{"id":2258,"date":"2013-07-13T01:40:26","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2258"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:40:26","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:26","slug":"31-the-supreme-word-of-the-gita-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\/31-the-supreme-word-of-the-gita-vol-19-essays-on-the-gita","title":{"rendered":"-31_The Supreme Word of the Gita.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Supreme Word of the Gita <\/font><\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nW<\/font>E HAVE<\/b> now got to
\nthe inmost kernel of the Gita’s Yoga, the whole living and breathing centre of
\nits teaching. We can see now quite clearly that the ascent of the limited human
\nsoul when it withdraws from the ego and the lower nature into the immutable Self
\ncalm, silent and stable, was only a first step, an initial change. And now too
\nwe can see why the Gita from the first insisted on the Ishwara, the Godhead in
\nthe human form, who speaks always of himself, <\/p>\n

"aham, mām<\/i>," as of some great secret and omnipresent Being, lord
\nof all the worlds and master of the human soul, one who is greater even than
\nthat immutable self-existence which is still and unmoved for ever and abides for
\never untouched by the subjective and objective appearances of the natural
\nuniverse. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nAll Yoga is a seeking after the Divine, a turn towards union with the Eternal.
\nAccording to the adequacy of our perception of the Divine and the Eternal will
\nbe the way of the seeking, the depth and fullness of the union and the
\nintegrality of the realisation. Man, the mental being, approaches the Infinite
\nthrough his finite mind and has to open some near gate of this finite upon that
\nInfinite. He seeks for some conception on which his mind is able to seize,
\nselects some power of his nature which by force of an absolute self-heightening
\ncan reach out and lay its touch on the infinite Truth that in itself is beyond
\nhis mental comprehension. Some face of that infinite Truth \u2014 for, because it is
\ninfinite, it has numberless faces, words of its meaning, self-suggestions \u2014 he
\nattempts to see, so that by attaching himself to it he can arrive through direct
\nexperience to the immeasurable reality it figures. However narrow the gate may
\nbe, he is satisfied if it offers some prospect into the wideness which attracts
\nhim, if it sets him on the way to the fathomless profundity and unreachable
\nheights of that which calls to his spirit. And as he approaches it, so it  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 337<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

receives him, ye yatha mām prapadyante<\/i>.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPhilosophic mind attempts to attain to the Eternal by an abstractive knowledge.
\nThe business of knowledge is to comprehend and for the finite intellect that
\nmeans to define and determine. But the only way to determine the indeterminable
\nis by some kind of universal negation, neti neti<\/i>. Therefore the mind
\nproceeds to exclude from the conception of the Eternal all that offers itself as
\nlimitable by the senses and the heart and the understanding. An entire
\nopposition is made between the Self and the not-self, between an eternal,
\nimmutable, indefinable self-existence and all forms of existence, \u2014 between
\nBrahman and Maya, between the ineffable Reality and all that undertakes to
\nexpress, but cannot express the Ineffable, \u2014 between Karma and Nirvana, between
\nthe ever continuous but ever impermanent action and conception of the universal
\nEnergy and some absolute ineffable supreme Negation of its action and conception
\nwhich is empty of all life and mentality and dynamic significance. That strong
\ndrive of knowledge towards the Eternal leads away from everything that is
\ntransient. It negates life in order to return to its source, cuts away from us
\nall that we seem to be in order to get from it to the nameless and impersonal
\nreality of our being. The desires of the heart, the works of the will and the
\nconceptions of the mind are rejected; even in the end knowledge itself is
\nnegated and abolished in the Identical and Unknowable. By the way of an
\nincreasing quietude ending in an absolute passivity the Maya-created soul or the
\nbundle of associations we call ourselves enters into annihilation of its idea of
\npersonality, makes an end of the lie of living, disappears into Nirvana. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut this difficult abstractive method of self-negation, however it may draw to
\nit some exceptional natures, cannot satisfy universally the embodied soul in
\nman, because it does not give an outlet to all the straining of his complex
\nnature towards the perfect Eternal. Not only his abstracting contemplative
\nintellect but his yearning heart, his active will, his positive mind in search
\nof some Truth to which his existence and the existence of the world is a
\nmanifold key, have their straining towards the Eternal and Infinite and seek to
\nfind in it their divine Source and the jus<\/span>tification <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 338<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n\t\t\tof their being and their nature. From this need arise the
\nreligions of love and works, whose strength is that they satisfy and lead Godwards the most active and developed powers of our
\nhumanity, \u2014 for only by starting from these can knowledge be effective. Even Buddhism with its austere and uncompromising
\nnegation both of subjective self and objective things had still to found itself initially on a divine discipline of works and to admit
\nas a substitute for bhakti the spiritualised emotionalism of a universal love and compassion, since so only could it become
\nan effective way for mankind, a truly liberating religion. Even illusionist Mayavada with its ultralogical intolerance of action
\nand the creations of mentality had to allow a provisional and practical reality to man and the universe and to God in the world
\nin order to have a first foothold and a feasible starting-point; it had to affirm what it denied in order to give some reality to
\nman’s bondage and to his effort for liberation. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut the weakness of the kinetic and the emotional religions
\nis that they are too much absorbed in some divine Personality and in the divine values of the finite. And, even when they have
\na conception of the infinite Godhead, they do not give us the full satisfaction of knowledge because they do not follow it out
\ninto its most ultimate and supernal tendencies. These religions fall short of a complete absorption in the Eternal and the perfect
\nunion by identity, \u2014 and yet to that identity in some other way, if not in the abstractive, since there all oneness has its basis, the
\nspirit that is in man must one day arrive. On the other hand, the weakness of a contemplative quietistic spirituality is that it
\narrives at this result by a too absolute abstraction and in the end it turns into a nothing or a fiction the human soul whose
\naspiration was yet all the time the whole sense of this attempt at union; for without the soul and its aspiration liberation and
\nunion could have no meaning. The little that this way of thinking recognises of his other powers of existence, it relegates to
\nan inferior preliminary action which never arrives at any full or satisfying realisation in the Eternal and Infinite. Yet these
\nthings too which it restricts unduly, the potent will, the strong yearning of love, the positive light and all-embracing intuition
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 339<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

