{"id":3609,"date":"2013-07-13T01:49:57","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3609"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:49:57","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:49:57","slug":"03-the-human-disciple-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn\/03-the-human-disciple-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-03_The Human Disciple.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\nIII<\/font><\/b>
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE HUMAN DISCIPLE <\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nS<\/font>UCH THEN<\/font> is the divine Teacher of the Gita, the eternal Avatar,
\nthe Divine who has descended into the human consciousness, the
\nLord seated within the heart of all beings, He who guides from behind the veil all our thought and action and heart’s seeking even as
\nHe directs from behind the veil of visible and sensible forms and
\nforces and tendencies the great universal action of the world which
\nHe has manifested in His own being. All the strife of our upward
\nendeavour and seeking finds its culmination and ceases in a satisfied
\nfulfilment when we can rend the veil and get behind our apparent
\nself to this real Self, can realize our whole being in this true Lord
\nof our being, can give up our personality to and into this one real
\nPerson, merge our ever-dispersed and ever-converging mental activities into His plenary light, offer up our errant and struggling will and
\nenergies into His vast, luminous and undivided Will, at once renounce and satisfy all our dissipated outward-moving desires and emotions
\nin the plenitude of His self-existent Bliss, This is the world Teacher of whose eternal knowledge all other highest teaching is but
\nthe various reflection and partial word, this the Voice to which the
\nhearing of our soul has to awaken. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nArjuna, the disciple who receives his initiation on the battle-field,
\nis a counterpart of this conception; he is the type of the struggling
\nhuman soul who has not yet received the knowledge, but has grown
\nfit to receive it by action in the world in a close companionship and
\nan increasing nearness to the higher and divine Self in humanity.
\nThere is a method of explaining the Gita in which not only this
\nepisode but the whole Mahabharata is turned into an allegory of the
\ninner life and has nothing to do with our outward human life and
\naction, but only with the battles of the soul and the powers that strive
\nwithin us for possession. That is a view which the general character
\nand the actual language of the epic does not justify and, if pressed,
\nwould turn the straightforward philosophical language of the Gita <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-19<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ninto a constant, laborious and somewhat puerile mystification. The
\nlanguage o\u00a3 the Veda and part at least of the Puranas is plainly symbolic, full of figures and concrete representations of things that lie
\nbehind the veil, hut the Gita is written in plain terms and professes ‘
\nto solve the great ethical and spiritual difficulties which the life of
\nman raises, and it will not do to go behind this plain language and
\nthought and wrest them to the service of our fancy. But there is this
\nmuch of truth in the view, that the setting of the doctrine though not
\nsymbolical, is certainly typical, as indeed the setting of such a discourse as the Gita must necessarily be if it is to have any relation at
\nall with that which it frames. Arjuna, as we have seen, is the representative man of a great world-struggle and divinely-guided movement
\nof men and nations; in the Gita he typifies the human soul of action
\nbrought face to face through that action in its highest and most violent crisis with the problem of human life and its apparent incompatibility with the spiritual state or even with a purely ethical ideal of perfection. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nArjuna is the fighter in the chariot with the divine Krishna as his charioteer. In the Veda also we have this image of the human soul
\nand the divine riding in one chariot through a great battle to the goal
\nof a high-aspiring effort. But there it is a pure figure and symbol.
\nThe Divine is there Indra, the Master of the World of Light and
\nImmortality, the power of divine knowledge which descends to the
\naid of the human seeker battling with the sons of falsehood, darkness,
\nlimitation, mortality; the battle is with spiritual enemies who bar the
\nway to the higher world of our being; and the goal is that plane of
\nvast being resplendent with the light of the supreme Truth and uplifted to the conscious immortality of the perfected soul, of which Indra is the master. The human soul is Kutsa, he who constantly seeks
\nthe seer-knowledge, as his name implies, and he is the son of Arjuna
\nor Arjuni, the White One, child of Switra the White Mother, he is,
\nthat is to say, the sattwic or purified and light-filled soul which is open
\nto the unbroken glories of the divine knowledge. And when the
\nchariot reaches the end of its journey, the own home of Indra, the
\nhuman Kutsa has grown into such an exact likeness of his divine
\ncompanion that he can only be distinguished by Sachi, the wife
\nof Indra, because she is "truth conscious." The parable is evidently
\nof the inner life of man; it is a figure of the human growing into
\nthe likeness of the eternal divine by the increasing illumination of <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-20<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nKnowledge. But the Gita starts from action and Arjuna is the man
\nof action and not of knowledge, the fighter, never the seer or the
\nthinker. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nFrom the beginning of the Gita this characteristic temperament of
\nthe disciple is clearly indicated and it is maintained throughout.
