{"id":3617,"date":"2013-07-13T01:49:59","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3617"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:49:59","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:49:59","slug":"20-equality-and-knowledge-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\/20-equality-and-knowledge-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-20_Equality and Knowledge.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nEQUALITY AND KNOWLEDGE <\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nY<\/font>OGA AND<\/font> knowledge are, in this early part of the Gita’s teaching,
\nthe two wings of the soul’s ascent. By Yoga is meant union through
\ndivine works done without desire, with equality of soul to all things
\nand all men, as a sacrifice to the Supreme, while knowledge is that on
\nwhich this desirelessness, this equality, this power of sacrifice is founded.
\nThe two wings indeed assist each other’s flight; acting together, yet with a subtle alternation of mutual aid, like the two eyes
\nin a man which see together because they see alternately, they increase one another mutually by interchange of substance. As the
\nworks grow more and more desireless, equal-minded, sacrificial in
\nspirit, the knowledge increases; with the increase of the knowledge
\nthe soul becomes firmer in the desireless sacrificial equality of its
\nworks. The sacrifice of knowledge, says the Gita therefore, is greater
\nthan any material sacrifice. "Even if thou art the greatest doer of sin
\nbeyond all sinners, thou shalt cross over all the crookedness of evil in
\nthe ship of knowledge. . . . There is nothing in the world equal in
\npurity to knowledge." By knowledge desire and its first-born child,
\nsin, are destroyed. The liberated man is able to do works as a sacrifice
\nbecause he is freed from attachment through his mind, heart and
\nspirit being firmly founded in self-knowledge, gata-sangasya j\u00f1ānāvasthita-cetasah.<\/i> All his work disappears completely as soon as done,
\nsuffers laya,<\/i> as one might say, in the being of the Brahman, pravilīyate;<\/i> it has no reactionary consequence on the soul of the apparent
\ndoer. The work is done by the Lord through his Nature, it is no
\nlonger personal to the human instrument. The work itself becomes
\nbut power of the nature and substance of the being of the Brahman. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIt is in this sense that the Gita is speaking when it says that all the
\ntotality of work finds its completion, culmination, end in knowledge,
\nsarvam karmākhilam j\u00f1āne parisamāpyate.<\/i> "As a fire kindled turns to
\nashes its fuel, so the fire of knowledge turns all works to ashes." By this it is not at all meant that when knowledge is complete, there
\n<\/b>is
\n<\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-179<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ncessation from works. What is meant is made clear by the Gita when i
\nit says that he who has destroyed all doubt by knowledge and has by
\nYoga given up all works and is in possession of the Self is not bound
\nby his works, yoga-samnyastca-karmānam ātmavantam na karmāni nibadhnanti,<\/i> and that he whose self has become the self of all existences, acts and yet is not affected by his works, is not caught in them,
\nreceives from them no soul-ensnaring reaction, kurvann dpi no. lipyate.
\n<\/i>Therefore, it says, the Yoga of works is better than the physical renunciation of works, because, while Sannyasa is difficult for embodied
\nbeings who must do works so long as they are in the body, Yoga of
\nworks is entirely sufficient and it rapidly and easily brings the soul to
\nBrahman. That Yoga of works is, we have seen, the offering of all
\naction to the Lord, which induces as its culmination an inner and
\nnot an outer, a spiritual, not a physical giving up of works into the
\nBrahman, into the being of the Lord, brahmani ādhāya karmāni mayi
\nsamnyasya.<\/i> When works are thus "reposed on the Brahman," the personality of the instrumental doer ceases; though he acts, he does nothing; for he has given up not only the fruits of his works, but the
\nworks themselves and the doing of them to the Lord. The Divine
\nthen takes the burden of works from him; the Supreme becomes the
\ndoer and the act and the result. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis knowledge of which the Gita speaks, is not an intellectual l
\nactivity of the mind; it is a luminous growth into the highest state of
\nbeing by the outshining of the light of the divine sun of Truth, "that
\nTruth, the Sun lying concealed in the darkness" of our ignorance of