of the conscious mental being are from the Divine, represent essential powers of him and must have some justification in
\ntheir Source and some dynamic way of self-fulfilment in him. No God-knowledge can be integral, perfect or universally satisfying
\nwhich leaves unfulfilled their absolute claim, no wisdom utterly wise which in its intolerant asceticism of search negates or in
\nthe pride of pure knowledge belittles the spiritual reality behind these ways of the Godhead.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe greatness of the central thought of the Gita in which all its threads are gathered up and united, consists in the synthetic
\nvalue of a conception which recognises the whole nature of the soul of man in the universe and validates by a large and
\nwise unification its many-sided need of the supreme and infinite Truth, Power, Love, Being to which our humanity turns in its
\nsearch for perfection and immortality and some highest joy and power and peace. There is a strong and wide endeavour towards
\na comprehensive spiritual view of God and man and universal existence. Not indeed that everything without any exception is
\nseized in these eighteen chapters, no spiritual problem left for solution; but still so large a scheme is laid out that we have only
\nto fill in, to develop, to modify, to stress, to follow out points, to work out hint and illuminate adumbration in order to find a clue
\nto any further claim of our intelligence and need of our spirit. The Gita itself does not evolve any quite novel solution out of its
\nown questionings. To arrive at the comprehensiveness at which it aims, it goes back behind the great philosophical systems to
\nthe original Vedanta of the Upanishads; for there we have the widest and profoundest extant synthetic vision of spirit and man
\nand cosmos. But what is in the Upanishads undeveloped to the intelligence because wrapped up in a luminous kernel of intuitive
\nvision and symbolic utterance, the Gita brings out in the light of a later intellectual thinking and distinctive experience.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nIn the frame of its synthesis it admits the seeking of the <\/p>\n

abstractive thinkers for the Indefinable, anirdeś<\/font>yam<\/i>, the ever unmanifest Immutable,
\navyaktam aksaram<\/i>. Those who devote <\/p>\n

themselves to this search, find, they also, the Purushottama, <\/p>\n

the supreme Divine Person, mām<\/i>, the Spirit and highest Soul
\n  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 340<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nand Lord of things. For his utmost self-existent way of being is <\/p>\n

indeed an unthinkable, acintyarūpam<\/i>, an unimaginable positive, an absolute quintessence of all absolutes far beyond the determination of the intelligence. The method of negative passivity, quietude, renunciation of life and works by which men feel after
\nthis intangible Absolute is admitted and ratified in the Gita’s philosophy, but only with a minor permissive sanction. This
\nnegating knowledge approaches the Eternal by one side only of the truth and that side the most difficult to reach and follow for <\/p>\n

the embodied soul in Nature, duhkham dehavadbhir avāpyate<\/i>; <\/p>\n

it proceeds by a highly specialised, even an unnecessarily arduous way, “narrow and difficult to tread as a razor’s edge.”
\nNot by denying all relations, but through all relations is the Divine Infinite naturally approachable to man and most easily,
\nwidely, intimately seizable. This seeing is not after all the largest or the truest truth that the Supreme is without any relations
\nwith the mental, vital, physical existence of man in the universe, <\/p>\n

avyavahā<\/font>ryam<\/i>, nor that what is described as the empirical truth <\/p>\n

