{"id":2266,"date":"2013-07-13T01:40:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2266"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:40:29","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:29","slug":"40-the-fullness-of-spiritual-action-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\/40-the-fullness-of-spiritual-action-vol-19-essays-on-the-gita","title":{"rendered":"-40_The Fullness of Spiritual Action.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n  <\/p>\n

\n
\n The Fullness of Spiritual Action <\/font><\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n
\n T<\/font>HE DEVELOPMENT<\/b> of the idea of the Gita has reached
\na point at which one question alone remains for solution, \u2014 the question of our nature bound and defective and
\nhow it is to effect, not only in principle but in all its movements, its evolution from the lower to the higher being and from the
\nlaw of its present action to the immortal Dharma. The difficulty is one which is implied in certain of the positions laid down
\nin the Gita, but has to be brought out into greater prominence than it gets there and to be put into a clearer shape before our
\nintelligence. The Gita proceeded on a psychological knowledge which was familiar to the mind of the time, and in the steps of
\nits thought it was well able to abridge its transitions, to take much for granted and to leave many things unexpressed which
\nwe need to have put strongly into light and made precise to us. Its teaching sets out at the beginning to propose a new source
\nand level for our action in the world; that was the starting-point and that motives also the conclusion. Its initial object
\nwas not precisely to propose a way of liberation, moksa<\/i>, but <\/p>\n

rather to show the compatibility of works with the soul’s effort towards liberation and of spiritual freedom itself when once
\nattained with continued action in the world, muktasya karma<\/i>. Incidentally, a synthetic Yoga or psychological method of arriving at spiritual liberation and perfection has been developed and certain metaphysical affirmations have been put forward,
\ncertain truths of our being and nature on which the validity of this Yoga reposes. But the original preoccupation remains
\nthroughout, the original difficulty and problem, how Arjuna, dislodged by a strong revulsion of thought and feeling from the
\nestablished natural and rational foundations and standards of action, is to find a new and satisfying spiritual norm of works,
\nor how he is to live in the truth of the Spirit \u2014 since he can  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 450<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nno longer act according to the partial truths of the customary reason and nature of man
\n\u2014 and yet to do his appointed work on
\nthe battle-field of Kurukshetra. To live inwardly calm, detached, silent in the silence of the impersonal and universal Self and
\nyet do dynamically the works of dynamic Nature, and more largely, to be one with the Eternal within us and to do all the
\nwill of the Eternal in the world expressed through a sublimated force, a divine height of the personal nature uplifted, liberated,
\nuniversalised, made one with God-nature, \u2014 this is the Gita’s solution.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nLet us see what this comes to in the most plain and positive terms and from the standpoint of the problem which is at the
\nroot of Arjuna’s difficulty and refusal. His duty as a human being and a social being is the discharge of the high function
\nof the Kshatriya without which the frame of society cannot be maintained, the ideals of the race cannot be vindicated, the harmonious order of right and justice cannot be upheld against the anarchic violence of oppression, wrong and injustice. And yet
\nthe appeal to duty by itself can no longer satisfy the protagonist of the struggle because in the terrible actuality of Kurukshetra
\nit presents itself in harsh, perplexed and ambiguous terms. The discharge of his social duty has suddenly come to signify assent
\nto an enormous result of sin and sorrow and suffering; the customary means of maintaining social order and justice is found
\nto lead instead to a great disorder and chaos. The rule of just claim and interest, that which we call rights, will not serve him
\nhere; for the kingdom he has to win for himself and his brothers and his side in the war is indeed rightly theirs and its assertion
\nan overthrow of Asuric tyranny and a vindication of justice, but a blood-bespattered justice and a kingdom possessed in sorrow
\nand with the stain on it of a great sin, a monstrous harm done to society, a veritable crime against the race. Nor will the rule
\nof Dharma, of ethical right, serve any better; for there is here a conflict of dharmas. A new and greater yet unguessed rule is
\nneeded to solve the problem, but what is that rule? <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nFor to withdraw from his work, to take refuge in a saintly
\ninactivity and leave the imperfect world with its unsatisfying   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 451<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

