produce a disturbance and confusion without true issue, a
\nfalse and self-deceiving line of action, mithyā<\/font>cā<\/font>ra<\/i>, or else a mere tamasic inertia, cessation of works, diminution of the will to life
\nand action, not therefore a liberation, but rather a subjection to the lowest of the three gunas, to
\ntamas<\/i>, the principle of ignorance
\nand of inertia. Or else they will not be able to understand at all, they will find fault with this higher teaching, assert against it
\ntheir present mental experience, their ignorant idea of free will and, yet more confirmed by the plausibility of their logic in their
\n  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 216<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nbewilderment and the deception of ego and desire, lose their chance of liberation in a deeper, more obstinate confirmation of
\nthe ignorance. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nIn fact, these higher truths can only be helpful, because there
\nonly they are true to experience and can be lived, on a higher and vaster plane of consciousness and being. To view these
\ntruths from below is to mis-see, misunderstand and probably to misuse them. It is a higher truth that the distinction of good
\nand evil is indeed a practical fact and law valid for the egoistic human life which is the stage of transition from the animal to
\nthe divine, but on a higher plane we rise beyond good and evil, are above their duality even as the Godhead is above it. But
\nthe unripe mind, seizing on this truth without rising from the lower consciousness where it is not practically valid, will simply
\nmake it a convenient excuse for indulging its Asuric propensities, denying the distinction between good and evil altogether and
\nfalling by self-indulgence deeper into the morass of perdition,  
\n . sarva-j\u00f1āna-vimūdhān nastā<\/font>n acetasah<\/i>. So too with this truth <\/p>\n

of the determinism of Nature; it will be mis-seen and misused, as those misuse it who declare that a man is what his nature has
\nmade him and cannot do otherwise than as his nature compels him. It is true in a sense, but not in the sense which is attached
\nto it, not in the sense that the ego-self can claim irresponsibility and impunity for itself in its works; for it has will and it has
\ndesire and so long as it acts according to its will and desire, even though that be its nature, it must bear the reactions of its
\nKarma. It is in a net, if you will, a snare which may well seem perplexing, illogical, unjust, terrible to its present experience, to
\nits limited self-knowledge, but a snare of its own choice, a net of its own weaving.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe Gita says, indeed, “All existences follow their nature and what shall coercing it avail?” which seems, if we take it by
\nitself, a hopelessly absolute assertion of the omnipotence of Nature over the soul; “even the man of knowledge acts according to
\nhis own nature.” And on this it founds the injunction to follow faithfully in our action the law of our nature. “Better is one’s own
\nlaw of works, svadharma<\/i>, though in itself faulty than an alien  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 217<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

law well wrought out; death in one’s own law of being is better, perilous is it to follow an alien law.” What is precisely meant by
\nthis svadharma <\/i>we have to wait to see until we get to the more elaborate
\ndisquisition in the closing chapters about Purusha and Prakriti and the gunas;
\nbut certainly it does not mean that we are to follow any impulse, even though
\nevil, which what we call our nature dictates to us. For between these two verses
\nthe Gita throws in this further injunction, "In the object of this or that sense
\nliking and disliking are set in ambush; fall not into their power, for they are
\nthe besetters of the soul in its path." And immediately after this, in answer to
\nArjuna’s objection who asks him, if there is no fault in following our Nature,
\nwhat are we then to say of that in us which drives a man to sin, as if by force,
\neven against his own struggling will, the Teacher replies that this is desire
\nand its companion wrath, children of rajas, the second guna, the principle of
\npassion, and this desire is the soul’s great enemy and has to be slain.
\nAbstention from evil-doing it declares to be the first condition for liberation,
\nand always it enjoins self mastery, self-control, samyama<\/i>, control of the mind, senses, all
\nthe lower being. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThere is therefore a distinction to be made between what is
\nessential in the nature, its native and inevitable action, which it avails not at all to repress, suppress, coerce, and what is accidental to it, its wanderings, confusions, perversions, over which we must certainly get control. There is a distinction implied too
\nbetween coercion and suppression, nigraha<\/i>, and control with right use and right guidance, samyama<\/i>. The former is a violence done to the nature by the will, which in the end depresses the <\/p>\n

natural powers of the being, ātmānam avasā<\/font>dayet<\/i>; the latter is the control of the lower by the higher self, which successfully
\ngives to those powers their right action and their maximum <\/p>\n

efficiency, \u2014 yogah karmasu kauśalam<\/i>. This nature of samyama<\/i> <\/p>\n

is made very clear by the Gita in the opening of its sixth chapter,
\n“By the self thou shouldst deliver the self, thou shouldst not depress and cast down the self (whether by self-indulgence or
\nsuppression); for the self is the friend of the self and the self is the enemy. To the man is his self a friend in whom the (lower)
\n  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 218<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nself has been conquered by the (higher) self, but to him who is not in possession of his (higher) self, the (lower) self is as if
\nan enemy and it acts as an enemy.” When one has conquered one’s self and attained to the calm of a perfect self-mastery and
\nself-possession, then is the supreme self in a man founded and <\/p>\n