of things, the truth of relations, vyavahā<\/font>ra<\/i>, is altogether the opposite of the highest spiritual truth,
\nparamārtha<\/i>. On the contrary there are a thousand relations by which the supreme Eternal is
\nsecretly in contact and union with our human existence and by all essential ways of our nature and of the world’s nature,
\nsarva-bhāvena<\/i>, can that contact be made sensible and that union made
\nreal to our soul, heart, will, intelligence, spirit. Therefore is this <\/p>\n

other way natural and easy for man, sukham ā<\/font>ptum<\/i>. God does not make himself difficult of approach to us: only one thing is
\nneeded, one demand made on us, the single indomitable will to break through the veil of our ignorance and the whole, the
\npersistent seeking of the mind and heart and life for that which is all the time near to it, within it, its own soul of being and spiritual
\nessence and the secret of its personality and its impersonality, its self and its nature. This is our one difficulty; the rest the Master
\nof our existence will himself see to and accomplish,
\naham tvā<\/font>m moksayisyāmi mā<\/font>
\nśucah<\/i>. <\/p>\n

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

\nIn the very part of its teaching in which the Gita’s synthesis leans most towards the side of pure knowledge, we have
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 341<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

seen that it constantly prepares for this fuller truth and more pregnant experience. Indeed, it is implied in the very form the
\nGita gives to the realisation of the self-existent Immutable. That immutable Self of all existences seems indeed to stand back from
\nany active intervention in the workings of Nature; but it is not void of all relation whatever and remote from all connection.
\nIt is our witness and supporter; it gives a silent and impersonal sanction; it has even an impassive enjoyment. The many-sided
\naction of Nature is still possible even when the soul is poised in that calm self-existence: for the witness soul is the immutable
\nPurusha, and Purusha has always some relation with Prakriti. But now the reason of this double aspect of silence and of activity is revealed in its entire significance, \u2014 because the silent all-pervading Self is only one side of the truth of the divine
\nBeing. He who pervades the world as the one unchanging self that supports all its mutations, is equally the Godhead in man,
\nthe Lord in the heart of every creature, the conscient Cause and Master of all our subjective becoming and all our
\ninward-taking and outward-going objectivised action. The Ishwara of the Yogins is one with the Brahman of the seeker of knowledge,
\none supreme and universal Spirit, one supreme and universal Godhead. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThis Godhead is not the limited personal God of so many exoteric religions; for those are all only partial and outward
\nformations of this other, this creative and directive, this personal side of his complete truth of existence. This is the one
\nsupreme Person, Soul, Being, Purusha of whom all godheads are aspects, all individual personality a limited development in
\ncosmic Nature. This Godhead is not a particularised name and <\/p>\n

form of Divinity, ista-devātā<\/i>, constructed by the intelligence or ..<\/i>
\nembodying the special aspiration of the worshipper. All such names and forms are only powers and faces of the one Deva
\nwho is the universal Lord of all worshippers and all religions: but this is itself that universal Deity,
\ndevā-devā<\/i>. This Ishwara is
\nnot a reflection of the impersonal and indeterminable Brahman in illusive Maya: for from beyond all cosmos as well as within it
\nhe rules and is the Lord of the worlds and their creatures. He is  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 342<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nParabrahman who is Parameshwara, supreme Lord because he is the supreme Self and Spirit, and from his highest original existence he originates and governs the universe, not self-deceived, but with an all-knowing omnipotence. Nor is the working of his
\ndivine Nature in the cosmos an illusion whether of his or our consciousness. The only illusive Maya is the ignorance of the
\nlower Prakriti which is not a creator of non-existent things on the impalpable background of the One and Absolute, but because of
\nits blind encumbered and limited working misrepresents to the human mind by the figure of ego and other inadequate figures
\nof mind, life and matter the greater sense, the deeper realities of existence. There is a supreme, a divine Nature which is the
\ntrue creatrix of the universe. All creatures and all objects are becomings of the one divine Being; all life is a working of the
\npower of the one Lord; all nature is a manifestation of the one Infinite. He is the Godhead in man; the Jiva is spirit of his Spirit.
\nHe is the Godhead in the universe; this world in Space and Time is his phenomenal self-extension.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nIn the unrolling of this comprehensive vision of existence and super-existence the Yoga of the Gita finds its unified significance and unexampled amplitude. This supreme Godhead is the one unchanging imperishable Self in all that is; therefore to the
\nspiritual sense of this unchanging imperishable self man has to awake and to unify with it his inner impersonal being. He is the
\nGodhead in man who originates and directs all his workings; therefore man has to awake to the Godhead within himself, to
\nknow the divinity he houses, to rise out of all that veils and obscures it and to become united with this inmost Self of his
\nself, this greater consciousness of his consciousness, this hidden Master of all his will and works, this Being within him who is the
\nfount and object of all his various becoming. He is the Godhead whose divine nature, origin of all that we are, is thickly veiled
\nby these lower natural derivations; therefore man has to get back from his lower apparent existence, imperfect and mortal,
\nto his essential divine nature of immortality and perfection. This Godhead is one in all things that are, the self who lives in all
\nand the self in whom all live and move; therefore man has to   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 343<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

