{"id":3616,"date":"2013-07-13T01:49:59","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3616"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:49:59","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:49:59","slug":"37-the-field-and-its-knower-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\/37-the-field-and-its-knower-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-37_The Field and its Knower.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n
\nBOOK TWO-PART II <\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE SUPREME SECRET <\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nTHE FIELD AND ITS KNOWER* <\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nT<\/font>HE GITA<\/font> in its last six chapters, in order to found on a clear and
\ncomplete knowledge the way of the soul’s rising out of the lower into
\nthe divine nature, restates in another form the enlightenment the
\nTeacher has already imparted to Arjuna. Essentially it is the same
\nknowledge, but details and relations are now made prominent and
\nassigned their entire significance, thoughts and truths brought out in
\ntheir full value that were alluded to only in passing or generally
\nstated in the light of another purpose. Thus in the first six chapters
\nthe knowledge necessary for the distinction between the immutable
\nself and the soul veiled in nature was accorded an entire prominence.
\nThe references to the supreme Self and Purusha were summary and
\nnot at all explicit; it was assumed in order to justify works in the
\nworld and it was affirmed to be the Master of being, but there was
\notherwise nothing to show what it was and its relations to the rest
\nwere not even hinted at, much less developed. The remaining chapters are devoted to the bringing out of this suppressed knowledge
\nin a conspicuous light and strong pre-eminence. It is to the Lord,
\nthe Ishwara, it is to the distinction of the higher and the lower nature
\nand to the vision of the all-originating and all-constituting Godhead
\nin Nature, it is to the One in all beings that prominence has been
\nassigned in the next six Adhyayas (7-12) in order to found a root
\nunity of works and love with knowledge. But now it is necessary
\nto bring out more definitely the precise relations between the supreme
\nPurusha, the immutable Self, the Jiva and Prakriti in her action and
\nher gunas. Arjuna is therefore made to put a question which shall
\nevoke a clearer elucidation of these still ill-lighted matters. He asks
\nto learn of the Purusha and the Prakriti; he inquires of the field of
\nbeing and the knower of the field and of knowledge and the object
\nof knowledge. Here is contained the sum of all the knowledge of
\nself and the world that is still needed if the soul is to throw off its <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n*<\/font><\/i> Gita, XIII.
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-365<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nnatural ignorance and staying its steps on a right use of knowledge,
\nof life, of works and of its own relations with the Divine in these
\nthings ascend into unity of being with the eternal Spirit of existence. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe essence of the Gita’s ideas in these matters has already, anticipating the final evolution of its thought, been elucidated in a certain
\nmeasure; but, following its example, we may state them again from
\nthe point of view of its present preoccupation. Action being admitted,
\na divine action done with self-knowledge as the instrument of the
\ndivine Will in the cosmos being accepted as perfectly consistent with
\nthe Brahmic status and an indispensable part of the Godward movement, that action being uplifted inwardly as a sacrifice with adoration to the Highest, how does this way practically affect the great
\nobject of spiritual life, the rising from the lower into the higher nature,
\nfrom mortal into immortal being? All life, all works are a transaction
\nbetween the soul and Nature. What is the original character of that
\ntransaction? what does it become at its spiritual culminating point? to
\nwhat perfection does it lead the soul that gets free from its lower
\nand external motives and grows inwardly into the very highest poise
\nof the Spirit and deepest motive-force of the works of its energy in
\nthe universe? These are the questions involved,\u2014there are others
\nwhich the Gita does not raise or answer, for they were not pressingly
\npresent to the human mind of that day,\u2014and they are replied to in the
\nsense of the solution drawn from a large-sighted combination of the
\nVedantic Sankhya and Yoga views of existence which is the startingpoint of the whole thought of the Gita. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe Soul which finds itself here embodied in Nature has a
\ntriple reality to its own self-experience. First, it is a spiritual being
\napparently subjected by ignorance to the outward workings of
\nPrakriti and represented in her mobility as an acting, thinking,
\nmutable personality, a creature of Nature, an ego. Next when it gets
\nbehind all this action and motion, it finds its own higher reality to
\nbe an eternal and impersonal self and immutable spirit which has
\nno other share in the action and movement than to support it by its
\npresence and regard it as an undisturbed equal witness. And, last,
\nwhen it looks beyond these two opposite selves, it discovers a greater
\nineffable Reality from which both proceed, the Eternal who is Self
\nof the self and the Master of all Nature and all action, and not only
\nthe Master, but the origin and the spiritual support and scene of
\nthese workings of his own energy in cosmos, and not only the origin <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-366<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nand spiritual container, but the spiritual inhabitant in all forces,
\nin all things and in all beings, and not only the inhabitant but, by
\nthe developments of this eternal energy of his being which we call
\nNature, himself all energies and forces, all things and all beings.