\nwhich the Rigveda speaks, tat satyam sūryam tamasi ksiyantam.<\/i> The
\nimmutable Brahman is there in the spirit’s skies above this troubled
\nlower nature of the dualities, untouched either by its virtue or by its
\nsin, accepting neither our sense of sin nor our self-righteousness, untouched by its joy and its sorrow, indifferent to our joy in success and
\nour grief in failure, master of all, supreme, all-pervading, prabhu
\nvibhu,<\/i> calm, strong, pure, equal in all things, the source of Nature,
\nnot the direct doer of our works, but the witness of Nature and her
\nworks, not imposing on us either the illusion of being the doer, for
\nthat illusion is the result of the ignorance of this lower Nature. But
\nthis freedom, masterly, purity we cannot see; we are bewildered by
\nthe natural ignorance which hides from us the eternal self-knowledge
\nof the Brahman secret within our being. But knowledge comes to its
\npersistent seeker and removes the natural self-ignorance; it shines out
\n 
\n 
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nPage-180<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nlike a long-hidden sun and lights up to our vision that self-being
\nsupreme beyond the dualities of this lower existence, ādityavat prakāśayati tat param.<\/i> By a long whole-hearted endeavour, by directing
\nour whole conscious being to that, by making that our whole aim, by
\nturning it into the whole object of our discerning mind and so seeing
\nit not only in ourselves but everywhere, we become one thought and
\nself with that, tad-buddhayas tad-ātmānah,<\/i> we are washed clean of all the darkness and suffering of the lower man by the waters of knowledge,1<\/sup>
\nj\u00f1āna-nirdhūta-kalmasāh.<\/i> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe result is, says the Gita, a perfect equality to all things and all
\npersons; and then only can we repose our works completely in the
\nBrahman. For the Brahman is equal, samam brahma,<\/i> and it is only
\nwhen we have this perfect equality, sāmye sthitam manah,<\/i> "seeing
\nwith an equal eye the learned and cultured Brahman, the cow, the
\nelephant, the dog, the outcaste" and knowing all as one Brahman,
\nthat we can, living in that oneness, see like the Brahman our works
\nproceeding from the nature freely without any fear of attachment, sin
\nor bondage. Sin and stain then cannot be; for we have overcome that
\ncreation full of desire and its works and reactions which belongs to
\nthe ignorance, tair jitah sargah,<\/i> and living in the supreme and divine
\nNature there is no longer fault or defect in our works; for these are
\ncreated by the inequalities of the ignorance. The equal Brahman is
\nfaultless, nirdosam hi samam brahma,<\/i> beyond the confusion of good
\nand evil, and living in the Brahman we too rise beyond good and
\nevil; we act in that purity, stainlessly, with an equal and single purpose of fulfilling the welfare of all existences, ksīna-kalmasāh sarvabhūta-hite ratāh.<\/i> The Lord in our hearts is in the ignorance also the
\ncause of our actions, but through his Maya, through the egoism of
\nour lower nature which creates the tangled web of our actions and
\nbrings back upon our egoism the recoil of their tangled reactions affecting us inwardly as sin and virtue, affecting us outwardly as suffering and pleasure, evil fortune and good fortune, the great chain of
\nKarma. When we are freed by knowledge, the Lord, no longer hidden in our hearts, but manifest as our supreme self, takes up our
\nworks and uses us as faultless instruments, nimitta-mātram,<\/i> for the <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1<\/font><\/sup> The Rigveda so speaks of the streams of the Truth, the waters that have
\nperfect knowledge, the waters that are full of the divine sunlight, rtasya dhārāh,<\/i>
\n<\/font> <\/font>
\n
\nāpo<\/font><\/i><\/font> vicetasah, svarvatīr apah,<\/i> What are here metaphors, are there concrete
\nsymbols. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-181<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nhelping of the world. Such is the intimate union between
\nknowledge
\nand equality; knowledge here in the buddhi<\/i> reflected as equality in
\nthe temperament; above, on a higher plane of consciousness, knowledge as the light of the Being, equality as the stuff of the Nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAlways in this sense of a supreme self-knowledge is
\nthis word  j\u00f1āna<\/i> used in Indian philosophy and Yoga; it is the light by which
\nwe grow into our true being, not the knowledge by which we increase