discover his spiritual unity with all creatures, to see all in the self and the self in all beings, even to see all things and creatures <\/p>\n

as himself, ātmaupamyena sarvatra<\/i>, and accordingly think, feel
\nand act in all his mind, will and living. This Godhead is the origin of all that is here or elsewhere and by his Nature he has <\/p>\n

become all these innumerable existences, abhū<\/font>t sarvā<\/font>n<\/font>i bhūtāni<\/i>;
\ntherefore man has to see and adore the One in all things animate and inanimate, to worship the manifestation in sun and star and
\nflower, in man and every living creature, in the forms and forces, <\/p>\n

qualities and powers of Nature, vasudevāh sarvam iti<\/i>. He has to <\/p>\n

make himself by divine vision and divine sympathy and finally by a strong inner identity one universality with the universe. A passive relationless identity excludes love and action, but this larger and richer oneness fulfils itself by works and by a pure emotion:
\nit becomes the source and continent and substance and motive <\/p>\n

and divine purpose of all our acts and feelings. Kasmai devā<\/font>ya<\/i>
\nhavisā vidhema<\/i>, to what Godhead shall we give all our life and activities as an offering? This is that Godhead, this the Lord who
\nclaims our sacrifice. A passive relationless identity excludes the joy of adoration and devotion; but bhakti is the very soul and
\nheart and summit of this richer, completer, more intimate union. This Godhead is the fulfilment of all relations, father, mother,
\nlover, friend and refuge of the soul of every creature. He is the one supreme and universal Deva, Atman, Purusha, Brahman,
\nIshwara of the secret wisdom. He has manifested the world in himself in all these ways by his divine Yoga: its multitudinous
\nexistences are one in him and he is one in them in many aspects. To awaken to the revelation of him in all these ways together is
\nman’s side of the same divine Yoga. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nTo make it perfectly and indisputably clear that this is the
\nsupreme and entire truth of his teaching, this the integral knowledge which he had promised to reveal, the divine Avatar declares,
\nin a brief reiteration of the upshot of all that he has been saying, that this and no other is his supreme word,
\nparamām vacah<\/i>. <\/p>\n

“Again hearken to my supreme word,” bhū<\/font>ya eva
\nśrnu me<\/i> paramam vacah<\/i>. This supreme word of the Gita is, we find, <\/p>\n

first the explicit and unmistakable declaration that the highest  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 344<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nworship and highest knowledge of the Eternal are the knowledge and the adoration of him as the supreme and divine Origin of
\nall that is in existence and the mighty Lord of the world and its peoples of whose being all things are the becomings. It is,
\nsecondly, the declaration of a unified knowledge and bhakti as the supreme Yoga; that is the destined and the natural way
\ngiven to man to arrive at union with the eternal Godhead. And to make more significant this definition of the way, to give an
\nilluminating point to this highest importance of bhakti founded upon and opening to knowledge and made the basis and
\nmotive-power for divinely appointed works, the acceptance of it by the heart and mind of the disciple is put as a condition for the farther
\ndevelopment by which the final command to action comes at last to be given to the human instrument, Arjuna. “I will speak this
\nsupreme word to thee” says the Godhead “from my will for thy soul’s good, now that thy heart is taking delight in me,”
\nte<\/i> prīyamānāya vaksyāmi<\/i>. For this delight of the heart in God is <\/p>\n

the whole constituent and essence of true bhakti, bhajanti prīti-pūrvakam<\/i>. As soon as the supreme word is given, Arjuna is
\nmade to utter his acceptance of it and to ask for a practical way of seeing God in all things in Nature, and from that question
\nimmediately and naturally there develops the vision of the Divine as the Spirit of the universe and there arises the tremendous
\ncommand to the world-action.1<\/font><\/sup> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe idea of the Divine on which the Gita insists as the secret
\nof the whole mystery of existence, the knowledge that leads to liberation, is one that bridges the opposition between the
\ncosmic procession in Time and a supracosmic eternity without denying either of them or taking anything from the reality of
\neither. It harmonises the pantheistic, the theistic and the highest transcendental terms of our spiritual conception and spiritual
\nexperience. The Divine is the unborn Eternal who has no origin; there is and can be nothing before him from which he proceeds,
\nbecause he is one and timeless and absolute. “Neither the gods nor the great Rishis know any birth of me. . . . He who knows
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1 Gita, X. 1-18.
\n  
\n<\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 345<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