methods and motives to take care of itself is one possible solution easy to envisage, easy to execute, but this is the very cutting of the
\nknot that has been insistently forbidden by the Teacher. Action is demanded of man by the Master of the world who is the master
\nof all his works and whose world is a field of action, whether done through the ego and in the ignorance or partial light of
\nthe limited human reason or initiated from a higher and more largely seeing plane of vision and motive. Again, to abandon
\nthis particular action as evil would be another kind of solution, the ready resort of the shortsighted moralising mind, but to this
\nevasion too the Teacher refuses his assent. Arjuna’s abstention would work a much greater sin and evil: it would mean, if it
\nhad any effect at all, the triumph of wrong and injustice and the rejection of his own mission as an instrument of the divine
\nworkings. A violent crisis in the destinies of the race has been brought about not by any blind motion of forces or solely by the
\nconfused clash of human ideas, interests, passions, egoisms, but by a Will which is behind these outward appearances. This truth
\nArjuna must be brought to see; he must learn to act impersonally, imperturbably as the instrument not of his little personal desires
\nand weak human shrinkings, but of a vaster and more luminous Power, a greater all-wise divine and universal Will. He must act
\nimpersonally and universally in a high union of his soul with the inner and outer Godhead,
\nyukta<\/i>, in a calm Yoga with his own
\nsupreme Self and the informing Self of the universe. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut this truth cannot be rightly seen and this kind of action
\ncannot be rightly undertaken, cannot become real as long as man is governed by the ego, even by the half-enlightened unillumined
\nsattwic ego of the reason and the mental intelligence. For this is a truth of the spirit, this is an action from a spiritual basis.
\nA spiritual, not an intellectual knowledge is the indispensable requisite for this way of works, its sole possible light, medium,
\nincentive. First, therefore, the Teacher points out that all these ideas and feelings which trouble, perplex and baffle Arjuna, joy
\nand sorrow, desire and sin, the mind’s turn towards governing action by the outward results of action, the human shrinking
\nfrom what seems terrible and formidable in the dealings of the  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 452<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nuniversal Spirit with the world, are things born of the subjection of our consciousness to a natural ignorance, the way of working
\nof a lower nature in which the soul is involved and sees itself as a separate ego returning to the action of things upon it dual reactions of pain and pleasure, virtue and vice, right and wrong, good happening and evil fortune. These reactions create a tangled web
\nof perplexity in which the soul is lost and bewildered by its own ignorance; it has to guide itself by partial and imperfect solutions
\nthat serve ordinarily with a stumbling sufficiency in the normal life, but fail when brought to the test of a wider seeing and a
\nprofounder experience. To understand the real sense of action and existence one must retreat behind all these appearances into
\nthe truth of the spirit; one must found self-knowledge before one can have the basis of a right world-knowledge.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe first requisite is to shake the wings of the soul free from desire and passion and troubling emotion and all this perturbed
\nand distorting atmosphere of human mind and arrive into an ether of dispassionate equality, a heaven of impersonal calm, an
\negoless feeling and vision of things. For only in that lucid upper air, reaches free from all storm and cloud, can self-knowledge
\ncome and the law of the world and the truth of Nature be seen steadily and with an embracing eye and in an undisturbed and
\nall-comprehending and all-penetrating light. Behind this little personality which is a helpless instrument, a passive or vainly
\nresistant puppet of Nature and a form figured in her creations, there is an impersonal self one in all which sees and knows all
\nthings; there is an equal, impartial, universal presence and support of creation, a witnessing consciousness that suffers Nature <\/p>\n

to work out the becoming of things in their own type, svabhāva<\/i>,
\nbut does not involve and lose itself in the action she initiates. To draw back from the ego and the troubled personality into this
\ncalm, equal, eternal, universal, impersonal Self is the first step towards a seeing action in Yoga done in conscious union with
\nthe divine Being and the infallible Will that, however obscure now to us, manifests itself in the universe.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nWhen we live tranquilly poised in this self of impersonal wideness, then because that is vast, calm, quiescent, impersonal,
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 453<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