\n<\/b>It
\n<\/b>becomes first evident in the manner in which he is awakened to the
\nsense of what he is doing, the great slaughter of which he is to be the
\nchief instrument, in the thoughts which immediately rise in him, in
\nthe standpoint and the psychological motives which make him recoil
\nfrom the whole terrible catastrophe. They are not the thoughts, the
\nstandpoint, the motives of a philosophical or even of a deeply reflective mind or a spiritual temperament confronted with the same or a
\nsimilar problem. They are those, as we might say, of the practical or
\nthe pragmatic man, the emotional, sensational, moral and intelligent
\nhuman being not habituated to profound and original reflection or any
\nsounding of the depths, accustomed rather to high but fixed standards
\nof thought and action and a confident treading through all vicissitudes
\nand difficulties, who now finds all his standards failing him and all
\nthe basis of his confidence in himself and his life shorn away from
\nunder him at a single stroke. That is the nature of the crisis which
\nhe undergoes. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nArjuna is, in the language of the Gita, a man subject to the action
\nof the three gunas or modes of the Nature-Force and habituated to
\nmove unquestioningly in that field, like the generality of men. He
\njustifies his name only in being so far pure and sattwic as to be governed by high and clear principles and impulses and habitually control his lower nature by the noblest Law which he knows. He is not
\nof a violent Asuric disposition, not the slave of his passions, but has
\nbeen trained to a high calm and self-control, to an unswerving performance of his duties and firm obedience to the best principles of the
\ntime and society in which he has lived and the religion and ethics to
\nwhich he has been brought up. He is egoistic like other men, but with
\nthe purer or sattwic egoism which regards the moral law and society
\nand the claims of others and not only or predominantly his own interests, desires and passions. He has lived and guided himself by the
\nShastra, the moral and social code. The thought which preoccupies
\nhim, the standard which he obeys is the dharma,<\/i> that collective Indian conception of the religious, social and moral rule of conduct,
\nand especially the rule of the station and function to which he be<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-21<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nlongs, he the Kshatriya., the high-minded, self-governed, chivalrous
\nprince and warrior and leader o\u00a3 Aryan men. Following always this
\nrule, conscious of virtue and right dealing he has travelled so far and
\nfinds suddenly that it has led him to become the protagonist of a
\nterrific and unparalleled slaughter, a monstrous civil war involving
\nall the cultured Aryan nations which must lead to the complete destruction of the flower of their manhood and threatens their ordered
\ncivilisation with chaos and collapse, <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIt is typical again of the pragmatic man that it is through his sensations that he awakens to the meaning of his action. He has asked
\nhis friend and charioteer to place him between the two armies, not
\nwith any profounder idea, but with the proud intention of viewing
\nand looking in the face these myriads of the champions of unrighteousness whom he has to meet and conquer and slay "in this holiday
\nof fight" so that the right may prevail. It is as he gazes that the revelation of the meaning of a civil and domestic war comes home to him,
\na war in which not only men of the same race, the same nation, the
\nsame clan, but those of the same family and household stand upon
\nopposite sides. All whom the social man holds most dear and sacred he must meet
\nas enemies and slay,\u2014the worshipped teacher and preceptor, the old friend, comrade and companion in arms, grandsires
\nuncles, those who stood in the relation to him of father, of son, o
\ngrandson, connections by blood and connections by marriage,\u2014al
\nthese social ties have to be cut asunder by the sword. It is not that
\nhe did not know these things before, but he has never realised it all
\nobsessed by his claims and wrongs and by the principles of his life
\nthe struggle for the right, the duty of the Kshatriya to protect justice
\nand the law and fight and beat down injustice and lawless violence
\nhe has neither thought out deeply nor felt it in his heart and at the <\/i>core of his life. And now it is shown to his vision by the divine
\ncharioteer, placed sensationally before his eyes, and comes home to
\nhim like a blow delivered at the very centre of his sensational, vital
\nand emotional being. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe first result is a violent sensational and physical. crisis which
\nproduces a disgust of the action and its material objects and of life
\nitself. He rejects the vital aim pursued by egoistic humanity in its
\naction,\u2014happiness and enjoyment; he rejects the vital aim of the
\nKshatriya, victory and rule and power and the government of men.
\nWhat after all is this fight for justice when reduced to its practical <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-22<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nterms, but just this, a fight for the interests of himself, his brothers
\nand his party, for possession and enjoyment and rule? But at such a
\ncost these things are not worth having. For they are of no value in
\nthemselves, but only as a means to the right maintenance of social
\nand national life and it is these very aims that in the person of his
\nkin and his race he is about to destroy. And then comes the cry of the
\nemotions. These are they for whose sake life and happiness are desired, our "own people." Who would consent to slay these for the
\nsake of all the earth, or even for the kingdom of the three worlds?