me as the unborn without origin . . . ” are the opening utterances of this supreme word. And it gives the high promise that this
\nknowledge, not limiting, not intellectual, but pure and spiritual, \u2014 for the form and nature, if we can use such language, of this <\/p>\n

transcendental Being, his svarūpa<\/i>, are necessarily unthinkable <\/p>\n

by the mind, acintyarūpa<\/i>, \u2014 liberates mortal man from all confusion of ignorance and from all bondage of sin, suffering and <\/p>\n

evil, yo vetti asammūdhah sa martyesu sarva-pāpaih pramucyate<\/i>. The human soul that can dwell in the light of this supreme spiritual knowledge is lifted by it beyond the ideative or sensible
\nformulations of the universe. It rises into the ineffable power of an all-exceeding, yet all-fulfilling identity, the same beyond
\nand here. This spiritual experience of the transcendental Infinite breaks down the limitations of the pantheistic conception of
\nexistence. The infinite of a cosmic monism which makes God and the universe one, tries to imprison the Divine in his world
\nmanifestation and leaves us that as our sole possible means of knowing him; but this experience liberates us into the timeless
\nand spaceless Eternal. “Neither the Gods nor the Titans know thy manifestation” cries Arjuna in his reply: the whole universe
\nor even numberless universes cannot manifest him, cannot contain his ineffable light and infinite greatness. All other lesser
\nGod-knowledge has its truth only by dependence on the ever unmanifested and ineffable reality of the transcendent Godhead.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut at the same time the divine Transcendence is not a negation, nor is it an Absolute empty of all relation to the universe. It
\nis a supreme positive, it is an absolute of all absolutes. All cosmic relations derive from this Supreme; all cosmic existences return
\nto it and find in it alone their true and immeasurable existence. “For I am altogether and in every way the origin of the gods
\nand the great Rishis.” The gods are the great undying Powers and immortal Personalities who consciously inform, constitute,
\npreside over the subjective and objective forces of the cosmos. The gods are spiritual forms of the eternal and original Deity
\nwho descend from him into the many processes of the world. Multitudinous, universal, the gods weave out of the primary
\nprinciples of being and its thousand complexities the whole web  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 346<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nof this diversified existence of the One. All their own existence, nature, power, process proceeds in every way, in every principle,
\nin its every strand from the truth of the transcendent Ineffable. Nothing is independently created here, nothing is caused
\nself-sufficiently
\nby these divine agents; everything finds its origin, cause, first spiritual
\nreason for being and will to be in the absolute and supreme Godhead, \u2014 aham
\nādih sarvśah<\/i>. Nothing in the universe has its real cause in the universe; all proceeds from
\nthis supernal Existence. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe great Rishis, called here as in the Veda the seven original <\/p>\n

Seers, maharsayah sapta pū<\/font>rve<\/i>, the seven Ancients of the world, <\/p>\n

are intelligence-powers of that divine Wisdom which has evolved  
\n <\/i> <\/p>\n

all things out of its own self-conscious infinitude, praj\u00f1ā<\/font> purā<\/font>nī<\/font><\/i>,
\n\u2014 developed them down the range of the seven principles of its own essence. These Rishis embody the all-upholding,
\nall-illumining, all-manifesting seven Thoughts of the Veda, sapta<\/i> dhiyah<\/i>,
\n\u2014 the Upanishad speaks of all things as being arranged <\/p>\n

in septettes, sapta sapta<\/i>. Along with these are coupled the four
\neternal Manus, fathers of man, \u2014 for the active nature of the Godhead is fourfold and humanity expresses this nature in its
\nfourfold character. These also, as their name implies, are mental beings. Creators of all this life that depends on manifest or latent
\nmind for its action, from them are all these living creatures in
\n the world; all are their children and offspring, yesām loka imah<\/i>
\n prajah<\/i>. And these great Rishis and these Manus are themselves
\nperpetual mental becomings of the supreme Soul2<\/font><\/sup> and born out of his spiritual transcendence into cosmic Nature,
\n\u2014 originators,
\nbut he the origin of all that originates in the universe. Spirit of all spirits, Soul of all souls, Mind of all mind, Life of all life,
\nSubstance of all form, this transcendent Absolute is no complete opposite of all we are, but on the contrary the originating and
\nilluminating Absolute of all the principles and powers of our and the world’s being and nature.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThis transcendent Origin of our existence is not separated
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n2 <\/p>\n