our other little false self, our ego of action disappears into its largeness and we see that it is Nature that acts and not we,
\nthat all action is the action of Nature and can be nothing else. And this thing we call Nature is a universal executive Power
\nof eternal being in motion which takes different shapes and forms in this or that class of its creatures and in each individual
\nof the species according to its type of natural existence and the resultant function and law of its works. According to its
\nnature each creature must act and it cannot act by anything else. Ego and personal will and desire are nothing more than vividly
\nconscious forms and limited natural workings of a universal Force that is itself formless and infinite and far exceeds them;
\nreason and intelligence and mind and sense and life and body, all that we vaunt or take for our own, are Nature’s instruments
\nand creations. But the impersonal Self does not act and is not part of Nature: it observes the action from behind and above
\nand remains lord of itself and a free and impassive knower and witness. The soul that lives in this impersonality is not affected
\nby the actions of which our nature is an instrument; it does not reply to them or their effects by grief and joy, desire and shrinking, attraction and repulsion or any of the hundred dualities that draw and shake and afflict us. It regards all men and all
\nthings and all happenings with equal eyes, watches the modes or qualities of Nature acting on the modes or qualities, sees the
\nwhole secret of the mechanism, but is itself beyond these modes and qualities, a pure absolute essential being, impassive, free,
\nat peace. Nature works out her action and the soul impersonal and universal supports her but is not involved, is not attached,
\nis not entangled, is not troubled, is not bewildered. If we can live in this equal self, we too are at peace; our works continue
\nso long as Nature’s impulsion prolongs itself in our instruments, but there is a spiritual freedom and quiescence.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThis duality of Self and Nature, quiescent Purusha, active Prakriti, is not, however, the whole of our being; these are not really the two last words in the matter. If it were so, either all works would be quite indifferent to the soul and this or that action or
\nrefraining from action would take place by some ungoverned  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 454<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nturn of the mobile variations of the gunas, \u2014 Arjuna would be moved to battle by rajasic impulse in the instruments or withheld
\nfrom it by tamasic inertia or sattwic indifference, \u2014 or else, if it so is that he must act and act only in this way, it would be
\nby some mechanical determinism of Nature. Moreover, since the soul in its retreat would come to live in the impersonal quiescent
\nSelf and cease to live at all in active Nature, the final result would be quiescence, cessation, inertia, not the action imposed by the
\nGita. And, finally, this duality gives no real explanation why the soul is at all called to involve itself in Nature and her works;
\nfor it cannot be that the one ever uninvolved self-conscient spirit gets itself involved and loses its self-knowledge and has to return
\nto that knowledge. This pure Self, this Atman is on the contrary always there, always the same, always the one self-conscient impersonal aloof Witness or impartial supporter of the action. It is this lacuna, this impossible vacuum that compels us to suppose
\ntwo Purushas or two poses of the one Purusha, one secret in the Self that observes all from its self-existence
\n\u2014 or perhaps
\nobserves nothing, another self-projected into Nature that lends itself to her action and identifies itself with her creations. But
\neven this dualism of Self and Prakriti or Maya corrected by the dualism of the two Purushas is not the whole philosophic creed
\nof the Gita. It goes beyond them to the supreme all-embracing oneness of a highest Purusha, Purushottama.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe Gita affirms that there is a supreme Mystery, a highest Reality that upholds and reconciles the truth of these two
\ndifferent manifestations. There is an utmost supreme Self, Lord and Brahman, one who is both the impersonal and the personal,
\nbut other and greater than either of them and other and greater than both of them together. He is Purusha, Self and soul of our
\nbeing, but he is also Prakriti; for Prakriti is the power of the All-Soul, the power of the Eternal and Infinite self-moved to action
\nand creation. The supreme Ineffable, the universal Person, he becomes by his Prakriti all these creatures. The supreme Atman
\nand Brahman, he manifests by his Maya of self-knowledge and his Maya of ignorance the double truth of the cosmic riddle. The
\nsupreme Lord, master of his Force, his Shakti, he creates, impels   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 455<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