\nWhat pleasure can there be in life, what happiness, what satisfaction
\nin oneself after such a deed? The whole thing is a dreadful sin,\u2014for
\nnow the moral sense awakens to justify the revolt of the sensations
\nand the emotions. It is a sin, there is no right nor justice in mutual
\nslaughter; especially are those who are to be slain the natural objects
\nof reverence and of love, those without whom one would not care to
\nlive, and to violate these sacred feelings can be no virtue, can be
\nnothing but a heinous crime. Granted that the offence, the aggression,
\nthe first sin, the crimes of greed and selfish passion which have
\nbrought things to such a pass came from the other side; yet armed
\nresistance to wrong under such circumstances would be itself a sin
\nand crime worse than theirs because they are blinded by passion and
\nunconscious of guilt, while on this side it would be with a clear sense
\nof guilt that the sin would be committed. And for what? For the
\nmaintenance of family morality, of the social law and the law of the
\nnation? These are the very standards that will be destroyed by this
\ncivil war; the family itself will be brought to the point of annihilation,
\ncorruption of morals and loss of the purity of race will be engendered,
\nthe eternal laws of the race and moral law of the family will be destroyed. Ruin of the race, the collapse of its high traditions, ethical
\ndegradation and hell for the authors of such a crime, these are the
\nonly practical results possible of this monstrous civil strife. "Therefore," cries Arjuna, casting down the divine bow and inexhaustible
\nquiver given to him by the gods for that tremendous hour, "it is
\nmore for my welfare that the sons of Dhritarashtra armed should slay
\nDie unarmed and unresisting. I will not fight." <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe character of this inner crisis is therefore not the questioning
\nof the thinker; it is not a recoil from the appearances of life and a
\nturning of the eye inward in search of the truth of things, the real
\nmeaning of existence and a solution or an escape from the dark riddle     <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nPage-23<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nof the world. It is the sensational, emotional and moral revolt o\u00a3 the
\nman hitherto satisfied with action and its current standards who finds
\nhimself cast by them into a hideous chaos where they are in violent
\nconflict with each other and with themselves and there is no moral
\nstanding-ground left, nothing to lay hold of and walk by, no dharma.1<\/sup>
\n<\/i>That for the soul of action in the mental being is the worst possible
\ncrisis, failure and overthrow. The revolt itself is the most elemental
\nand simple possible; sensationally, the elemental feeling of horror,
\npity and disgust; vitally, the loss of attraction and faith in the recognised and familiar objects of action and aims of life; emotionally, the
\nrecoil of the ordinary feelings of social man, affection, reverence, desire of a common happiness and satisfaction, from a stern duty outraging them all; morally, the elementary sense of sin and hell and
\nrejection of "blood-stained enjoyments"; practically, the sense that
\nthe standards of action have led to a result which destroys the practical
\naims of action. But the whole upshot is that all-embracing inner
\nbankruptcy which Arjuna expresses when he says that his whole
\nconscious being, not the thought alone but heart and vital desires
\nand all, are utterly bewildered and can find nowhere the dharma,
\n<\/i>nowhere any valid law of action. For this alone he takes refuge as a
\ndisciple with Krishna; give me, he practically asks, that which I have
\nlost, a true law, a clear rule of action, a path by which I can again
\nconfidently walk. He does not ask for the secret of life or of the world, \u201e
\nthe meaning and purpose of it all, but for a dharma.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nYet it is precisely this secret for which he does not ask, or at least
\nso much of the knowledge as is necessary to lead him into a higher
\nlife, to which the divine Teacher intends to lead this disciple; for he
\nmeans him to give up all dharmas<\/i> except the one broad and vast rule
\nof living consciously in the Divine and acting from that consciousness.
\nTherefore after testing the completeness of his revolt from the ordinary
\nstandards of conduct, he proceeds to tell him much that has to do
\nwith the state of the soul, but nothing of any outward rule of action.
