{"id":2264,"date":"2013-07-13T01:40:28","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2264"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:40:28","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:28","slug":"38-above-the-gunas-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\/38-above-the-gunas-vol-19-essays-on-the-gita","title":{"rendered":"-38_Above the Gunas.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nAbove the Gunas <\/font>1<\/font><\/sup>
\n<\/font><\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nT<\/font>HE DISTINCTIONS<\/b> between the Soul and Nature rapidly drawn in the verses of the thirteenth chapter by a
\nfew decisive epithets, a few brief but packed characterisations of their
\nseparate power and functioning, and especially the
\ndistinction between the embodied soul subjected to the action of Nature by its enjoyment of her gun<\/font>as, qualities or modes and the
\nSupreme Soul which dwells enjoying the gun<\/font>as, but not subject because it is itself beyond them, are the basis on which the
\nGita rests its whole idea of the liberated being made one in the conscious law of its existence with the Divine. That liberation, <\/p>\n

that oneness, that putting on of the divine nature, sādharmya<\/i>,
\nit declares to be the very essence of spiritual freedom and the whole significance of immortality. This supreme importance <\/p>\n

assigned to sādharmya<\/i> is a capital point in the teaching of the
\nGita. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nTo be immortal was never held in the ancient spiritual teaching to consist merely in a personal survival of the death of the body: all beings are immortal in that sense and it is only the
\nforms that perish. The souls that do not arrive at liberation, live through the returning aeons; all exist involved or secret in the
\nBrahman during the dissolution of the manifest worlds and are born again in the appearance of a new cycle. Pralaya, the end of
\na cycle of aeons, is the temporary disintegration of a universal form of existence and of all the individual forms which move in
\nits rounds, but that is only a momentary pause, a silent interval followed by an outburst of new creation, reintegration and
\nreconstruction in which they reappear and recover the impetus of their
\nprogression. Our physical death is also a pralaya, \u2014
\nthe Gita will presently use the word in the sense of this death,
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1
\nGita, XIV.  
\n<\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 421<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

pralayam yā<\/font>ti deha-bhrt,<\/i> “the soul bearing the body comes to a <\/p>\n

pralaya,” to a disintegration of that form of matter with which
\nits ignorance identified its being and which now dissolves into the natural elements. But the soul itself persists and after an
\ninterval resumes in a new body formed from those elements its round of births in the cycle, just as after the interval of pause and
\ncessation the universal Being resumes his endless round of the cyclic aeons. This immortality in the rounds of Time is common
\nto all embodied spirits. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nTo be immortal in the deeper sense is something different
\nfrom this survival of death and this constant recurrence. Immortality is that supreme status in which the Spirit knows itself to
\nbe superior to death and birth, not conditioned by the nature of its manifestation, infinite, imperishable, immutably eternal,
\n\u2014 immortal, because never being born it never dies. The divine Purushottama, who is the supreme Lord and supreme Brahman,
\npossesses for ever this immortal eternity and is not affected by his taking up a body or by his continuous assumption of
\ncosmic forms and powers because he exists always in this self-knowledge. His very nature is to be unchangeably conscious of
\nhis own eternity; he is self-aware without end or beginning. He is here the Inhabitant of all bodies, but as the unborn in every
\nbody, not limited in his consciousness by that manifestation, not identified with the physical nature which he assumes; for that
\nis only a minor circumstance of his universal activised play of existence. Liberation, immortality is to live in this unchangeably
\nconscious eternal being of the Purushottama.2<\/font><\/sup> But to arrive here at this greater spiritual immortality the embodied soul must
\ncease to live according to the law of the lower nature; it must
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n2
\nMark that nowhere in the Gita is there any indication that dissolution of the individual spiritual being into the unmanifest, indefinable or absolute Brahman,
\navyaktam anirdeśyam,<\/i> is the true meaning or condition of immortality or the true aim of Yoga.
\nOn the contrary it describes immortality later on as an indwelling in the Ishwara in his <\/p>\n