and governs all this Nature and all the personality, power and works of these innumerable existences. Each soul is a partial
\nbeing of this self-existent One, an eternal soul of this All-Soul, a partial manifestation of this supreme Lord and his universal
\nNature. All here is this Divine, this Godhead, Vasudeva; for by Nature and the soul in Nature he becomes all that is and
\neverything proceeds from him and lives in or by him, though he himself is greater than any widest manifestation, any deepest
\nspirit, any cosmic figure. This is the complete truth of existence and this all the secret of the universal action that we have seen
\ndisengaging itself from the later chapters of the Gita. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut how does this greater truth modify or how affect the
\nprinciple of spiritual action? It modifies it to begin with in this fundamental matter that the whole meaning of the relation of
\nSelf and soul and Nature gets changed, opens out to a new vision, fills in the blanks that were left, acquires a greater amplitude, assumes a true and spiritually positive, a flawlessly integral significance. The world is no longer a purely mechanical qualitative action and determination of Nature set over against the quiescence of an impersonal self-existence which has no quality
\nor power of self-determination, no ability or impulse to create. The chasm left by this unsatisfactory dualism is bridged and
\nan uplifting unity revealed between knowledge and works, the soul and Nature.
\nThe quiescent impersonal Self is a truth, \u2014
\nit is the truth of the calm of the Godhead, the silence of the Eternal, the freedom of the Lord of all birth and becoming and
\naction and creation, his calm infinite freedom of self-existence not bound, troubled or affected by his creation, not touched by
\nthe action and reaction of his Nature. Nature itself is now no inexplicable illusion, no
\nseparated and opposite phenomenon,
\nbut a movement of the Eternal, all her stir and activity and multiplicity founded and supported on the detached and observing
\ntranquillity of an immutable self and spirit. The Lord of Nature remains that immutable self even while he is at the same time
\nthe one and multiple soul of the universe and becomes in a partial manifestation all these forces, powers, consciousnesses,
\ngods, animals, things, men. Nature of the gun<\/font>as is a lower self 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 456<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nlimited action of his power; it is nature of imperfectly conscious manifestation and therefore of a certain ignorance. The truth of
\nthe self, even as the truth of the Divine, is held back from her surface force absorbed here in its outer action
\n\u2014 much as man’s
\ndeeper being is held back from the knowledge of his surface consciousness \u2014 until the soul in her turns to find out this hidden thing, gets inside itself and discovers its own real verities, its heights and its depths. That is why it has to draw back
\nfrom its little personal and egoistic to its large and impersonal, immutable and universal Self in order to become capable of
\nself-knowledge. But the Lord is there, not only in that self, but in Nature. He is in the heart of every creature and guides by
\nhis presence the turnings of this great natural mechanism. He is present in all, all lives in him, all is himself because all is a
\nbecoming of his being, a portion or a figure of his existence. But all proceeds here in a lower partial working that has come
\nout of a secret, a higher and greater and completer nature of Divinity, the eternal infinite nature or absolute self-power of the <\/p>\n

Godhead, devātmāśakti<\/i>. The perfect, integrally conscious soul hidden in man, an eternal portion of Deity, a spiritual being
\nof the eternal Divine Being, can open in us and can too open us to him if we live constantly in this true truth of his action
\nand our existence. The seeker of Godhead has to get back to the reality of his immutable and eternal impersonal self and at
\nthe same time he has to see everywhere the Divine from whom he proceeds, to see him as all, to see him in the whole of this
\nmutable Nature and in every part and result of her and in all her workings, and there too to make himself one with God, there
\ntoo to live in him, to enter there too into the divine oneness. He unites in that integrality the divine calm and freedom of his deep
\nessential existence with a supreme power of instrumental action in his divinised self of Nature.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut how is this to be done? It can be done first by a right spirit in our will of works. The seeker has to regard all his
\naction as a sacrifice to the Lord of works who is the eternal and universal Being and his own highest Self and the Self of all others and the supreme all-inhabiting, all-containing, all-governing  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 457<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