\nHe must be equal in soul, abandon the desire of the fruits of work,
\nrise above his intellectual notions of sin and virtue, live and act in
\nYoga with a mind in Samadhi, firmly fixed, that is to say, in the
\nDivine alone. Arjuna is not satisfied: he wishes to know how the
\nchange to this state will affect the outward action of the man, what <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1<\/sup> dharma<\/i> means literally that which one lays hold of and which holds things
\ntogether, the law, the norm, the rule of nature, action and life. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-24<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nresult it will have on his speech, his movements, his state, what
\ndifference it will make in this acting, living human being. Krishna
\npersists merely in enlarging upon the ideas he has already brought
\nforward, on the soul-state behind the action, not on the action itself. It is the fixed anchoring of the intelligence in a state of desireless
\nequality that is the one thing needed. Arjuna breaks out impatiently,
\n\u2014for here is no rule of conduct such as he sought, but rather, as it
\nseems to him, the negation of all action,\u2014"If thou boldest the intelligence to be greater than action, why then dost thou appoint me to
\nan action terrible in its nature? Thou bewilderest my understanding
\nwith a mingled word: speak one thing decisively by which I can
\nattain to what is the best." It is always the pragmatic man who has no
\nvalue for metaphysical thought or for the inner life except when they
\nhelp him to his one demand, a Sharma,<\/i> a law of life in the world
\nor, if need be, of leaving the world; for that too is a decisive action
\nwhich he can understand. But to live and act in the world, yet be
\nabove it, this is a "mingled" and confusing word the sense of which
\nhe has no patience to grasp. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe rest of Arjuna’s questions and utterances proceed from the
\nsame temperament and character. When he is told that once the soul-state is assured there need be no apparent change in the action, he
\nmust act always by the law of his nature, even if the act itself seem
\nfaulty and deficient compared with that of another law than his own,
\nhe is troubled. The nature! but what of this sense of sin in the action
\nwith which he is preoccupied? is it not this very nature which drives
\nmen as if by force and even against their better will into sin and
\nguilt? His practical intelligence is baffled by Krishna’s assertion that
\nit was he who in ancient times revealed to Vivasvan this Yoga, since
\nlost, which he is now again revealing to Arjuna, and by his demand
\nfor an explanation he provokes the famous and oft-quoted statement
\nof Avatarhood and its mundane purpose. He is again perplexed by the
\nwords in which Krishna continues to reconcile action and renunciation of action and asks once again for a decisive statement of that
\nwhich is the best and highest, not this "mingled" word. When he
\nrealises fully the nature of the Yoga which he is bidden to embrace,
\nhis pragmatic nature accustomed to act from mental will and preference and desire is appalled by its difficulty and he asks what is the
\nend of the soul which attempts and fails, whether it does not lose <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-25<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nboth this life of human activity and thought and emotion which it
\nhas left behind and the Brahmic consciousness to which it aspires and
\nfalling from both perish like a dissolving cloud? <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nWhen his doubts and perplexities are resolved and he knows that
\nit is the Divine which must be his law, he aims again and always at
\nsuch clear and decisive knowledge as will guide him practically to
\nthis source and this rule of his future action. How is the Divine to
\nbe distinguished among the various states of being which constitute
\nour ordinary experience? What are the great manifestations of its
\nself-energy in the world in which he can recognise and realise it by
\nmeditation? May he not see even now the divine cosmic Form of That
\nwhich is actually speaking to him through the veil of the human
\nmind and body? And his last questions demand a clear distinction
\nbetween renunciation of works and this subtler renunciation he is
\nasked to prefer; the actual difference between Purusha and Prakriti,
\nthe Field and the Knower of the Field, so important for the practice
\nof desireless action under the drive of the divine Will; and finally a
\nclear statement of the practical operations and results of the three
\nmodes of Prakriti which he is bidden to surmount. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nTo such a disciple the Teacher of the Gita gives his divine teaching.
\nHe seizes him at a moment of his psychological development by
\negoistic action when all the mental, moral, emotional values of the
\nordinary egoistic and social life of man have collapsed in a sudden
\nbankruptcy, and he has to lift him up out of this lower life into a
\nhigher consciousness, out of ignorant attachment to action into that
\nwhich transcends, yet originates and orders action, out of ego into
\nSelf, out of life in mind, vitality and body into that higher nature
\nbeyond mind which is the status of the Divine. He has at the same
\ntime to give him that for which he asks and for which he is inspired
\nto seek by the guidance within him, a new Law of life and action
\nhigh above the insufficient rule of the ordinary human existence with
\nits endless conflicts and oppositions, perplexities and illusory certainties, a higher Law by which the soul shall be free from this bondage
\nof works and yet powerful to act and conquer in the vast liberty of its
\ndivine being. For the action must be performed, the world must fulfil
\nits cycles and the soul of the human being must not turn back in
\nignorance from the work it is here to do. The whole course of the
\nteaching of the Gita is determined and directed, even in its widest
\nwheelings, towards the fulfilment of these three objects. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-26<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

III   THE HUMAN DISCIPLE   SUCH THEN is the divine Teacher of the Gita, the eternal Avatar, the Divine who has descended into the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","wpcat-90-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3609","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=3609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}