\nThis Nature itself is of two kinds, one derived and inferior, another
\noriginal and supreme. There is a lower nature of the cosmic mechanism by association with which the soul in Prakriti lives in a
\ncertain ignorance born of Maya, traiganyamayī māyā,<\/i> conceives of
\nitself as an ego of embodied mind and life, works under the power of
\nthe modes of Nature, thinks itself bound, suffering, limited by personality, chained to the obligation of birth and the wheel of action,
\na thing of desires, transient, mortal, a slave of its own nature. Above
\nthis inferior power of existence there is a higher divine and spiritual
\nnature of its own true being in which this soul is for ever a conscious
\nportion of the Eternal and Divine, blissful, free, superior to its mask
\nof becoming, immortal, imperishable, a power of the Godhead. To
\nrise by this higher nature to the Eternal through divine knowledge,
\nlove and works founded on a spiritual universality is the key of the
\ncomplete spiritual liberation. This much has been made clear; and
\nwe have to see now more in detail what farther considerations this
\nchange of being involves and especially what is the difference between
\nthese two natures and how our action and our soul-status are affected
\nby the liberation. For that purpose the Gita enters largely into certain
\ndetails of the highest knowledge which it had hitherto kept in the
\nbackground. Especially it dwells on the relation between Being and
\nbecoming, Soul and Nature, the action of the three gunas, the highest liberation, the largest fullest self-giving of the human soul to the
\nDivine Spirit. There is in all that it says in these closing six chapters
\nmuch of the greatest importance, but it is the last thought with which
\nit closes that is of supreme interest; for in it we shall find the central
\nidea of its teaching, its great word to the soul of man, its highest
\nmessage. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nFirst, the whole of existence must be regarded as a field of the
\nsoul’s construction and action in the midst of Nature. The Gita
\nexplains the ksetram,<\/i> field, by saying that it is this body which is
\ncalled the field of the spirit, and in this body there is some one who
\ntakes cognizance of the field, ksetraj\u00f1a,<\/i> the knower of Nature. It is evident, however, from the definitions that succeed that it is not the physical body alone which is the field, but all too that the body supports, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-367<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthe working of nature, the mentality, the natural action of the objectivity and subjectivity of our being.1 This wider body too is only the
\nindividual field; there is a larger, a universal, a world-body, a world-field of the same knower. For in each embodied creature there is this
\none Knower: in each existence he uses mainly and centrally this single
\noutward result of the power of his nature which he has formed for his
\nhabitation, īśā vāsyam sarvam yat ki\u00f1ca,<\/i> makes each separate sustained
\nknot of his mobile Energy the first base and scope of his developing
\nharmonies. In Nature he knows the world as it affects and is reflected by the consciousness in this one limited body; the world exists
\nto us as it is seen in our single mind,\u2014and in the end, even, this
\nseemingly small embodied consciousness can so enlarge itself that it
\ncontains in itself the whole universe, ātmani viśva-darśanam.<\/i> But,
\nphysically, it is a microcosm in a macrocosm, and the macrocosm too,
\nthe large world too, is a body and field inhabited by the spiritual
\nknower. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThat becomes evident when the Gita proceeds to state the character, nature, source, deformations, powers of this sensible embodiment
\nof our being. We see then that it is the whole working of the lower
\nPrakriti that is meant by the ksetra.<\/i> That totality is the field of action
\nof the embodied spirit here within us, the field of which it takes cognizance. For a varied and detailed knowledge of all this world of
\nNature in its essential action as seen from the spiritual view-point we
\nare referred to the verses of the ancient seers, the seers of the Veda
\nand Upanishads, in which we get the inspired and intuitive account