˙ supreme status, mayi nivasisyasi, param dhāma,<\/i> and here as
\nsādharmya, par<\/i><\/font>a<\/font><\/i>m siddhim,<\/i> <\/p>\n

a supreme perfection, a becoming of one law of being and nature with the Supreme,
\npersistent still in existence and conscious of the universal movement but above it, as all the sages still exist,
\nmunayah sarve<\/i>, not bound to birth in the creation, not troubled by <\/p>\n

the dissolution of the cycles.
\n  
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 422<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nput on the law of the Divine’s supreme way of existence which is in fact the real law of its own eternal essence. In the spiritual
\nevolution of its becoming, no less than in its secret original being, it must grow into the likeness of the Divine.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nAnd this great thing, to rise from the human into the divine nature, we can only do by an effort of Godward knowledge,
\nwill and adoration. For the soul sent forth by the Supreme as his eternal portion, his immortal representative into the workings
\nof universal Nature is yet obliged by the character of those
\n workings, avaśam prakrter vaśāt<\/i>, to identify itself in its external <\/p>\n

consciousness with her limiting conditions, to identify itself with
\na life, mind and body that are oblivious of their inner spiritual reality and of the innate Godhead. To get back to self-knowledge
\nand to the knowledge of the real as distinct from the apparent relations of the soul with Nature, to know God and ourselves
\nand the world with a spiritual and no longer with a physical or externalised experience, through the deepest truth of the inner
\nsoul-consciousness and not through the misleading phenomenal significances of the sense-mind and the outward understanding,
\nis an indispensable means of this perfection. Perfection cannot come without self-knowledge and God-knowledge and a spiritual attitude towards our natural existence, and that is why the ancient wisdom laid so much stress on salvation by knowledge,
\n\u2014 not an intellectual cognizance of things, but a growing of man the mental being into a greater spiritual consciousness. The soul’s
\nsalvation cannot come without the soul’s perfection, without its growing into the divine nature; the impartial Godhead will not
\neffect it for us by an act of caprice or an arbitrary sanad of his favour. Divine works are effective for salvation because they
\nlead us towards this perfection and to a knowledge of self and nature and God by a growing unity with the inner Master of
\nour existence. Divine love is effective because by it we grow into the likeness of the sole and supreme object of our adoration and
\ncall down the answering love of the Highest to flood us with the light of his knowledge and the uplifting power and purity of
\nhis eternal spirit. Therefore, says the Gita, this is the supreme knowledge and the highest of all knowings because it leads to
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 423<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

the highest perfection and spiritual status, para<\/font>m siddhim,<\/i> and <\/p>\n

brings the soul to likeness with the Divine, sādharmya<\/i>. It is the
\neternal wisdom, the great spiritual experience by which all the sages attained to that highest perfection, grew into one law of
\nbeing with the Supreme and live for ever in his eternity, not born in the creation, not troubled by the anguish of the universal <\/p>\n

dissolution. This perfection, then, this sādharmya<\/i> is the way of
\nimmortality and the indispensable condition without which the soul cannot consciously live in the Eternal.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe soul of man could not grow into the likeness of the Divine, if it were not in its secret essence imperishably one with
\nthe Divine and part and parcel of his divinity: it could not be or become immortal if it were merely a creature of mental, vital and
\nphysical Nature. All existence is a manifestation of the divine Existence and that which is within us is spirit of the eternal
\nSpirit. We have come indeed into the lower material nature and are under its influence, but we have come there from the supreme
\nspiritual nature: this inferior imperfect status is our apparent, but that our real being. The Eternal puts all this movement
\nforth as his self-creation. He is at once the Father and Mother  
\n of the universe; the substance of the infinite Idea, vij\u00f1āna<\/i>, the Mahad Brahman, is the womb into which he casts the seed of
\nhis self-conception. As the Over-Soul he casts the seed; as the Mother, the Nature-Soul, the Energy filled with his conscious
\npower, he receives it into this infinite substance of being made pregnant with his illimitable, yet self-limiting Idea. He receives
\ninto this Vast of self-conception and develops there the divine embryo into mental and physical form of existence born from
\nthe original act of conceptive creation. All we see springs from that act of creation; but that which is born here is only finite idea
\nand form of the unborn and infinite. The Spirit is eternal and superior to all its manifestation: Nature, eternal without beginning in the Spirit, proceeds for ever with the rhythm of the cycles by unending act of creation and unconcluding act of cessation;
\nthe Soul too which takes on this or that form in Nature, is no <\/p>\n