\nour information and our intellectual riches; it is not scientific or psychological or philosophic or ethical or aesthetic or worldly and practical knowledge. These too no doubt help us to grow, but only in the
\nbecoming, not in the being; they enter into the definition of Yogic
\nknowledge only when we use them as aids to know the Supreme, the
\nSelf, the Divine,\u2014scientific knowledge, when we can get through the
\nveil of processes and phenomena and see the one Reality behind
\nwhich explains them all; psychological knowledge, when we use it
\nto know ourselves and to distinguish the lower from the higher, so
\nthat this we may renounce and into that we may grow; philosophical
\nknowledge, when we turn it as a light upon the essential principles of
\nexistence so as to discover and live in that which is eternal; ethical
\nknowledge, when by it having distinguished sin from virtue we put
\naway the one and rise above the other into the pure innocence of the
\ndivine Nature; aesthetic knowledge, when we discover by it the
\nbeauty of the Divine; knowledge of the world, when we see through
\nit the way of the Lord with his creatures and use it for the service of
\nthe Divine in man. Even then they are only aids; the real knowledge
\nis that which is a secret to the mind, of which the mind only gets reflections, but which lives in the spirit. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Gita in describing how we come by this knowledge, says that we get first initiation into it from the men of knowledge who have
\nseen,<\/i> not those who know merely by the intellect, its essential truths; but the actuality of it comes from within ourselves: "the man who is
\nperfected by Yoga, finds it of himself in the self by the course of
\nTime," it grows within him, that is to say, and he grows into it as he
\ngoes on increasing in desirelessness, in equality, in devotion to the
\nDivine. It is only of the supreme knowledge that this can altogether
\nbe said; the knowledge which the intellect of man amasses, is gathered laboriously by the senses and the reason from outside. To get
\nthis other knowledge, self-existent, intuitive, self-experiencing, self-revealing, we must have conquered and controlled our mind and  <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-182<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nsenses, samyatendriyah,<\/i> so that we are no longer subject to their delusions, hut rather the mind and senses become its pure mirror; we
\nmust have fixed our whole conscious being on the truth of that supreme reality in which all exists, tat-parah, so<\/i> that it may display in
\nus its luminous self-existence. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nFinally, we must have a faith which no intellectual doubt can be
\nallowed to disturb, śraddhāvān labhate j\u00f1ānam.<\/i> "The ignorant who
\nhas not faith, the soul of doubt goeth to perdition; neither this world,
\nnor the supreme world, nor any happiness is for the soul full of
\ndoubts." In fact, it is true that without faith nothing decisive can be
\nachieved either in this world or for possession of the world above, and.
\nthat it is only by laying hold of some sure basis and positive support
\nthat man can attain any measure of terrestrial or celestial success and
\nsatisfaction and happiness; the merely sceptical mind loses itself in
\nthe void. But still in the lower knowledge doubt and scepticism have
\ntheir temporary uses; in the higher they are stumbling-blocks: for
\nthere the whole secret is not the balancing of truth and error, but
\na constantly progressing realisation of revealed truth. In intellectual
\nknowledge there is always a mixture of falsehood or incompleteness
\nwhich has to be got rid of by subjecting the truth itself to sceptical
\ninquiry; but in the higher knowledge falsehood cannot enter and that
\nwhich intellect contributes by attaching itself to this or that opinion,
\ncannot be got rid of by mere questioning, but will fall away of itself
\nby persistence in realisation. Whatever incompleteness there is in the
\nknowledge attained, it must be got rid of, not by questioning in its
\nroots what has already been realised, but by proceeding to further and
\nmore complete realisation through a deeper, higher and wider living
\nin the Spirit. And what is not yet realised must be prepared for by
\nfaith, not by sceptical questioning, because this truth is one which
\nthe intellect cannot give and which is indeed often quite opposed to
\nthe ideas in which the reasoning and logical mind gets entangled.: it is not a truth which has to be proved, but a truth which has to be
\nlived inwardly, a greater reality into which we have to grow. Finally,.