\nof these creations of the Spirit, and to the Brahma Sutras which will
\ngive us the rational and philosophic analysis. The Gita contents itself
\nwith a brief practical statement of the lower nature of our being in
\nthe terms of the Sankhya thinkers. First there is the indiscriminate
\nunmanifest Energy; out of that has come the objective evolution of
\nthe five elemental states of matter; as also the subjective evolution of
\nthe senses, intelligence and ego; there are too five objects of the senses,
\nor rather five different ways of sense cognizance of the world, powers
\nevolved by the universal energy in order to deal with all the forms
\nof things she has created from the five elemental states assumed by her
\noriginal objective substance,\u2014organic relations by which the ego endowed <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1<\/sup> The Upanishad speaks of a fivefold body or sheath of Nature, a physical,
\nvital, mental, ideal and divine body; this may be regarded as the totality of the
\nfield, ksetram,<\/i> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-368<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nwith intelligence and sense acts on the formations of the
\ncosmos: this is the constitution of the kshetra. Then there is a general
\nconsciousness that first informs and then illumines the Energy in its
\nworks; there is a faculty of that consciousness by which the Energy
\nholds together the relations of objects; there is too a continuity, a
\npersistence of the subjective and objective relations of our consciousness with its objects. These are the necessary powers of the field; all
\nthese are common and universal powers at once of the mental, vital
\nand physical Nature. Pleasure and pain, liking and disliking are the
\nprincipal deformations of the kshetra. From the Vedantic point of view
\nwe may say that pleasure and pain are the vital or sensational deformations given by the lower energy to the spontaneous Ananda or
\ndelight of the spirit when brought into contact with her workings.
\nAnd we may say from the same view-point that liking and disliking
\nare the corresponding mental deformations given by her to the reactive
\nWill of the spirit that determines its response to her contacts. These
\ndualities are the positive and negative terms in which the ego-soul
\nof the lower nature enjoys the universe. The negative terms, pain, dislike, sorrow, repulsion and the rest, are perverse or at the best ignorantly reverse responses: the positive terms, liking, pleasure, joy,
\nattraction, are ill-guided responses or at the best insufficient and in
\ncharacter inferior to those of the true spiritual experience. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAll these things taken together constitute the fundamental character of our first transactions with the world of Nature, but it is evidently not the whole description of our being; it is our actuality but
\nnot the limit of our possibilities. There is something beyond to be
\nknown, j\u00f1eyam,<\/i> and it is when the knower of the field turns from
\nthe field itself to learn of himself within it and of all that is behind
\nits appearances that real knowledge begins, j\u00f1ānam,\u2014<\/i>the true knowledge of the field no less than of the knower. That turning inward
\nalone delivers from ignorance. For the farther we go inward, the more
\nwe seize on greater and fuller realities of things and grasp the complete truth both of God and the soul and of the world and its movements. Therefore, says the divine Teacher, it is the knowledge at
\nonce of the field and its knower, ksetra-ksetraj\u00f1ayor j\u00f1ānam,<\/i> a united
\nand even unified self-knowledge and world-knowledge, which is the
\nreal illumination and the only wisdom. For both soul and nature are the Brahman, but the true truth of the world of Nature can only be
\ndiscovered by the liberated sage who possesses also the truth of the <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-369<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nspirit. One Brahman, one reality in Self and Nature is the object of all
\nknowledge. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe Gita then tells us what is the spiritual knowledge or rather it tells us what are the conditions of knowledge, the marks, the
\nsigns of the man whose soul is turned towards the inner wisdom.