less eternal than she, anādī ubhāv api<\/i>. Even while in Nature it
\nfollows the unceasing round of the cycles, it is, in the Eternal  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 424<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nfrom which it proceeds into them, for ever raised above the terms of birth and death, and even in its apparent consciousness here
\nit can become aware of that innate and constant transcendence. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nWhat is it then that makes the difference, what is it that gets
\nthe soul into the appearance of birth and death and bondage, \u2014 for this is patent that it is only an appearance? It is a subordinate
\nact or state of consciousness, it is a self-oblivious identification with the modes of Nature in the limited workings of this lower
\nmotivity and with this self-wrapped ego-bounded knot of action of the mind, life and body. To rise above the modes of Nature, to be
\ntraigunyātīta<\/i>, is indispensable, if we are to get back into
\nour fully conscious being away from the obsessing power of the lower action and to put on the free nature of the spirit and its <\/p>\n

eternal immortality. That condition of the sādharmya<\/i> is what
\nthe Gita next proceeds to develop. It has already alluded to it and laid it down with a brief emphasis in a previous chapter; but
\nit has now to indicate more precisely what are these modes, these gun<\/font>as, how they bind the soul and keep it back from spiritual
\nfreedom and what is meant by rising above the modes of Nature. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe modes of Nature are all qualitative in their essence and
\nare called for that reason its gun<\/font>as or qualities. In any spiritual conception of the universe this must be so, because the connecting medium between spirit and matter must be psyche or soul power and the primary action psychological and qualitative, not
\nphysical and quantitative; for quality is the immaterial, the more spiritual element in all the action of the universal Energy, her
\nprior dynamics. The predominance of physical Science has accustomed us to a different view of Nature, because there the first
\nthing that strikes us is the importance of the quantitative aspect of her workings and her dependence for the creation of forms on
\nquantitative combinations and dispositions. And yet even there the discovery that matter is rather substance or act of energy
\nthan energy a motive power of self-existent material substance or an inherent power acting in matter has led to some revival of
\nan older reading of universal Nature. The analysis of the ancient Indian thinkers allowed for the quantitative action of Nature,
\n matra<\/i>; but that it regarded as proper to its more objective and
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 425<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

formally executive working, while the innately ideative executive power which disposes things according to the quality of their <\/p>\n

being and energy, gun<\/font>a<\/i>, svabhāva<\/i>, is the primary determinant <\/p>\n