Godhead in the universe. The whole action of Nature is such a sacrifice, \u2014 offered at first indeed to the divine Powers that
\nmove her and move in her, but these powers are only limited forms and names of the One and Illimitable. Man ordinarily
\noffers his sacrifice openly or under a disguise to his own ego; his oblation is the false action of his own self-will and ignorance. Or
\nhe offers his knowledge, action, aspiration, works of energy and effort to the gods for partial, temporal and personal aims. The
\nman of knowledge, the liberated soul offers on the contrary all his activities to the one eternal Godhead without any attachment
\nto their fruit or to the satisfaction of his lower personal desires. He works for God, not for himself, for the universal welfare,
\nfor the Soul of the world and not for any particular object which is of his own personal creation or for any construction
\nof his mental will or object of his vital longings, as a divine agent, not as a principal and
\nseparate profiteer in the world-commerce. And this, it must be noted, is a thing that cannot be really done except in proportion as the mind arrives at equality,
\nuniversality, wide impersonality, and a clear freedom from every disguise of the insistent ego: for without these things the claim
\nto be thus acting is a pretension or an illusion. The whole action of the world is the business of the Lord of the universe, the
\nconcern of the self-existent Spirit of whom it is the unceasing creation, the progressive becoming, the significant manifestation
\nand living symbol in Nature. The fruits are his, the results are those determined by him and our personal action is only a minor
\ncontribution ruled or overruled, so far as its motive is an egoistic claim, by this Self and Spirit in us who is the Self and Spirit in
\nall and governs things for the universal end and good and not for the sake of our ego. To work impersonally, desirelessly and
\nwithout attachment to the fruits of our work, for the sake of God and the world and the greater Self and the fulfilment of
\nthe universal will, \u2014 this is the first step towards liberation and perfection.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut beyond this step there lies that other greater motion, the inner surrender of all our actions to the Divinity within us.
\nFor it is infinite Nature that impels our works and a divine  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 458<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nWill in and above her that demands action of us; the choice and turn our ego gives to it is a contribution of our tamasic,
\nrajasic, sattwic quality, a deformation in the lower Nature. The deformation comes by the ego thinking of itself as the doer; the
\ncharacter of the act takes the form of the limited personal nature and the soul is bound up with that and its narrow figures and
\ndoes not allow the act to proceed freely and purely from the infinite power within it. And the ego is chained to the act and its
\noutcome; it must suffer the personal consequence and reaction even as it claims the responsible origination and personal will of
\nthe doing. The free perfect working comes first by referring and finally by surrendering altogether the action and its origination
\nto the divine Master of our existence; for we feel it progressively taken up by a supreme Presence within us, the soul drawn into
\ndeep intimacy and close unity with an inner Power and Godhead and the work originated directly from the greater Self, from the
\nall-wise, infinite, universal force of an eternal being and not from the ignorance of the little personal ego. The action is chosen and
\nshaped according to the nature, but entirely by the divine Will in the nature, and it is therefore free and perfect within, whatever
\nits outward appearance; it comes stamped with the inward spiritual seal of the Infinite as the thing to be done, the movement and
\nthe step of the movement decreed in the ways of the omniscient Master of action,
\nkartavyam karma<\/i>. The soul of the liberated man is free in its impersonality, even while he contributes to the
\naction as its means and its occasion his instrumental personal self-creation and the special will and power in his nature. That
\nwill and power is now not separately, egoistically his own, but a force of the suprapersonal Divine who acts in this becoming
\nof his own self, this one of his myriad personalities by means of the characteristic form of the natural being, the
\nswabhava. This
\n is the high secret and mystery, uttamam rahasyam<\/i>, of the action
\nof the liberated man. It is the result of a growing of the human soul into a divine Light and of the union of its nature with a
\nhighest universal nature. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThis change cannot come about except by knowledge. There is necessary a right
\nknowledge of self and God and world and a<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 459<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

living and growing into the greater consciousness to which that knowledge admits us. We know now what the knowledge is. It
\nis sufficient to remember that it reposes on another and wider vision than the human mental, a changed vision and experience
\nby which one is first of all liberated from the limitations of the ego sense and its contacts and feels and sees the one self in all,
\nall in God, all beings as Vasudeva, all as vessels of the Godhead and one’s self too as a significant being and soul-power of that
\none Godhead; it treats in a spiritual uniting consciousness all the happenings of the lives of others as if they were happenings
\nof one’s own life; it allows no wall of separation and lives in a universal sympathy with all existences, while amidst the
\nworld-movement one still does the work that has to be done for the <\/p>\n

good of all, sarva-bhūta-hite,<\/i> according to the way appointed by the Divine and in the measures imposed by the command
\nof the Spirit who is Master of Time. Thus living and acting in this knowledge the soul of man becomes united with the Eternal
\nin personality and in impersonality, lives in the Eternal though acting in Time, even as the Eternal acts, and is free, perfect and
\nblissful whatever may be the form and determination of the work done in Nature.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe liberated man has the complete and total knowledge,
\nkrtsnavid<\/i>, and does all works without any of the restrictions <\/p>\n

