{"id":3618,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3618"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:00","slug":"11-works-and-sacrifice-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\/11-works-and-sacrifice-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-11_Works and Sacrifice.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nWORKS AND SACRIFICE <\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font>HE YOGA<\/font> of the intelligent will and its culmination in the Brahmic
\nstatus, which occupies all the close of the second chapter, contains
\nthe seed of much of the teaching of the Gita,\u2014its doctrine of desireless works, of equality, of the rejection of outward renunciation, of
\ndevotion to the Divine; but as yet all this is slight and obscure. What
\nis most strongly emphasised as yet is the withdrawal of the will from
\nthe ordinary motive of human activities, desire, from man’s normal temperament of the sense-seeking thought and will with its passions and
\nignorance, and from its customary habit of troubled many-branching
\nideas and wishes to the desireless calm unity and passionless serenity
\nof the Brahmic poise. So much Arjuna has understood. He is not
\nunfamiliar with all this; it is the substance of the current teaching
\nwhich points man to the path of knowledge and to the renunciation
\nof life and works as his way of perfection. The intelligence withdrawing from sense and desire and human action and turning to the
\nHighest, to the One, to the actionless Purusha, to the immobile, to the
\nfeatureless Brahman, that surely is the eternal seed of knowledge.
\nThere is no room here for works, since works belong to the Ignorance; action is the very opposite of knowledge; its seed is desire and its fruit
\nis bondage. That is the orthodox philosophical doctrine, and Krishna
\nseems quite to admit it when he says that works are far inferior to
\nthe Yoga of the intelligence. And yet works are insisted upon as part
\nof the Yoga; so that there seems to be in this teaching a radical inconsistency. Not only so; for some kind of work no doubt may persist
\nfor a while, the minimum, the most inoffensive; but here is a work
\nwholly inconsistent with knowledge, with serenity and with the motionless peace of the self-delighted soul,\u2014a work terrible, even monstrous, a bloody strife, a ruthless battle, a giant massacre. Yet it is
\nthis that is enjoined, this that it is sought to justify by the teaching of
\ninner peace and desireless equality and status in the Brahman! Here then is an unreconciled contradiction. Arjuna complains that he has
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-95<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nbeen given a contradictory and confusing doctrine, not the clear,
\nstrenuously single road by which the human intelligence can move
\nstraight and trenchantly to the supreme good. It is in answer to this ¦
\nobjection that the Gita begins at once to develop <\/b> more clearly its
\npositive and imperative doctrine of Works. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe Teacher first makes a distinction between the two means of
\nsalvation on which in this world men can concentrate separately, the
\nYoga of knowledge, the Yoga of works, the one implying, it is usually
\nsupposed, renunciation of works as an obstacle to salvation, the other
\naccepting works as a means of salvation. He does not yet insist strongly
\non any fusion of them, on any reconciliation of the thought that divides them, but begins by showing that the renunciation of the Sankhyas, the physical renunciation, Sannyasa, is neither the only way,
\nnor at all the better way. Naiskarmya,<\/i> a calm voidness from works, is
\nno doubt that to which the soul, the Purusha has to attain; for it is
\nPrakriti which does the work and the soul has to rise above involution
\nin the activities of the being and attain to a free serenity and poise
\nwatching over the operations of Prakriti, but not affected by them.
\nThat, and not cessation of the work of Prakriti, is what is really meant
\nby the soul’s naiskarmya.<\/i> Therefore it is an error to think that by not
\nengaging in any kind of action this actionless state of the soul can
\nbe attained and enjoyed. Mere renunciation of works is not a sufficient, not even quite a proper means for salvation. "Not by abstention from works does a man enjoy actionlessness, nor by mere renunciation (of works) does he attain to his perfection,"\u2014to siddhi,<\/i> the
\naccomplishment of the aims of his self-discipline by Yoga. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut at least it must be one necessary means, indispensable, imperative? For how, if the works of Prakriti continue, can the soul help
\nbeing involved in them? How can I fight and yet in my soul not
\nthink or feel that I the individual am fighting, not desire victory nor
\nbe inwardly touched by defeat? This is the teaching of the Sankhyas
\nthat the intelligence of the man who engages in the activities of Nature, is entangled in egoism, ignorance and desire and therefore
\ndrawn to action; on the contrary, if the intellience draws back, then
\nthe action must cease with the cessation of the desire and the ignorance. Therefore the giving up of life and works is a necessary part,
\nan inevitable circumstance and an indispensable last means of the
\nmovement to liberation. This objection of a current logic\u2014it is not
\nexpressed by Arjuna, but it is in his mind as the turn of his subsequent <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-96<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nutterances shows,\u2014the Teacher immediately anticipates. No, he says,
\nsuch renunciation, far from being indispensable, is not even possible.