and underlies all the outer quantitative dispositions. In the basis
\nof the physical world this is not apparent only because there the underlying ideative spirit, the Mahad Brahman, is overlaid
\nand hidden up by the movement of matter and material energy. But even in the physical world the miraculous varying results
\nof different combinations and quantities of elements otherwise identical with each other admits of no conceivable explanation
\nif there is not a superior power of variative quality of which these material dispositions are only the convenient mechanical
\ndevices. Or let us say at once, there must be a secret ideative  
\n capacity of the universal energy, vij\u00f1āna<\/i>, \u2014 even if we suppose that energy and its instrumental idea,
\nbuddhi<\/i>, to be themselves
\nmechanical in their nature, \u2014 which fixes the mathematics and decides the resultants of these outer dispositions: it is the omnipotent
\nIdea in the spirit which invents and makes use of these devices. And in the
\nvital and mental existence quality at once openly appears as the primary power
\nand amount of energy is only a secondary factor. But in fact the mental, the
\nvital, the physical existence are all subject to the limitations of quality, all
\nare governed by its determinations, even though that truth seems more and more
\nobscured as we descend the scale of existence. Only the Spirit, which by the
\npower of its idea-being and its idea 
\n force called mahat<\/i> and vij\u00f1āna<\/i> fixes these conditions, is not so
\ndetermined, not subject to any limitations either of quality or quantity because its immeasurable and indeterminable infinity is
\nsuperior to the modes which it develops and uses for its creation. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut, again, the whole qualitative action of Nature, so infinitely intricate in its detail and variety, is figured as cast into the mould of three general modes of quality everywhere present, intertwined, almost inextricable,
\nsattva, rajas, tamas<\/i>. These modes are described in the Gita only by their psychological action in
\nman, or incidentally in things such as food according as they produce a psychological or vital effect on human beings. If we
\nlook for a more general definition, we shall perhaps catch a  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 426<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nglimpse of it in the symbolic idea of Indian religion which attributes each of these qualities respectively to one member of
\nthe cosmic Trinity, sattwa to the preserver Vishnu, rajas to the creator Brahma, tamas to the destroyer Rudra. Looking behind
\nthis idea for the rationale of the triple ascription, we might define the three modes or qualities in terms of the motion of
\nthe universal Energy as Nature’s three concomitant and inseparable powers of equilibrium, kinesis and inertia. But that is
\nonly their appearance in terms of the external action of Force. It is otherwise if we regard consciousness and force as twin
\nterms of the one Existence, always coexistent in the reality of being, however in the primal outward phenomenon of material
\nNature light of consciousness may seem to disappear in a vast action of nescient unillumined energy, while at an opposite pole
\nof spiritual quiescence action of force may seem to disappear in the stillness of the observing or witness consciousness. These
\ntwo conditions are the two extremes of an apparently separated Purusha and Prakriti, but each at its extreme point does not
\nabolish but at the most only conceals its eternal mate in the depths of its own characteristic way of being. Therefore, since
\nconsciousness is always there even in an apparently inconscient Force, we must find a corresponding psychological power of
\nthese three modes which informs their more outward executive action. On their psychological side the three qualities may be
\ndefined, tamas as Nature’s power of nescience, rajas as her power of active seeking ignorance enlightened by desire and impulsion,
\nsattwa as her power of possessing and harmonising knowledge. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe three qualitative modes of Nature are inextricably intertwined in all cosmic existence. Tamas, the principle of inertia, is a passive and inert nescience which suffers all shocks and
\ncontacts without any effort of mastering response and by itself would lead to a disintegration of the whole action of the energy
\nand a radical dispersion of substance. But it is driven by the kinetic power of rajas and even in the nescience of Matter is
\nmet and embraced by an innate though unpossessed preserving principle of harmony and balance and knowledge. Material
\nenergy appears to be tamasic in its basic action, jad<\/font>a<\/i>, nescient, <\/p>\n

  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 427<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

mechanic and in movement disintegrative. But it is dominated by a huge force and impulsion of mute rajasic kinesis which drives
\nit, even in and even by its dispersion and disintegration, to build and create and again by a sattwic ideative element in its apparently inconscient force which is always imposing a harmony and preservative order on the two opposite tendencies. Rajas,
\nthe principle of creative endeavour and motion and impulsion in Prakriti, kinesis,
\npravrtti,<\/i> so seen in Matter, appears more <\/p>\n

evidently as a conscious or half-conscious passion of seeking
\nand desire and action in the dominant character of Life, \u2014 for that passion is the nature of all vital existence. And it would lead
\nby itself in its own nature to a persistent but always mutable and unstable life and activity and creation without any settled result.
\nBut met on one side by the disintegrating power of tamas with death and decay and inertia, its ignorant action is on the other
\nside of its functioning settled and harmonised and sustained by the power of sattwa, subconscient in the lower forms of life,
\nmore and more conscient in the emergence of mentality, most conscious in the effort of the evolved intelligence figuring as
\nwill and reason in the fully developed mental being. Sattwa, the principle of understanding knowledge and of according assimilation, measure and equilibrium, which by itself would lead only to some lasting concord of fixed and luminous harmonies, is in
\nthe motions of this world impelled to follow the mutable strife and action of the eternal kinesis and constantly overpowered
\nor hedged in by the forces of inertia and nescience. This is the appearance of a world governed by the interlocked and mutually
\nlimited play of the three qualitative modes of Nature. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe Gita applies this generalised analysis of the universal
\nEnergy to the psychological nature of man in relation to his bondage to Prakriti and the
\nrealisation of spiritual freedom.
\nSattwa, it tells us, is by the purity of its quality a cause of light and illumination and by virtue of that purity it produces
\nno disease or morbidity or suffering in the nature. When into all the doors in the body there comes a flooding of light, as
\nif the doors and windows of a closed house were opened to sunshine, a light of understanding, perception and knowledge,
\n  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 428<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n\u2014 when the intelligence is alert and illumined, the senses quickened, the whole mentality satisfied and full of brightness and
\nthe nervous being calmed and filled with an illumined ease and <\/p>\n