\nThese signs are the recognised and traditional characteristics of the
\nsage,\u2014his strong turning away of the heart from attachment to outward and worldly things, his inward and brooding spirit, his steady
\nmind and calm equality, the settled fixity of his thought and will upon
\nthe greatest inmost truths, upon the things that are real and eternal.
\nFirst, there comes a certain moral condition, a sattwic government of
\nthe natural being. There is fixed in him a total absence of worldly
\npride and arrogance, a candid soul, a tolerant, long-suffering and
\nbenignant heart, purity of mind and body, tranquil firmness and
\nsteadfastness, self-control and a masterful government of the lower
\nnature and the heart’s worship given to the Teacher, whether to
\nthe divine Teacher within or to the human Master in whom the
\ndivine Wisdom is embodied,\u2014for that is the sense of the reverence
\ngiven to the Guru. Then there is a nobler and freer attitude of perfect detachment and equality, a firm removal of the natural being’s
\nattraction to the objects of the senses and a radical freedom from
\nthe claims of that constant clamorous ego-sense, ego idea, ego motive
\nwhich tyrannises over the normal man. There is no longer any clinging to the attachment and absorption of family and home. There is
\ninstead of these vital and animal movements an unattached will and
\nsense and intelligence, a keen perception of the defective nature of
\nthe ordinary life of physical man with its aimless and painful subjection to birth and death and disease and age, a constant equalness to
\nall pleasant or unpleasant happenings,\u2014for the soul is seated within
\nand impervious to the shocks of external events,\u2014and a meditative
\nmind turned towards solitude and away from the vain noise of crowds
\nand the assemblies of men. Finally, there is a strong turn within
\ntowards the things that really matter, a philosophic perception of the
\ntrue sense and large principles of existence, a tranquil continuity of
\ninner spiritual knowledge and light, the Yoga of an unswerving devotion, love of God, the heart’s deep and constant adoration of the universal and eternal Presence. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe one object to which the mind of spiritual knowledge must be turned is the Eternal by fixity in whom the soul clouded here and <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-370<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nswathed in the mists of Nature recovers and enjoys its native and
\noriginal consciousness of immortality and transcendence. To be fixed
\non the transient, to be limited in the phenomenon is to accept mortality; the constant truth in things that perish is that in them which
\nis inward and immutable. The soul when it allows itself to be tyrannised over by the appearances of Nature, misses itself and goes
\nwhirling about in the cycle of the births and deaths of its bodies.
\nThere, passionately following without end the mutations of personality and its interests, it cannot draw back to the possession of its
\nimpersonal and unborn self-existence. To be able to do that is to find
\noneself and get back to one’s true being, that which assumes these
\nbirths but does not perish with the perishing of its forms. To enjoy
\nthe eternity to which birth and life are only outward circumstances,
\nis the soul’s true immortality and transcendence. That Eternal or that
\nEternity is the Brahman. Brahman is That which is transcendent and
\nThat which is universal: it is the free spirit who supports in front
\nthe play of soul with nature and assures behind their imperishable
\noneness; it is at once the mutable and the immutable, the All that is the One. In his highest supracosmic status Brahman is a transcendent Eternity without origin or change far above the phenomenal
\noppositions of existence and non-existence, persistence, and transience
\nbetween which the outward world moves. But once seen in the substance and light of this eternity, the world also becomes other than it
\nseems to the mind and senses; for then we see the universe no longer
\nas a whirl of mind and life and matter or a mass of the determinations
\nof energy and substance, but as no other than this eternal Brahman.