poised even in his outwardly conscious human being, samahita<\/i>. In other words, to master the lower self by the higher, the natural
\nself by the spiritual is the way of man’s perfection and liberation. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nHere then is a very great qualification of the determinism of
\nNature, a precise limitation of its meaning and scope. How the passage from subjection to mastery works out is best seen if we
\nobserve the working of the gunas in the scale of Nature from the bottom to the top. At the bottom are the existences in which
\nthe principle of tamas is supreme, the beings who have not yet attained to the light of self-consciousness and are utterly driven
\nby the current of Nature. There is a will even in the atom, but we see clearly enough that it is not free will, because it is mechanical
\nand the atom does not possess the will, but is possessed by it. Here the buddhi<\/i>, the element of intelligence and will in Prakriti,
\nis actually and plainly what the Sankhya asserts it to be, jad<\/font>a<\/i>, <\/p>\n

a mechanical, even an inconscient principle in which the light of the conscious Soul has not at all struggled to the surface: the
\natom is not conscious of an intelligent will; tamas, the inert and ignorant principle, has its grip on it, contains
\nrajas<\/i>, conceals
\nsattva <\/i>within itself and holds a high holiday of mastery, Nature compelling this form of existence to act with a stupendous force
\n .  ˙   <\/i> <\/p>\n

indeed, but as a mechanical instrument, yantrārūdham māyayā<\/i>. Next, in the plant the principle of
\nrajas <\/i>has struggled to the
\nsurface, with its power of life, with its capacity of the nervous reactions which in us are recognisable as pleasure and suffering,
\nbut sattva <\/i>is quite involved, has not yet emerged to awaken the light of a conscious intelligent will; all is still mechanical,
\nsubconscient or half-conscient, tamas stronger than rajas, both gaolers of the imprisoned sattwa.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nIn the animal, though tamas is still strong, though we may <\/p>\n

still describe him as belonging to the tamasic creation, tā<\/font>masa<\/i> sarga<\/i>, yet rajas prevails much more against tamas, brings with
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 219<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

it its developed power of life, desire, emotion, passion, pleasure, suffering, while sattwa, emerging, but still dependent on the
\nlower action, contributes to these the first light of the conscious mind, the mechanical sense of ego, conscious memory, a certain
\nkind of thought, especially the wonders of instinct and animal intuition. But as yet the buddhi, the intelligent will, has not
\ndeveloped the full light of consciousness; therefore, no responsibility can be attributed to the animal for its actions. The tiger
\ncan be no more blamed for killing and devouring than the atom for its blind movements, the fire for burning and consuming or
\nthe storm for its destructions. If it could answer the question, the tiger would indeed say, like man, that it had free will, it would
\nhave the egoism of the doer, it would say, “I kill, I devour”; but we can see clearly enough that it is not really the tiger,
\nbut Nature in the tiger that kills, it is Nature in the tiger that devours; and if it refrains from killing or devouring, it is from
\nsatiety, from fear or from indolence, from another principle of Nature in it, from the action of the guna called tamas. As it was
\nNature in the animal that killed, so it is Nature in the animal that refrained from killing. Whatever soul is in it, sanctions
\npassively the action of Nature, is as much passive in its passion and activity as in its indolence or inaction. The animal like the
\natom acts according to the mechanism of its Nature, and not
\n otherwise, sadrśam cestate svasyāh prakrteh<\/i>, as if mounted on <\/p>\n

a machine, yantrārūdho māyayā<\/i>.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nWell, but in man at least there is another action, a free soul, a free will, a sense of responsibility, a real doer other than Nature,
\nother than the mechanism of Maya? So it seems, because in man there is a conscious intelligent will;
\nbuddhi <\/i>is full of the light
\nof the observing Purusha, who through it, it seems, observes, understands, approves or disapproves, gives or withholds the
\nsanction, seems indeed at last to begin to be the lord of his nature. Man is not like the tiger or the fire or the storm; he
\ncannot kill and say as a sufficient justification, “I am acting according to my nature”, and he cannot do it, because he has
\nnot the nature and not, therefore, the law of action, svadharma<\/i>, of the tiger, storm or fire. He has a conscious intelligent will,
\n  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 220<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\na buddhi<\/i>, and to that he must refer his actions. If he does not do so, if he acts blindly according to his impulses and passions,
\nthen the law of his being is not rightly worked out, svadharmah<\/i> <\/p>\n