\n"For none stands even for a moment not doing work; everyone is made
\nto do action helplessly by the modes born of Prakriti." The strong
\nperception of the great cosmic action and the eternal activity and
\npower of the cosmic energy which was so much emphasised afterwards by the teaching of the Tantric Shaktas who even made Prakriti
\nor Shakti superior to Purusha, is a very remarkable feature of the
\nGita. Although here an undertone, it is still strong enough, coupled
\nwith what we might call the theistic and devotional elements of its
\nthought, to bring in that activism which so strongly modifies in its
\nscheme of Yoga the quietistic tendencies of the old metaphysical
\nVedanta. Man embodied in the natural world cannot cease from
\naction, not for a moment, not for a second; his very existence here
\nis an action; the whole universe is an act of God, mere living even
\nis His movement. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nOur physical life, its maintenance, its continuance is a journey, a
\npilgrimage of the body śarīra-yātrā,<\/i> and that cannot be effected without action. But even if a man could leave his body unmaintained,
\notoise, if he could stand still always like a tree or sit inert like a stone,
\ntisthati,<\/i> that vegetable or material immobility would not save him
\nfrom the hands of Nature; he would not be liberated from her workings. For it is not our physical movements and activities alone which
\nare meant by works, by karma;<\/i> our mental existence also is a great
\ncomplex action, it is even the greater and more important part of the
\nworks of the unresting energy,\u2014subjective cause and determinant of
\nthe physical. We have gained nothing if we repress the effect but
\nretain the activity of the subjective cause. The objects of sense are
\nonly an occasion for our bondage, the mind’s insistence on them is
\nthe means, the instrumental cause. A man may control his organs
\nof action and refuse to give them their natural play, but he has gained
\nnothing if his mind continues to remember and dwell upon the objects of sense. Such a man has bewildered himself with false notions of the self-discipline; he has not understood its object or its truth,
\nnor the first principles of his subjective existence; therefore all his
\nmethods of self-discipline are false and null.1<\/sup> The body’s actions, even <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1 <\/sup>I cannot think that mithyācāra<\/i> means a hypocrite. How is a man a hypocrite
\nwho inflicts on himself so severe and complete a privation? He is mistaken and
\ndeluded, vimūdhātmā,<\/i> and his ācāra,<\/i> his formally regulated method of self-discipline, is a false and vain method,\u2014this surely is all that the Gita means. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-97<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe mind’s actions are nothing in themselves, neither a bondage, nor
\nthe first cause of bondage. What is vital is the mighty energy of Nature which will have her way and her play in her great field of mind
\nand life and body; what is dangerous in her, is the power of her
\nthree gunas,<\/i> modes or qualities to confuse and bewilder the intelligence and so obscure the soul. That, as we shall see later, is the whole
\ncrux of action and liberation for the Gita. Be free from obscuration
\nand bewilderment by the three gunas<\/i> and action can continue, as it
\nmust continue, and even the largest, richest or most enormous and
\nviolent action; it does not matter, for nothing then touches the Purusha, the soul has
\nniskarmya.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut at present the Gita does not proceed to that larger point. Since
\nthe mind is the instrumental cause, since inaction is impossible, what
\nis rational, necessary, the right way is a controlled action of the subjective and objective organism. The mind must bring the senses
\nunder its control as an instrument of the intelligent will and then the
\norgans of action must be used for their proper office, for action, but
\nfor action done as Yoga. But what is the essence of this self-control,
\nwhat is meant by action done as Yoga, Karmayoga?<\/i> It is non-attachment, it is to do works without clinging with the mind to the objects
\nof sense and the fruit of the works. Not complete inaction, which is
\nan error, a contusion, a self-delusion, an impossibility, but action full
\nand free done without subjection to sense and passion, desireless
\nand unattached works, are the first secret of perfection. Do action
\nthus self-controlled, says Krishna, niyatam kuru karma tvam:<\/i> I have
\nsaid that knowledge, the intelligence, is greater than works, jyāyasī
\nkarmano buddhih,<\/i> but I did not mean that inaction is greater than
\naction; the contrary is the truth, karma jyāyo akarmanah.<\/i> For knowledge does not mean renunciation of works, it means equality and nonattachment to desire and the objects of sense; and it means the poise
\nof the intelligent will in the Soul free and high-uplifted above the
\nlower instrumentation of Prakriti2<\/sup> and controlling the works of the <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n2 <\/sup>Again, I cannot accept the current interpretation of miyatam karma<\/i> as if it
\nmeant fixed and formal works and were equivalent to the Vedic nityakarma,
\n<\/i>the regular works of sacrifice, ceremonial and the daily rule of Vedic living.