\nit is in itself a self-existent truth and would be self-evident if it were; not for the sorceries of the ignorance in which we live; the doubts
\nthe perplexities which prevent us from accepting and following it,
\narise from that ignorance, from the sense-bewildered, opinion-perplexed heart and mind, living as they do in a lower and phenomenal
\ntruth and therefore questioning the higher realities, aj\u00f1ānasambhūtam<\/i><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-183<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nh<\/font><\/i>rtstham samśayam.<\/i> They have to be cut away by the sword o\u00a3
\nknowledge, says the Gita, by the knowledge that realises, by resorting constantly to Yoga, that is, by living out the union with the Supreme whose truth being known all is known,
\nyasmin vij\u00f1āte sarvam<\/i> vij\u00f1ātam.<\/i> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe higher knowledge we there get is that which is to the knower o\u00a3 Brahman his constant vision of things when he lives uninterruptedly in the Brahman,
\nbrahmavid brahmani sthitah.<\/i> That is not a
\nvision or knowledge or consciousness or Brahman to the exclusion of
\nall else, but a seeing of all in Brahman and as the self. For, it is said, the knowledge by which we rise beyond all relapse back into the i
\nbewilderment of our mental nature, is "that by which thou shalt see all existences without exception in the Self, then in Me." Elsewhere ¦
\nthe Gita puts it more largely, "Equal-visioned everywhere, he sees
\nthe Self in all existences and all existences in the Self. He who sees
\nMe everywhere and all and each in Me, is never lost to Me nor I
\nto him. He who has reached oneness and loves Me in all beings, that
\nYogin, howsoever he lives and acts, is living and acting in Me. 0
\nArjuna, he who sees all equally everywhere as himself, whether it
\nbe happiness or suffering, I hold him to be the supreme Yogin." That
\nis the old Vedantic knowledge of the Upanishads which the Gita
\nholds up constantly before us; but it is its superiority to other later
\nformulations of it that it turns persistently this knowledge into a
\ngreat practical philosophy of divine living. Always it insists on the
\nrelation between this knowledge of oneness and Karmayoga, and
\ntherefore on the knowledge of oneness as the basis of a liberated
\naction in the world. Whenever it speaks of knowledge, it turns at
\nonce to speak of equality which is its result; whenever it speaks of
\nequality, it turns to speak too of the knowledge which is its basis.
\nThe equality it enjoins does not begin and end in a static condition
\nof the soul useful only for self-liberation; it is always a basis of works.
\nThe peace of the Brahman in the liberated soul is the foundation; the large, free, equal, world-wide action of the Lord in the liberated
\nnature radiates the power which proceeds from that peace; these two
\nmade one synthesise divine works and God-knowledge. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nWe see at once what a profound extension we get here
\nfor the
\nideas which otherwise the Gita has in common with other systems of
\nphilosophic, ethical or religious living. Endurance, philosophic indifference, resignation are, we have said, the foundation <\/b> of three <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-184<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nkinds of equality; but the Gita’s truth of knowledge not only gathers
\nthem all up together, but gives them an infinitely profound, a magnificently ample significance. The Stoic knowledge is that of the
\nsoul’s power of self-mastery by fortitude, an equality attained by a
\nstruggle with one’s nature, maintained by a constant vigilance and
\ncontrol against its natural rebellions: it gives a noble peace, an austere
\nhappiness, but not the supreme joy of the liberated self living not
\nby a rule, but in the pure, easy, spontaneous perfection of its divine
\nbeing, so that "however it may act and live, it acts and lives in the
\nDivine," because here perfection is not only attained but possessed
\nin its own right and has no longer to be maintained by effort, for it
\nhas become the very nature of the soul’s being. The Gita accepts the
\nendurance and fortitude of our struggle with the lower nature as
\na preliminary movement; but if a certain mastery comes by our individual strength, the freedom of mastery only comes by our union
\nwith God, by a merging or dwelling of the personality in the one
\ndivine Person and the loss of the personal will in the divine Will.
\nThere is a divine Master of Nature and her works, above her though
\ninhabiting her, who is our highest being and our universal self; to be
\none with him is to make ourselves divine. By union with God we
\nenter into a supreme freedom and a supreme mastery. The ideal of
\nthe Stoic, the sage who is king because by self-rule he becomes master
\nalso of outward conditions, resembles superficially the Vedantic idea
\nof the self-ruler and all-ruler, svarāt samrāt;<\/i> but it is on a lower plane.