.<\/i>
\nmad-bhāv<\/i><\/font>a<\/font><\/i> m<\/i><\/font>ā<\/font><\/i>nas<\/i><\/font>ā<\/font><\/i>
\njātāh<\/i>.  
\n<\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 347<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

from us by any unbridgeable gulf and does not disown the
\ncreatures that derive from him or condemn them to be only the figments of an
\nillusion. He is the Being, all are his becomings. He does not create out of a
\nvoid, out of a Nihil or out of an unsubstantial matrix of dream. Out of himself
\nhe creates, in himself he becomes; all are in his being and all is of his being.
\nThis truth admits and exceeds the pantheistic seeing of things. Vasudeva <\/p>\n

is all, vā<\/font>sudevāh<\/font> sarvam<\/i>;
\nbut Vasudeva is all that appears in <\/p>\n

the cosmos because he is too all that does not appear in it, all that is never manifested. His being is in no way limited by his
\nbecoming; he is in no degree bound by this world of relations. Even in becoming all he is still a Transcendence; even in assuming
\nfinite forms he is always the Infinite. Nature, Prakriti, is in her <\/p>\n

essence his spiritual power, self-power, ātmaśakti<\/i>; this spiritual
\nself-power develops infinite primal qualities of becoming in the inwardness of things and turns them into an external surface of
\nform and action. For in her essential, secret and divine order the spiritual truth of each and all comes first, a thing of her
\ndeep identities; their psychological truth of quality and nature is dependent on the spiritual for all in it that is authentic, it derives
\nfrom the spirit; least in necessity, last in order the objective truth of form and action derives from inner quality of nature and
\ndepends on it for all these variable presentations of existence here in the external order. Or in other words, the objective fact
\nis only an expression of a sum of soul factors and these go back always to a spiritual cause of their appearance.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThis finite outward becoming is an expressive phenomenon of the divine Infinite. Nature is, secondarily, the lower Nature,
\na subordinate variable development of a few selective combinations out of the many possibilities of the Infinite. Evolved out
\nof essential and psychological quality of being and becoming, <\/p>\n

svabhāva<\/i>, these combinations of form and energy, action and movement exist for a quite limited relation and mutual experience in the cosmic oneness. And in this lower, outward and apparent order of things Nature as an expressive power of the
\nGodhead is disfigured by the perversions of an obscure cosmic Ignorance and her divine significances lost in the materialised,
\n  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 348<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nseparative and egoistic mechanism of our mental and vital experience. But still here also all is from the supreme Godhead,
\na birth, a becoming, an evolution,3<\/font><\/sup> a process of development through action of Nature out of the Transcendent. Aham sarvasya prabhavo
\nmattah sarvam pravartate<\/i>; “I am the birth of <\/p>\n

everything and from me all proceeds into development of action and movement.” Not only is this true of all that we call good
\nor praise and recognise as divine, all that is luminous, sattwic, ethical, peace-giving, spiritually joy-giving, “understanding and
\nknowledge and freedom from the bewilderment of the Ignorance, forgiveness and truth and self-government and calm of
\ninner control, non-injuring and equality, contentment and austerity and giving.” It is true also of the oppositions that perplex
\nthe mortal mind and bring in ignorance and its bewilderment, “grief and pleasure, coming into being and destruction, fear and
\nfearlessness, glory and ingloriousness” with all the rest of the interplay of light and darkness, all the myriad mixed threads
\nthat quiver so painfully and yet with a constant stimulation through the entanglement of our nervous mind and its ignorant
\nsubjectivities. All here in their separate diversities are subjective becomings of existences in the one great Becoming and
\nthey get their birth and being from Him who transcends them. The Transcendent knows and originates these things, but is not
\ncaught as in a web in that diversified knowledge and is not overcome by his creation. We must observe here the emphatic <\/p>\n

collocation of the three words from the verb bhū<\/font><\/i>, to become, <\/p>\n

bhavanti<\/i>, bhāvāh<\/i>, bhūtānām<\/i>. All existences are becomings of <\/p>\n

the Divine, bhūtāni<\/i>; all subjective states and movements are <\/p>\n

his and their psychological becomings, bhāvāh<\/i>. These even, our lesser subjective conditions and their apparent results no less
\nthan the highest spiritual states, are all becomings from the supreme Being,4<\/font><\/sup>
\nbhavanti matta eva<\/i>. The Gita recognises and
\nstresses the distinction between Being and becoming, but does
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n
\n3 <\/p>\n

prabhava<\/i>, bhāva<\/i>, pravrtti<\/i>. <\/p>\n

<\/font> <\/p>\n

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

\n
\n4 <\/p>\n

Cf. the Upanishad, ātmā eva abhūt sarv<\/i><\/font>ā<\/font><\/i>n<\/i><\/font><\/font><\/i>i bhūtāni<\/i>, the Self has become all existences, with this contained significance in the choice of the words, the Self-existent has become
\nall these becomings.  
\n<\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 349<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