\nSurely, niyata<\/i> simply takes up the niyamya<\/i> of the last verse. Krishna makes a
\nstatement, "he who controlling the senses by the mind engages with the organs
\no\u00a3 action in Yoga of action, he excels," manasā niyamya ārabhate karmayogam,
\n<\/i>and he immediately goes on to draw from the statement an injunction, to sum
\nit up and convert it into a rule. "Do thou do controlled action," niyatam kuru.
\nkarma tvam: niyatam<\/i> takes up the niyamya, kuru karma<\/i> takes up the
\nārabhate<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nPage-98<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nmind and the senses and body in the power of self-knowledge
\n<\/b>and
\n<\/b>the pure objectless self-delight of spiritual realisation, nityatam karma.
\nBuddhiyoga<\/i> is fulfilled by karmayoga;<\/i> the Yoga of the self-liberating
\nintelligent will finds its full meaning by the Yoga of desireless works.
\nThus the Gita founds its teaching of the necessity of desireless works,
\nniskāma karma,<\/i> and unites the subjective practice of the Sankhyas\u2014
\nrejecting their merely physical rule\u2014with the practice of Yoga. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut still there is an essential difficulty unsolved. Desire is the ordinary motive of all human actions, and if the soul is free from desire,
\nthen there is no farther rationale for action. We may be compelled
\nto do certain works for the maintenance of the body, but even that is
\na subjection to the desire of the body which we ought to get rid of
\nif we are to attain perfection. But granting that this cannot be done,
\nthe only way is to fix a rule for action outside ourselves, not dictated
\nby anything in our subjectivity, the nityakarma<\/i> of the Vedic rule,
\nthe routine of ceremonial sacrifice, daily conduct and social duty,
\nwhich the man who seeks liberation may do simply because it is enjoined upon him, without any personal purpose or subjective interest
\nin them, with an absolute indifference to the doing, not because he
\nis compelled by his nature but because it is enjoined by the Shastra.
\nBut if the principle of the action is not to be external to the nature
\nbut subjective, if the actions even of the liberated and the sage are
\nto be controlled and determined by his nature, svabhāva-niyatam,<\/i> then
\nthe only subjective principle of action is desire of whatever kind, lust
\nof the flesh or emotion of the heart or base or noble aim of the mind,
\nbut all subject to the gunas<\/i> of Prakriti. Let us then interpret the niyata
\nkarma<\/i> of the Gita as the nityakarma<\/i> of the Vedic rule, its kartavya
\nkarma<\/i> or work that has to be done as the Aryan rule of social duty and
\nlet us take too its work done as a sacrifice to mean simply these Vedic
\nsacrifices and this fixed social duty performed disinterestedly and
\nwithout any personal object. This is how the Gita’s doctrine of desireless work is often interpreted. But it seems to me that the Gita’s
\nteaching is not so crude and simple, not so local and temporal and
\nnarrow as all that. It is large, free, subtle and profound; it is for all
\ntime and for all men, not for a particular age and country. Especially,
\nit is always breaking free from external forms, details, dogmatic notions and going back to principles and the great facts of our nature <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nkarmayogam.<\/i> Not formal works fixed by an external rule, but desireless works
\ncontrolled by the liberated buddhi,<\/i> is the Gita’s teaching. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-99<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nand our being. It is a work of large philosophic truth and spiritual
\npracticality, not of constrained religious and philosophical formulas
\nand stereotyped dogmas. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe difficulty is this, how, our nature being what it is and desire
\nthe common principle of its action, is it possible to institute a really
\ndesireless action? For what we call ordinarily disinterested action is not
\nreally desireless; it is simply a replacement of certain smaller personal
\ninterests by other larger desires which have only the appearance of
\nbeing impersonal, virtue, country, mankind. All action, moreover, as
\nKrishna insists, is done by the gunas<\/i> of Prakriti, by our nature; in
\nacting according to the Shastra we are still acting according to our
\nnature,\u2014even if this Shastric action is not, as it usually is, a mere
\ncover for our desires, prejudices, passions, egoisms, our personal, national, sectarian vanities, sentiments and preferences; but even otherwise, even at the purest, still we obey a choice of our nature, and if
\nour nature were different and the gunas<\/i> acted on our intelligence and
\nwill in some other combination, we would not accept the Shastra,
\nbut live according to our pleasure or our intellectual notions or else
\nbreak free from the social law to live the life of the solitary or the
\nascetic. We cannot become impersonal by obeying something outside ourselves, for we cannot so get outside ourselves; we can only
\ndo it by rising to the highest in ourselves, into our free Soul and
\nSelf which is the same and one in all and has therefore no personal
\ninterests, to the Divine in our being who possesses Himself transcendent of cosmos and is therefore not bound by His cosmic works
\nor His individual action. That is what the Gita teaches and desirelessness is only a means to this end, not an aim in itself. Yes, but how
\nis it to be brought about? By doing all works with sacrifice as the only
\nobject, is the reply of the divine Teacher. "By doing works otherwise
\nthan for sacrifice, this world of men is in bondage to works; for sacrifice practise works, 0 son of Kunti, becoming free from all attachment." It is evident that all works and not merely sacrifice and social
\nduties can be done in this spirit; any action may be done either from
\nthe ego-sense narrow or enlarged or for the sake of the Divine. All
\nbeing and all action of Prakriti exist only for the sake of the Divine; from that it proceeds, by that it endures, to that it is directed. But so
\nlong as we are dominated by the ego-sense we cannot perceive or
\nact in the spirit of this truth, but act for the satisfaction of the ego
\nand in the spirit of the ego, otherwise than for sacrifice. Egoism is the <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-100<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nknot of the bondage. By acting Godwards, without any thought of
\nego, we loosen this knot and finally arrive at freedom. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAt first, however, the Gita takes up the Vedic statement of the
\nidea of sacrifice and phrases the law of sacrifice in its current terms.