\nThe Stoic kingship is maintained by a force put upon self and environment; the entirely liberated kingship of the Yogin exists naturally by the eternal royalty of the divine nature, a union with its unfettered universality, a finally unforced dwelling in its superiority to
\nthe instrumental nature through which it acts. His mastery over
\nthings is because he has become one soul with all things. To take an
\nimage from Roman institutions, the Stoic freedom is that of the
\nlibertus,<\/i> the freedman, who is still really a dependent on the power
\nthat once held him enslaved; his is a freedom allowed by Nature because he has merited it. The freedom of the Gita is that of the freeman, the true freedom of the birth into the higher nature, self-existent
\nin its divinity. Whatever he does and however he lives, the free soul
\nlives in the Divine; he is the privileged child of the mansion, bālavat,
\n<\/i>who cannot err or fall because all he is and does is full of the Perfect,
\nthe All-blissful, the All-loving, the All-beautiful. The kingdom which <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-185<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nhe enjoys, rājyam samrddham,<\/i> is a sweet and happy dominion of
\nwhich it may be said, in the pregnant phrase of the Greek thinker, "The kingdom is of the child." <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe knowledge of the philosopher is that of the true nature of .mundane existence, the transience of outward things, the vanity <\/b> of
\nthe world’s differences and distinctions, the superiority o\u00a3 the inner
\ncalm, peace, light, self-dependence. It is an equality of philosophic
\nindifference; it brings a high calm, but not the greater spiritual joy; it is an isolated freedom, a wisdom like that of the Lucretian sage
\nhigh in his superiority upon the cliff-top whence he looks down on
\nmen tossed still upon the tempestuous waters from which he has
\nescaped,\u2014in the end something after all aloof and ineffective. The
\nGita admits the philosophic motive of indifference as a preliminary
\nmovement; but the indifference to which it finally arrives, it indeed
\nthat inadequate word can be at all applied, has nothing in it of the
\nphilosophic aloofness. It is indeed a position as of one seated above,
\nudāsīnavat,<\/i> but as the Divine is seated above, having no need at all
\nin the world, yet he does works always and is present everywhere
\nsupporting, helping, guiding the labour of creatures. This equality
\nis founded upon oneness with all beings. It brings in what is wanting
\nto the philosophic equality; for its soul is the soul of peace, but also
\nit is the soul of love. It sees all beings without exception in the Divine, it is one self with the Self of all existences and therefore it is in
\nsupreme sympathy with all of them. Without exception, aśesena,<\/i> not
\nonly with all that is good and fair and pleases; nothing and no one,
\nhowever vile, fallen, criminal, repellent in appearance, can be excluded from this universal, this whole-souled sympathy and spiritual
\noneness. Here there is no room, not merely for hatred or anger or
\nuncharitableness, but for aloofness, disdain or any petty pride of
\nsuperiority. A divine compassion for the ignorance of the struggling
\nmind, a divine will to pour forth on it all light and power and happiness there will be, indeed, for the apparent man; but for the divine
\nSoul within him there will be more, there will be adoration and love.