clarity, prasāda<\/i>, one should understand that there has been a great increase and uprising of the sattwic gun<\/font>a in the nature.
\nFor knowledge and a harmonious ease and pleasure and happiness are the characteristic results of sattwa. The pleasure that is
\nsattwic is not only that contentment which an inner clarity of satisfied will and intelligence brings with it, but all delight and
\ncontent produced by the soul’s possession of itself in light or by an accord or an adequate and truthful adjustment between
\nthe regarding soul and the surrounding Nature and her offered objects of desire and perception.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nRajas, again, the Gita tells us, has for its essence attraction of liking and longing. Rajas is a child of the attachment of the soul
\nto the desire of objects; it is born from the nature’s thirst for an unpossessed satisfaction. It is therefore full of unrest and fever
\nand lust and greed and excitement, a thing of seeking impulsions, and all this mounts in us when the middle gun<\/font>a increases. It is the
\nforce of desire which motives all ordinary personal initiative of action and all that movement of stir and seeking and propulsion
\nin our nature which is the impetus towards action and works, pravrtti<\/i>. Rajas, then, is evidently the kinetic force in the modes <\/p>\n

of Nature. Its fruit is the lust of action, but also grief, pain, all
\nkinds of suffering; for it has no right possession of its object \u2014 desire in fact implies non-possession
\n\u2014 and even its pleasure of
\nacquired possession is troubled and unstable because it has not clear knowledge and does not know how to possess nor can it
\nfind the secret of accord and right enjoyment. All the ignorant and passionate seeking of life belongs to the rajasic mode of
\nNature. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nTamas, finally, is born of inertia and ignorance and its fruit
\ntoo is inertia and ignorance. It is the darkness of tamas which obscures knowledge and causes all confusion and delusion. Therefore it is the opposite of sattwa, for the essence of sattwa is <\/p>\n

enlightenment, prakāś<\/font>a<\/i>, and the essence of tamas is absence <\/p>\n

of light, nescience, aprakāśa<\/i>. But tamas brings incapacity and   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 429<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

negligence of action as well as the incapacity and negligence of error, inattention and misunderstanding or non-understanding;
\nindolence, languor and sleep belong to this gun<\/font>a. Therefore it is the opposite too of rajas; for the essence of rajas is movement
\nand impulsion and kinesis, pravrtti<\/i>, but the essence of tamas <\/p>\n