not turn it into an opposition. For that would be to abrogate the universal oneness. The Godhead is one in his transcendence,
\none all-supporting Self of things, one in the unity of his cosmic nature. These three are one Godhead; all derives from him, all
\nbecomes from his being, all is eternal portion or temporal expression of the Eternal. In the Transcendence, in the Absolute,
\nif we are to follow the Gita, we must look, not for a supreme negation of all things, but for the positive key of their mystery,
\nthe reconciling secret of their existence. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut there is another supreme reality of the Infinite that must
\nalso be recognised as an indispensable element of the liberating knowledge. This reality is that of the transcendent downlook as
\nwell as the close immanent presence of the divine government of the universe. The Supreme who becomes all creation, yet
\ninfinitely transcends it, is not a will-less cause aloof from his creation. He is not an involuntary originator who disowns all
\nresponsibility for these results of his universal Power or casts them upon an illusive consciousness entirely different from his
\nown or leaves them to a mechanical Law or to a Demiurge or to a Manichean conflict of Principles. He is not an aloof and
\nindifferent Witness who waits impassively for all to abolish itself or return to its unmoved original principle. He is the mighty <\/p>\n

lord of the worlds and peoples, loka-maheśvara<\/i>, and governs
\nall not only from within but from above, from his supreme transcendence. Cosmos cannot be governed by a Power that
\ndoes not transcend cosmos. A divine government implies the free mastery of an omnipotent Ruler and not an automatic force
\nor mechanical law of determinative becoming limited by the apparent nature of the cosmos. This is the theistic seeing of the
\nuniverse, but it is no shrinking and gingerly theism afraid of the world’s contradictions, but one which sees God as the omniscient
\nand omnipotent, the sole original Being who manifests in himself all, whatever it may be, good and evil, pain and pleasure,
\nlight and darkness as stuff of his own existence and governs himself what in himself he has manifested. Unaffected by its
\noppositions, unbound by his creation, exceeding, yet intimately related to this Nature and closely one with her creatures, their
\n  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 350<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nSpirit, Self, highest Soul, Lord, Lover, Friend, Refuge, he is ever leading them from within them and from above through the
\nmortal appearances of ignorance and suffering and sin and evil, ever leading each through his nature and all through universal
\nNature towards a supreme light and bliss and immortality and transcendence. This is the fullness of the liberating knowledge.
\nIt is a knowledge of the Divine within us and in the world as at the same time a transcendent Infinite. An Absolute who has
\nbecome all that is by his divine Nature, his effective power of Spirit, he governs all from his transcendence. He is intimately
\npresent within every creature and the cause, ruler, director of all cosmic happenings and yet is he far too great, mighty and
\ninfinite to be limited by his creation. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThis character of the knowledge is emphasised in three
\nseparate verses of promise. “Whosoever knows me,” says the Godhead, “as the unborn who is without origin, mighty lord
\nof the worlds and peoples, lives unbewildered among mortals and is delivered from all sin and evil. . . . Whosoever knows in
\nits right principles this my pervading lordship and this my Yoga <\/p>\n

(the divine Yoga, aiśvara yoga<\/i>, by which the Transcendent is one with all existences, even while more than them all, and dwells in
\nthem and contains them as becomings of his own Nature), unites himself to me by an untrembling Yoga. . . . The wise hold me for
\nthe birth of each and all, hold each and all as developing from me its action and movement, and so holding they love and adore
\nme . . . and I give them the Yoga of the understanding by which they come to me and I destroy for them the darkness which is
\nborn of the ignorance.” These results must arise inevitably from the very nature of the knowledge and from the very nature of
\nthe Yoga which converts that knowledge into spiritual growth and spiritual experience. For all the perplexity of man’s mind and
\naction, all the stumbling, insecurity and affliction of his mind, his will, his ethical turn, his emotional, sensational and vital urgings
\ncan be traced back to the groping and bewildered cognition and volition natural to his sense-obscured mortal mind in the body,
\nsammoha<\/i>. But when he sees the divine Origin of all things, when he looks steadily from the cosmic appearance to its transcendent
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 351<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

Reality and back from that Reality to the appearance, he is then delivered from this bewilderment of the mind, will, heart and
\n .  .<\/i> senses, he walks enlightened and free, asammūdhah
\nmartyesu<\/i>. <\/p>\n

Assigning to everything its supernal and real and not any longer
\nonly its present and apparent value, he finds the hidden links and connections; he consciously directs all life and act to their
\nhigh and true object and governs them by the light and power which comes to him from the Godhead within him. Thus he
\nescapes from the wrong cognition, the wrong mental and volitional reaction, the wrong sensational reception and impulse <\/p>\n