\nFor from all, from the thief and the harlot and the outcaste as from
\nthe saint and the sage, the Beloved looks forth and cries to us, "This
\nis I." "He who loves Me in all beings,"\u2014what greater word of power
\nfor the utmost intensities and profundities of divine and universal
\nlove has been uttered by any philosophy or any religion? <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nResignation is the basis of a kind of religious equality, submission <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-186<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nto the divine will, a patient bearing of the cross, a submissive forbearance. In the Gita this element takes the more ample form of an
\nentire surrender of the whole being to God. It is not merely a passive
\nsubmission, but an active self-giving; not only a seeing and an accepting of the divine Will in all things, but a giving up of one’s own
\nwill to be the instrument of the Master of works, and this not with
\nthe lesser idea of being a servant of God, but eventually at least, of
\nsuch a complete renunciation both of the consciousness and the works
\nto him that our being becomes one with his being and the impersonalised nature only an instrument and nothing else. All result good
\nor bad, pleasing or unpleasing, fortunate or unfortunate, is accepted
\nas belonging to the Master of our actions, so that finally not only are
\ngrief and suffering borne, but they are banished: a perfect equality of
\nthe emotional mind is established. There is no assumption of personal
\nwill in the instrument; it is seen that all is already worked out in the
\nomniscient prescience and omnipotent effective power of the universal
\nDivine and that the egoism of men cannot alter the workings of that
\nWill. Therefore, the final attitude is that enjoined on Arjuna in a
\nlater chapter, "All has been already done by Me in my divine will
\nand foresight; become only the occasion, 0 Arjuna," nimittamātram bhava savyasācin.<\/i> This attitude must lead finally to an absolute union
\nof the personal with the Divine Will and, with the growth of knowledge, bring about a faultless response of the instrument to the divine
\nPower and Knowledge. A perfect, an absolute equality of self-surrender, the mentality a passive channel of the divine Light and
\nPower, the active being a mightily effective instrument for its work
\nin the world, will be the poise of this supreme union of the Transcendent, the universal and the individual. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nEquality too there will be with regard to the action of others upon
\nus. Nothing that they can do will alter the inner oneness, love, sympathy which arise from the perception of the one Self in all, the
\nDivine in all beings. But a resigned forbearance and submission to
\nthem and their deeds, a passive non-resistance, will be no necessary
\npart of the action; it cannot be, since a constant instrumental obedience to the divine and universal Will must mean in the shock of
\nopposite forces that fill the world a conflict with personal wills which
\nseek rather their own egoistic satisfaction. Therefore Arjuna is bidden
\nto resist, to fight, to conquer; but, to fight without hatred or personal
\ndesire or personal enmity or antagonism, since to the liberated soul <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-187<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nthese feelings are impossible. To act for the lokasamgraha,<\/i> impersonally, for the keeping and leading of the peoples on the path to the
\ndivine goal, is a rule which rises necessarily from the oneness of the
\nsoul with the Divine, the universal Being, since that is the whole
\nsense and drift of the universal action. Nor does it conflict with our
\noneness with all beings, even those who present themselves here as
\nopponents and enemies. For the divine goal is their goal also, since it
\nis the secret aim of all, even of those whose outward minds, misled
\nby ignorance and egoism, would wander from the path and resist the
\nimpulsion. Resistance and defeat are the best outward service that can
\nbe done to them. By this perception the Gita avoids the limiting conclusion which might have been drawn from a doctrine of equality
\nimpracticably overriding all relations and of a weakening love without knowledge, while it keeps the one thing essential unimpaired.
\nFor the soul oneness with all, for the heart calm universal love, sympathy, compassion, but for the hands freedom to work out impersonally the good, not of this or that person only without regard to or ; to the detriment of the divine plan, but the purpose of the creation, j
\nthe progressing welfare and salvation of men, the total good of all existences. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nOneness with God, oneness with all beings, the realisation of the eternal divine unity everywhere and the drawing onwards of men
\ntowards that oneness are the law of life which arises from the teachings of the Gita. There can be none greater, wider, more profound.
\nLiberated oneself, to live in this oneness, to help mankind on the path
\nthat leads towards it and meanwhile to do all works for God and help
\nman also to do with joy and acceptance all the works to which he is
\ncalled krtsna karma-krt, sarvakarmāni josayan,<\/i> no greater or more
\nliberal rule of divine works can be given. This freedom and this oneness are the secret goal of our human nature and the ultimate will in
\nthe existence of the race. It is that to which it must turn for the happiness all mankind is now vainly seeking, when once men lift their
\neyes and their hearts to see the Divine in them and around, in all and
\neverywhere, sarvesu, sarvatra,<\/i> and learn that it is in him they live,
\nwhile this lower nature of division is only a prison-wall which they
\nmust break down or at best an infant-school which they must outgrow,
\nso that they may become adult in nature and tree in spirit. To be
\nmade one self with God above and God in man and God in the world
\nis the sense of liberation and the secret of perfection. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-188<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

xx   EQUALITY AND KNOWLEDGE   YOGA AND knowledge are, in this early part of the Gita’s teaching, the two wings of the soul’s ascent….<\/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-3617","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\/3617","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=3617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}