su-anusthitah<\/i>, he has not acted according to the full measure <\/p>\n

..<\/i> of his humanity, but even as might the animal. It is true that
\nthe principle of rajas <\/i>or the principle of tamas <\/i>gets hold of his
\nbuddhi <\/i>and induces it to justify any and every action he commits
\nor any avoidance of action; but still the justification or at least the reference to the buddhi must be there either before or after
\nthe action is committed. And, besides, in man sattva <\/i>is awake and acts not only as intelligence and intelligent will, but as a
\nseeking for light, for right knowledge and right action according to that knowledge, as a sympathetic perception of the existence
\nand claims of others, as an attempt to know the higher law of his own nature, which the sattwic principle in him creates, and to
\nobey it, and as a conception of the greater peace and happiness which virtue, knowledge and sympathy bring in their train. He
\nknows more or less imperfectly that he has to govern his rajasic and tamasic by his sattwic nature and that thither tends the
\nperfection of his normal humanity. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut is the condition of the predominantly sattwic nature
\nfreedom and is this will in man a free will? That the Gita from the standpoint of a higher consciousness in which alone is true
\nfreedom, denies. The buddhi or conscious intelligent will is still an instrument of Nature and when it acts, even in the most
\nsattwic sense, it is still Nature which acts and the soul which is carried on the wheel by Maya. At any rate, at least
\nnine-tenths of our freedom of will is a palpable fiction; that will is created and determined not by its own self-existent action at
\na given moment, but by our past, our heredity, our training, our environment, the whole tremendous complex thing we call
\nKarma, which is, behind us, the whole past action of Nature on us and the world converging in the individual, determining
\nwhat he is, determining what his will shall be at a given moment and determining, as far as analysis can see, even its action at
\nthat moment. The ego associates itself always with its Karma and it says “I did” and “I will” and “I suffer”, but if it looks at
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 221<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

itself and sees how it was made, it is obliged to say of man as of the animal, “Nature did this in me, Nature wills in me”, and
\nif it qualifies by saying “my Nature”, that only means “Nature as self-determined in this individual creature”. It was the strong
\nperception of this aspect of existence which compelled the Buddhists to declare that all is Karma and that there is no self in
\nexistence, that the idea of self is only a delusion of the ego-mind. When the ego thinks “I choose and will this virtuous and not
\nthat evil action”, it is simply associating itself, somewhat like the fly on the wheel, or rather as might a cog or other part of a
\nmechanism if it were conscious, with a predominant wave or a formed current of the sattwic principle by which Nature chooses
\nthrough the buddhi one type of action in preference to another. Nature forms itself in us and wills in us, the Sankhya would say,
\nfor the pleasure of the inactive observing Purusha. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut even if this extreme statement has to be qualified, and
\nwe shall see hereafter in what sense, still the freedom of our individual will, if we choose to give it that name, is very relative
\nand almost infinitesimal, so much is it mixed up with other determining elements. Its strongest power does not amount to
\nmastery. It cannot be relied upon to resist the strong wave of circumstance or of other nature which either overbears or modifies
\nor mixes up with it or at the best subtly deceives and circumvents it. Even the most sattwic will is so overborne or mixed up with
\nor circumvented by the rajasic and tamasic gunas as to be only in part sattwic, and thence arises that sufficiently strong element of
\nself-deception, of a quite involuntary and even innocent make-believe and hiding from oneself which the merciless eye of the
\npsychologist detects even in the best human action. When we think that we are acting quite freely, powers are concealed behind our action which escape the most careful self-introspection; when we think that we are free from ego, the ego is there,
\nconcealed, in the mind of the saint as in that of the sinner. When our eyes are really opened on our action and its springs, we are
\n obliged to say with the Gita “gunā<\/font>
\ngunesu vartante<\/i>“, “it was
\n the modes of Nature that were acting upon the modes.”
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nFor this reason even a high predominance of the sattwic  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 222<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nprinciple does not constitute freedom. For, as the Gita points out, the sattwa binds, as much as the other gunas, and binds
\njust in the same way, by desire, by ego; a nobler desire, a purer ego, \u2014 but so long as in any form these two hold the being, there
\nis no freedom. The man of virtue, of knowledge, has his ego of the virtuous man, his ego of knowledge, and it is that sattwic ego
\nwhich he seeks to satisfy; for his own sake he seeks virtue and knowledge. Only when we cease to satisfy the ego, to think and
\nto will from the ego, the limited “I” in us, then is there a real freedom. In other words, freedom, highest self-mastery begin
\nwhen above the natural self we see and hold the supreme Self of which the ego is an obstructing veil and a blinding shadow.
\nAnd that can only be when we see the one Self in us seated above Nature and make our individual being one with it in
\nbeing and consciousness and in its individual nature of action only an instrument of a supreme Will, the one Will that is really
\nfree. For that we must rise high above the three gunas, become
\ntrigunātīta<\/i>; for that Self is beyond even the sattwic principle. We have to climb to it through the sattwa, but we attain to it only
\nwhen we get beyond sattwa; we reach out to it from the ego, but only reach it by leaving the ego. We are drawn towards it by
\nthe highest, most passionate, most stupendous and ecstatic of all desires; but we can securely live in it only when all desire drops
\naway from us. We have at a certain stage to liberate ourselves even from the desire of our liberation.
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 223<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XXI   The Determinism of Nature   WHEN we can live in the higher Self by the unity of works and self-knowledge, we become superior…<\/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-2256","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\/2256","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=2256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}