which here originate sin and error and suffering, sarva-pāpaih<\/i> <\/p>\n

pramucyate<\/i>. For living thus in the transcendent and universal
\nhe sees his own and every other individuality in their greater values and is released from the falsehood and ignorance of his
\nseparative and egoistic will and knowledge. That is always the essence of the spiritual liberation.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe wisdom of the liberated man is not then, in the view of the Gita, a consciousness of abstracted and unrelated impersonality,
\na do-nothing quietude. For the mind and soul of the liberated man are firmly
\nsettled in a constant sense, an integral feeling of the pervasion of the world
\nby the actuating and directing presence of the divine Master of the universe,
\netām vibhūtim<\/i>
\nmama yo vetti<\/i>. He is aware of his spirit’s transcendence of the cosmic order, but he is aware also of his oneness with it by
\n the divine Yoga, yogam ca mama<\/i>. And he sees each aspect of
\nthe transcendent, the cosmic and the individual existence in its right relation to the supreme Truth and puts all in their right
\nplace in the unity of the divine Yoga. He no longer sees each thing in its
\nseparateness,
\n\u2014 the separate seeing that leaves all
\neither unexplained or one-sided to the experiencing consciousness. Nor does he see all confusedly together,
\n\u2014 the confused
\nseeing that gives a wrong light and a chaotic action. Secure in the transcendence, he is not affected by the cosmic stress and the
\nturmoil of Time and circumstance. Untroubled in the midst of all this creation and destruction of things, his spirit adheres to an
\nunshaken and untrembling, an unvacillating Yoga of union with the eternal and spiritual in the universe. He watches through it all
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 352<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nthe divine persistence of the Master of the Yoga and acts out of a tranquil universality and oneness with all things and creatures.
\nAnd this close contact with all things implies no involution of soul and mind in the
\nseparative lower nature, because his basis
\nof spiritual experience is not the inferior phenomenal form and movement but the inner All and the supreme Transcendence.
\nHe becomes of like nature and law of being with the Divine, <\/p>\n

sādharmyam āgatah<\/i>, transcendent even in universality of spirit, <\/p>\n

universal even in the individuality of mind, life and body. By this
\nYoga once perfected, undeviating and fixed, avikampena yogena<\/i> yujyate<\/i>, he is able to take up whatever poise of nature, assume
\nwhatever human condition, do whatever world-action without any fall from his oneness with the divine Self, without any loss
\nof his constant communion with the Master of existence.5<\/font><\/sup>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThis knowledge translated into the affective, emotional,
\ntemperamental plane becomes a calm love and intense adoration of the original and transcendental Godhead above us, the
\never-present Master of all things here, God in man, God in Nature. It is at first a wisdom of the intelligence, the
\nbuddhi<\/i>; but that
\nis accompanied by a moved spiritualised state of the affective nature,6<\/font><\/sup>
\nbhāva<\/i>.
\nThis change of the heart and mind is the be
\n ginning of a total change of all the nature. A new inner birth
\nand becoming prepares us for oneness with the supreme object
\nof our love and adoration, madbhāvāya<\/i>. There is an intense delight of love in the greatness and beauty and perfection of this
\ndivine Being now seen everywhere in the world and above it, <\/p>\n

prīti<\/i>. That deeper ecstasy assumes the place of the scattered and external pleasure of the mind in existence or rather it draws all
\nother delight into it and transforms by a marvellous alchemy the mind’s and the heart’s feelings and all sense movements. The
\nwhole consciousness becomes full of the Godhead and replete with his answering consciousness; the whole life flows into one
\nsea of bliss-experience. All the speech and thought of such God-lovers becomes a mutual utterance and understanding of the
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n5 <\/p>\n

sarvathā vartamāno’pi sa yog<\/i><\/font>ī<\/font><\/i> mayi vartate.<\/i> <\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n6 <\/p>\n

budhā bhāva-samanvitāh.<\/i> <\/p>\n

 
\n<\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 353<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

Divine. In that one joy is concentrated all the contentment of the being, all the play and pleasure of the nature. There is a
\ncontinual union from moment to moment in the thought and memory, there is an unbroken continuity of the experience of
\noneness in the spirit. And from the moment that this inner state begins, even in the stage of imperfection, the Divine confirms it
\nby the perfect Yoga of the will and intelligence. He uplifts the blazing lamp of knowledge within us, he destroys the ignorance
\nof the separative mind and will, he stands revealed in the human spirit. By the Yoga of the will and intelligence founded on an
\nillumined union of works and knowledge the transition was effected from our lower troubled mind-ranges to the immutable
\ncalm of the witnessing Soul above the active nature. But now by this greater yoga of the Buddhi founded on an illumined union
\nof love and adoration with an all-comprehending knowledge the soul rises in a vast ecstasy to the whole transcendental truth of
\nthe absolute and all-originating Godhead. The Eternal is fulfilled in the individual spirit and individual nature; the individual spirit
\nis exalted from birth in time to the infinitudes of the Eternal.   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage –
\n\t\t\t354<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VII   The Supreme Word of the Gita   WE HAVE now got to the inmost kernel of the Gita’s Yoga, the whole living and…<\/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-2258","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\/2258","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=2258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}