is inertia, apravrtti<\/i>. Tamas is inertia of nescience and inertia of <\/p>\n

inaction, a double negative. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThese three qualities of Nature are evidently present and
\nactive in all human beings and none can be said to be quite devoid of one and another or free from any one of the three;
\nnone is cast in the mould of one gun<\/font>a to the exclusion of the others. All men have in them in whatever degree the rajasic
\nimpulse of desire and activity and the sattwic boon of light and happiness, some balance, some adjustment of mind to itself and
\nits surroundings and objects, and all have their share of tamasic incapacity and ignorance or nescience. But these qualities are not
\nconstant in any man in the quantitative action of their force or in the combination of their elements; for they are variable and in a
\ncontinual state of mutual impact, displacement and interaction. Now one leads, now another increases and predominates, and
\neach subjects us to its characteristic action and consequences. Only by a general and ordinary predominance of one or other
\nof the qualities can a man be said to be either sattwic or rajasic or tamasic in his nature; but this can only be a general and not
\nan exclusive or absolute description. The three qualities are a triple power which by their interaction determine the character
\nand disposition and through that and its various motions the actions of the natural man. But this triple power is at the same
\ntime a triple cord of bondage. “The three gun<\/font>as born of Prakriti” says the Gita “bind in the body the imperishable dweller in the
\nbody.” In a certain sense we can see at once that there must be this bondage in following the action of the gun<\/font>as; for they
\nare all limited by their finite of quality and operation and cause limitation. Tamas is on both its sides an incapacity and therefore
\nvery obviously binds to limitation. Rajasic desire as an initiator of action is a more positive power, but still we can see well
\nenough that desire with its limiting and engrossing hold on man  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 430<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nmust always be a bondage. But how does sattwa, the power of knowledge and happiness, become a chain? It so becomes
\nbecause it is a principle of mental nature, a principle of limited and limiting knowledge and of a happiness which depends upon
\nright following or attainment of this or that object or else on particular states of the mentality, on a light of mind which can
\nbe only a more or less clear twilight. Its pleasure can only be a passing intensity or a qualified ease. Other is the infinite spiritual knowledge and the free self-existent delight of our spiritual being.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut then there is the question, how does our infinite and imperishable spirit, even involved in Nature, come thus to confine
\nitself to the lower action of Prakriti and undergo this bondage and how is it not, like the supreme spirit of which it is a portion,
\nfree in its infinity even while enjoying the self-limitations of its active evolution? The reason, says the Gita, is our attachment
\nto the gun<\/font>as and to the result of their workings. Sattwa, it says, attaches to happiness, rajas attaches to action, tamas covers up
\nthe knowledge and attaches to negligence of error and inaction. Or again, “sattwa binds by attachment to knowledge and attachment to happiness, rajas binds the embodied spirit by attachment to works, tamas binds by negligence and indolence and sleep.”
\nIn other words, the soul by attachment to the enjoyment of the gun<\/font>as and their results concentrates its consciousness on
\nthe lower and outward action of life, mind and body in Nature, imprisons itself in the form of these things and becomes oblivious
\nof its own greater consciousness behind in the spirit, unaware of the free power and scope of the liberating Purusha. Evidently, in
\norder to be liberated and perfect, we must get back from these things, away from the gun<\/font>as and above them and return to the
\npower of that free spiritual consciousness above Nature. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut this would seem to imply a cessation of all doing, since
\nall natural action is done by the gun<\/font>as, by Nature through her modes. The soul cannot act by itself, it can only act through
\nNature and her modes. And yet the Gita, while it demands freedom from the modes, insists upon the necessity of action. Here
\ncomes in the importance of its insistence on the abandonment   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 431<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

of the fruits; for it is the desire of the fruits which is the most potent cause of the soul’s bondage and by abandoning it the
\nsoul can be free in action. Ignorance is the result of tamasic action, pain the consequence of rajasic works, pain of reaction,
\ndisappointment, dissatisfaction or transience, and therefore in attachment to the fruits of this kind of activity attended as they
\nare with these undesirable accompaniments there is no profit. But of works rightly done the fruit is pure and sattwic, the inner
\nresult is knowledge and happiness. Yet attachment even to these pleasurable things must be entirely abandoned, first, because
\nin the mind they are limited and limiting forms and, secondly, because, since sattwa is constantly entangled with and besieged
\nby rajas and tamas which may at any moment overcome it, there is a perpetual insecurity in their tenure. But, even if one is free
\nfrom any clinging to the fruit, there may be an attachment to the work itself, either for its own sake, the essential rajasic bond, or
\nowing to a lax subjection to the drive of Nature, the tamasic, or for the sake of the attracting rightness of the thing done, which
\nis the sattwic attaching cause powerful on the virtuous man or the man of knowledge. And here evidently the resource is in
\nthat other injunction of the Gita, to give up the action itself to the Lord of works and be only a desireless and equal-minded
\ninstrument of his will. To see that the modes of Nature are the whole agency and cause of our works and to know and turn to
\nthat which is supreme above the gun<\/font>as, is the way to rise above the lower nature. Only so can we attain to the movement and <\/p>\n