made by the mind, krtsna-karma-krt,<\/i> according to the force and <\/p>\n

freedom and infinite power of the divine will within him. And since he is united with the Eternal, he has too the pure spiritual
\nand illimitable joy of his eternal existence. He turns with adoration to the Self of whom he is a portion, the Master of his works
\nand divine Lover of his soul and nature. He is not an impassive calm spectator only; he lifts not only his knowledge and will to
\nthe Eternal, but his heart also of love and adoration and passion. For without that uplifting of the heart his whole nature is not
\nfulfilled and united with God; the ecstasy of the spirit’s calm needs to be transformed by the ecstasy of the soul’s Ananda.
\nBeyond the personal Jiva and the impersonal Brahman or Atman he reaches the supracosmic Purushottama who is immutable in
\nimpersonality and fulfils himself in personality and draws us to  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 460<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nhim through these two different attractions. The liberated seeker rises personally to that highest Numen by his soul’s love and joy
\nin God and the adoration of the will in him for the Master of its works; the peace and largeness of his impersonal universal
\nknowledge is perfected by delight in the self-existent integral close and intimate reality of this surpassing and universal Godhead. This delight glorifies his knowledge and unites it with the eternal delight of the Spirit in its self and its manifestation;
\nthis perfects too his personality in the superperson of the divine Purusha and makes his natural being and action one with eternal
\nbeauty, eternal harmony, eternal love and Ananda. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut all this change means a total passing from the lower human to the higher divine nature. It is a lifting of our whole being or at least of the whole mental being that wills, knows and feels
\nbeyond what we are into some highest spiritual consciousness, some satisfying fullest power of existence, some deepest widest
\ndelight of the spirit. And this may well be possible by a transcendence of our present natural life, it may well be possible in
\nsome celestial state beyond the earthly existence or still beyond in a supracosmic superconscience; it may happen by transition
\nto an absolute and infinite power and status of the Spirit. But while we are here in the body, here in life, here in action, what in
\nthis change becomes of the lower nature? For at present all our activities are determined in their trend and shape by the nature,
\nand this Nature here is the nature of the three gun<\/font>as, and in all natural being and in all natural activities there is the triple gun<\/font>a,
\ntamas with its ignorance and inertia, rajas with its kinesis and action, its passion and grief and perversion, sattwa with its light
\nand happiness, and the bondage of these things. And granted that the soul becomes superior in the self to the three gun<\/font>as,
\nhow does it escape in its instrumental nature from their working and result and bondage? For even the man of knowledge, says
\nthe Gita, must act according to his nature. To feel and bear the reactions of the gun<\/font>as in the outer manifestation, but to
\nbe free from them and superior in the observing conscious self behind is not sufficient; for it leaves still a dualism of freedom
\nand subjection, a contradiction between what we are within and   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 461<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

what we are without, between our self and our power, what we know ourselves to be and what we will and do. Where is the
\nrelease here, where the full elevation and transformation to the higher spiritual nature, the immortal Dharma, the law proper
\nto the infinite purity and power of a divine being? If this change cannot be effected while in the body, then so it must be said, that
\nthe whole nature cannot be transformed and there must remain an unreconciled duality until the mortal type of existence drops
\noff like a discarded shell from the spirit. But in that case the gospel of works cannot well be the right or at least cannot be
\nthe ultimate gospel: a perfect quiescence or at least as perfect a quiescence as possible, a progressive Sannyasa and renunciation
\nof works would seem still to be the true counsel of perfection, \u2014 as indeed the Mayavadin contends, who says that the Gita’s
\nway is no doubt the right way so long as we remain in action, but still all works are an illusion and quiescence the highest path. To
\nact in this spirit is well, but only as a transition to a renunciation of all works, to cessation, to an absolute quiescence.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThis is the difficulty which the Gita has still to meet in order to justify works to the seeker after the Spirit. Otherwise
\nit must say to Arjuna, “Act temporarily in this fashion, but afterwards seek the higher way of renunciation of works.” But
\non the contrary it has said that not the cessation of works, but renunciation of desire is the better way; it has spoken of
\nthe action of the liberated man, muktasya karma<\/i>. It has even
\n insisted on doing all actions, sarvā<\/font>n<\/font>i karmā<\/font>n<\/font>i,
\nkrtsna-karma. kr<\/font>t<\/i>; it has said that in whatever way the perfected Yogin lives <\/p>\n

and acts, he lives and acts in God. This can only be, if the nature
\nalso in its dynamics and workings becomes divine, a power imperturbable, intangible, inviolate, pure and untroubled by the
\nreactions of the inferior Prakriti. How and by what steps is this most difficult transformation to be effected? What is this last
\nsecret of the soul’s perfection? what the principle or the process of this transmutation of our human and earthly nature?
\n   <\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 462<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XVI   The Fullness of Spiritual Action   THE DEVELOPMENT of the idea of the Gita has reached a point at which one question alone…<\/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-2266","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\/2266","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=2266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}