\nA spirit who immeasurably fills and surrounds all this movement with
\nhimself\u2014for indeed the movement too is himself\u2014and who throws
\non all that is finite the splendour of his garment of infinity, a bodiless
\nand million-bodied spirit whose hands of strength and feet of swiftness are on every side of us, whose heads and eyes and faces are
\nthose innumerable visages which we see wherever we turn, whose
\near is everywhere listening to the silence of eternity and the music of
\nthe worlds, is the universal Being in whose embrace we live. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAll relations of Soul and Nature are circumstances in the eternity
\nof Brahman; sense and quality, their reflectors and constituents, are
\nthis supreme Soul’s devices for the presentation of the workings that
\nhis own energy in things constantly liberates into movement. He is
\nhimself beyond the limitation of the senses, sees all things but not <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-371<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nwith the physical eye, hears all things but not with the physical ear, is aware of all things hut not with the limiting mind
\n\u2014mind which represents hut cannot truly know. Not determined
\nby any qualities, he possesses and determines in his substance all
\nqualities and enjoys this qualitative action of his own Nature. He is
\nattached to nothing, bound by nothing, fixed to nothing that he
\ndoes; calm, he supports in a large and immortal freedom all the
\naction and movement and passion of his universal Shakti. He becomes
\nall that is in the universe; that which is in us is he and all that we
\nexperience outside ourselves is he. The inward and the outward, the
\nfar and the near, the moving and the unmoving, all this he is at once.
\nHe is the subtlety of the subtle which is beyond our knowledge, even
\nas he is the density of force and substance which offers itself to the
\ngrasp of our minds. He is indivisible and the One, but seems to
\ndivide himself in forms and creatures and appears as all these separate existences. All things can get back in him, can return in the
\nSpirit to the indivisible unity of their self-existence. All is eternally
\nborn from him, upborne in his eternity, taken eternally back into his
\noneness. He is the light of all lights and luminous beyond all the
\ndarkness of our ignorance. He is knowledge and the object of knowledge. The spiritual supramental knowledge that floods the illumined
\nmind and transfigures it is this spirit manifesting himself in light
\nto the force-obscured soul which he has put forth into the action of
\nNature. This eternal Light is in the heart of every being; it is he who
\nis the secret knower of the field, ksetraj\u00f1a,<\/i> and presides as the Lord
\nin the heart of things over this province and over all these kingdoms
\nof his manifested becoming and action. When man sees this eternal
\nand universal Godhead within himself, when he becomes aware of
\nthe soul in all things and discovers the spirit in Nature, when he
\nfeels all the universe as a wave mounting in this Eternity and all
\nthat is as the one existence, he puts on the light of Godhead and
\nstands free in the midst of the worlds of Nature. A divine knowledge
\nand a perfect turning with adoration to this Divine is the secret of
\nthe great spiritual liberation. Freedom, love and spiritual knowledge
\nraise us from mortal nature to immortal being. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe Soul and Nature are only two aspects of the eternal Brahman,
\nan apparent duality which founds the operations of his universal
\nexistence. The Soul is without origin and eternal, Nature too is
\nwithout origin and eternal; but the modes of Nature and the lower <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-372<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nforms she assumes to our conscious experience have an origin in the
\ntransactions of these two entities. They come from her, wear by
\nher the outward chain of cause and effect, doing and the results of
\ndoing, force and its workings, all that is here transient and mutable.
\nConstantly they change and the soul and Nature seem to change with
\nthem, but in themselves these two powers are eternal and always the
\nsame. Nature creates and acts, the Soul enjoys her creation and action; <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nbut in this inferior form of her action she turns this enjoyment into
\nthe obscure and petty figures of pain and pleasure. Forcibly the soul,
\nthe individual Purusha, is attracted by her qualitative workings and
\nthis attraction of her qualities draws him constantly to births of all
\nkinds in which he enjoys the variation and vicissitudes, the good and
\nevil of birth in Nature. But this is only the outward experience of the
\nsoul mutable in conception by identification with mutable Nature.