status of the Divine, mad-bhāva<\/i>, by which free from subjection
\nto birth and death and their concomitants, decay, old age and suffering, the liberated soul shall enjoy in the end immortality
\nand all that is eternal. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut what, asks Arjuna, are the signs of such a man, what
\nhis action and how is he said even in action to be above the three gun<\/font>as? The sign, says Krishna, is that equality of which I
\nhave so constantly spoken; the sign is that inwardly he regards happiness and suffering alike, gold and mud and stone as of
\nequal value and that to him the pleasant and the unpleasant, praise and blame, honour and insult, the faction of his friends
\n  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 432<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nand the faction of his enemies are equal things. He is steadfast in a wise imperturbable and immutable inner calm and quietude.
\nHe initiates no action, but leaves all works to be done by the gun<\/font>as of Nature. Sattwa, rajas or tamas may rise or cease in his
\nouter mentality and his physical movements with their results of enlightenment, of impulsion to works or of inaction and the
\nclouding over of the mental and nervous being, but he does not rejoice when this comes or that ceases, nor on the other hand
\ndoes he abhor or shrink from the operation or the cessation of these things. He has seated himself in the conscious light of
\nanother principle than the nature of the gun<\/font>as and that greater consciousness remains steadfast in him, above these powers and
\nunshaken by their motions like the sun above clouds to one who has risen into a higher atmosphere. He from that height sees that
\nit is the gun<\/font>as that are in process of action and that their storm and calm are not himself but only a movement of Prakriti; his
\nself is immovable above and his spirit does not participate in that shifting mutability of things unstable. This is the impersonality
\nof the Brahmic status; for that higher principle, that greater wide
\nhigh-seated consciousness, kūtastha<\/i>, is the immutable Brahman. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut still there is evidently here a double status, there is a
\nscission of the being between two opposites; a liberated spirit in the immutable Self or Brahman watches the action of an
\nunliberated mutable Nature, \u2014 Akshara and Kshara. Is there no greater status, no principle of more absolute perfection, or
\nis this division the highest consciousness possible in the body, and is the end of Yoga to drop the mutable nature and the
\ngun<\/font>as born of the embodiment in
\nNature and disappear into the impersonality and everlasting peace of the Brahman? Is that
\nlaya<\/i> or dissolution of the individual Purusha the greatest liberation? There is, it would seem, something else; for the Gita says
\nat the close, always returning to this one final note, “He also who loves and strives after Me with an undeviating love and
\nadoration, passes beyond the three gun<\/font>as and he too is prepared for becoming the Brahman.” This “I” is the Purushottama who
\nis the foundation of the silent Brahman and of immortality and imperishable spiritual existence and of the eternal dharma and
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 433<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

of an utter bliss of happiness. There is a status then which is greater than the peace of the Akshara as it watches unmoved
\nthe strife of the gun<\/font>as. There is a highest spiritual experience and foundation above the immutability of the Brahman, there is
\nan eternal dharma greater than the rajasic impulsion to works, pravrtti,<\/i> there is an absolute delight which is untouched by <\/p>\n

rajasic suffering and beyond the sattwic happiness, and these
\nthings are found and possessed by dwelling in the being and power of the Purushottama. But since it is acquired by bhakti,
\nits status must be that divine delight, Ananda, in which is experienced the union of utter love3<\/font><\/sup> and possessing oneness, the crown
\nof bhakti. And to rise into that Ananda, into that imperishable oneness must be the completion of spiritual perfection and the fulfilment of the eternal immortalising dharma.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n3 <\/p>\n

niratiśāyapremāspadatvam ānandatattvam.<\/i>
\n  
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 434<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XIV   Above the Gunas 1   THE DISTINCTIONS between the Soul and Nature rapidly drawn in the verses of the thirteenth chapter by a…<\/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-2264","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\/2264","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=2264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}