\nThis it does with a definite object. We have seen that the quarrel
\nbetween renunciation and works has two forms, the opposition of
\nSankhya and Yoga which is already in principle reconciled and the
\nopposition of Vedism and Vedantism which the Teacher has yet to
\nreconcile. The first is a larger statement of the opposition in which
\nthe idea of works is general and wide. The Sankhya starts from the
\nnotion of the divine status as that of the immutable and inactive
\nPurusha which each soul is in reality and makes an opposition between inactivity of Purusha and activity of Prakriti; so its logical
\nculmination is cessation of all works. Yoga starts from the notion of
\nthe Divine as Ishwara, lord of the operations of Prakriti and therefore
\nsuperior to them, and its logical culmination is not cessation of works
\nbut the soul’s superiority to them and freedom even though doing all
\nworks. In the opposition of Vedism and Vedantism works, karma,<\/i> are
\nrestricted to Vedic works and sometimes even to Vedic sacrifice and
\nritualised works, all else being excluded as not useful to salvation.
\nVedism of the Mimansakas insisted on them as the means, Vedantism
\ntaking its stand on the Upanishads looked on them as only a preliminary belonging to the state of ignorance and in the end to be
\noverpassed and rejected, an obstacle to the seeker of liberation. Vedism
\nworshipped the Devas, the gods, with sacrifice and held them to be
\nthe powers who assist our salvation. Vedantism was inclined to regard them as powers of the mental and material world opposed to
\nour salvation (men, says the Upanishad, are the cattle of the gods,
\nwho do not desire man to know and be free); it saw the Divine as the
\nimmutable Brahman who has to be attained not by works of sacrifice
\nand worship but by knowledge. Works only lead to material results
\nand to an inferior Paradise; therefore they have to be renounced. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe Gita resolves this opposition by insisting that the Devas are
\nOnly forms of the one Deva, the Ishwara, the Lord of all Yoga and
\nWorship and sacrifice and austerity, and if it is true that sacrifice
\noffered to the Devas leads only to material results and to Paradise,
\nit is also true that sacrifice offered to the Ishwara leads beyond them
\nto the great liberation. For the Lord and the immutable Brahman are
\nnot two different beings, but one and the same Being, and whoever <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-101<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nstrives towards either, is striving towards that one divine Existence.
\nAll works in their totality find their culmination and completeness in
\ndie knowledge of the Divine, sarvam karmākhilam pārtha j\u00f1āne parisamāpyate.<\/i> They are not an obstacle, but the way to the supreme
\nknowledge. Thus this opposition too is reconciled with the help of
\na large elucidation of the meaning of sacrifice. In fact its conflict is
\nonly a restricted form of the larger opposition between Yoga and
\nSankhya. Vedism is a specialised and narrow form of Yoga; the principle of the Vedantists is identical with that of the Sankhyas, for
\nto both the movement of salvation is the recoil of the intelligence,
\nthe buddhi,<\/i> from the differentiating powers of nature, from ego, mind,
\nsenses, from the subjective and the objective, and its return to the
\nundifferentiated and the immutable. It is with this object of reconciliation in his mind that the Teacher first approaches his statement
\nof the doctrine of sacrifice; but throughout, even from the very beginning, he keeps his eye not on the restricted Vedic sense of sacrifice
\nand works, but on their larger and universal application,\u2014that widening of narrow and formal notions to admit the great general truths
\nthey unduly restrict which is always the method of the Gita. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nPage-102<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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