\nSeated in this body is her and our Divinity, the supreme Self, Paramatman, the supreme Soul, the mighty Lord of Nature, who watches
\nher action, sanctions her operations, upholds all she does, commands
\nher manifold creation, enjoys with his universal delight this play
\nof her figures of his own being. That is the self-knowledge to which
\nwe have to accustom our mentality before we can truly know ourselves
\nas an eternal portion of the Eternal. Once that is fixed, no matter
\nhow the soul in us may comport itself outwardly in its transactions
\nwith Nature, whatever it may seem to do or however it may seem
\nto assume this or that figure of personality and active force and
\nembodied ego, it is in itself free, no longer bound to birth because
\none through impersonality of self with the inner unborn spirit of
\nexistence. That impersonality is our union with the supreme egoless
\nI of all that is in cosmos. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis knowledge comes by an inner meditation through which
\nthe eternal self becomes apparent to us in our own self-existence. Or it
\ncomes by the Yoga of the Sankhyas, the separation of the soul from
\nnature. Or it comes by the Yoga of works in which the personal will
\nis dissolved through the opening up of our mind and heart and all our
\nactive forces to the Lord who assumes to himself the whole of our
\nworks in nature. The spiritual knowledge may be awakened by the
\nurging of the spirit within us, its call to this or that Yoga, this or that
\nway of oneness. Or it may come to us by hearing of the truth from
\nothers and the moulding of the mind into the sense of that to which
\nit listens with faith and concentration. But however arrived at, it <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-373<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\ncarries us beyond death to immortality. Knowledge shows us high
\nabove the mutable transactions of the soul with the mortality of
\nnature our highest Self as the supreme Lord of her actions, one and
\nequal in all objects and creatures, not born in the taking up of a body,
\nnot subject to death in the perishing of all these bodies. That is the
\ntrue seeing, the seeing of that in us which is eternal and immortal.
\nAs we perceive more and more this equal spirit in all things, we
\npass into that equality of the spirit; as we dwell more and more in
\nthis universal being, we become ourselves universal beings; as we
\ngrow more and more aware of this eternal, we put on our own eternity and are for ever. We identify ourselves with the eternity of the
\nself and no longer with the limitation and distress of our mental
\nand physical ignorance. Then we see that all our works are an
\nevolution and operation of Nature and our real self not the executive
\ndoer, but the free witness and lord and unattached enjoyer of the
\naction. All this surface of cosmic movement is a diverse becoming of
\nnatural existences in the one eternal Being, all is extended, manifested, rolled out by the universal Energy from the seeds of her Idea
\ndeep in his existence; but the spirit even though it takes up and
\nenjoys her workings in this body of ours, is not affected by its mortality
\nbecause it is eternal beyond birth and death, is not limited by the
\npersonalities which it multiply assumes in her because it is the one
\nsupreme self of all these personalities, is not changed by the mutations
\nof quality because it is itself undetermined by quality, does not act
\neven in action, kartāram api akartāram,<\/i> because it supports natural
\naction in a perfect spiritual freedom from its effects, is the originator
\nindeed of all activities, but in no way changed or affected by the
\nplay of its Nature. As the all-pervading ether is not affected or
\nchanged by the multiple forms it assumes, but remains always the
\nsame pure subtle original substance, even so this spirit when it has
\ndone and become all possible things, remains through it all the same
\npure immutable subtle infinite essence. That is the supreme status of
\nthe soul, ‘para gatih,<\/i> that is the divine being and nature, madbhāva,
\n<\/i>and whoever arrives at spiritual knowledge, rises to that supreme
\nimmortality of the Eternal. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis Brahman, this eternal and spiritual knower of the field of his
\nown natural becoming, this Nature, his perpetual energy, which
\nconverts herself into that field, this immortality of the soul in mortal
\nnature,\u2014these things together make the whole reality of our existence.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-374<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe spirit within, when we turn to it, illumines the entire field
\nof Nature with its own truth in all the splendour of its rays. In the
\nlight of that sun of knowledge the eye of knowledge opens in us and
\nwe live in that truth and no longer in this ignorance. Then we perceive that our limitation to our present mental and physical nature
\nwas an error of the darkness, then we are liberated from the law of
\nthe lower Prakriti, the law of the mind and body, then we attain to
\nthe supreme nature of the spirit. That splendid and lofty change
\nis the last, the divine and infinite becoming, the putting off of mortal
\nnature, the putting on of an immortal existence. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-375<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOK TWO-PART II THE SUPREME SECRET   XIII   THE FIELD AND ITS KNOWER*   THE GITA in its last six chapters, in order to…<\/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-3616","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\/3616","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=3616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}