{"id":3619,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3619"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:00","slug":"25-the-two-natures-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\/25-the-two-natures-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-25_The Two Natures.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n
\nBOOK TWO\u2013PART I<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE SYNTHESIS OF WORKS, LOVE AND
\nKNOWLEDGE<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE TWO NATURES *<\/i> <\/font><\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nT<\/font><\/b>HE
\nFIRST<\/font> six chapters of the Gita have been treated as a single block of
\nteachings, its primary basis of practice and knowledge; the remaining twelve may
\nbe similarly treated as two closely connected blocks which develop the rest of
\nthe doctrine from this primary basis. The seventh to the twelfth chapters lay
\ndown a large metaphysical statement of the nature of the Divine Being and on
\nthat foundation closely relate and synthetise knowledge and devotion, just as
\nthe first part of the Gita related and synthetised works and knowledge. The
\nvision of the World-Purusha intervenes in the eleventh chapter, gives a dynamic
\nturn to this stage of the synthesis and relates it vividly to works and life.
\nThus again all is brought powerfully back to the original question of Arjuna
\nround which the whole exposition revolves and completes its cycle. Afterwards
\nthe Gita proceeds by the differentiation of the Purusha and Prakriti to work out
\nits ideas of the action of the gunas, of the ascension beyond the gunas and of
\nthe culmination of desireless works with knowledge where that coalesces with
\nBhakti,\u2014knowledge, works and love made one,\u2014and it rises thence to its great
\nfinale, the supreme secret of self-surrender to the Master of Existence. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIn this second part of the Gita we come to a more
\nconcise and easy manner of statement than we have yet had. In the first six
\nchapters the definitions have not yet been made which give the key to the
\nunderlying truth; difficulties are being met and solved; the progress is a
\nlittle laboured and moves through several involutions and returns; much is
\nimplied the bearing of which is not yet clear. Here we seem to get on to clearer
\nground and to lay hold of a more compact and pointed expression. But because of
\nthis very conciseness we have to be careful always of our steps in order to
\navoid error and a missing of the real sense. For we are here no longer steadily
\non the safe ground of psychological and spiritual experience, but have to deal
\nwith intellectual <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* Gita, VII. 1-14. <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-233<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nstatements of spiritual and often of supracosmic
\ntruth. Metaphysical statement has always this peril and uncertainty about it
\nthat it is an attempt to define to our minds what is really infinite, an attempt
\nwhich has to be made, hut can never be quite satisfactory, quite final or
\nultimate. The highest spiritual truth can be lived, can be seen, but can only be
\npartially stated. The deeper method and language of the Upanishads with its free
\nresort to image and symbol, its intuitive form of speech in which the hard
\nlimiting definiteness of intellectual utterance is broken down and the
\nimplications of words are allowed to roll out into an illimitable wave of
\nsuggestion, is in these realms the only right method and language. But the Gita
\ncannot resort to this form, because it is designed to satisfy an intellectual
\ndifficulty, answers a state of mind in which the reason, the arbiter to which we
\nrefer the conflicts of our impulses and sentiments, is at war with itself and
\nimpotent to arrive at a conclusion. The reason has to be led to a truth beyond
\nitself, but by its own means and in its own manner. Offered a spiritually
\npsychological solution, of the data of which it has no experience, it can only
\nbe assured of its validity if it is satisfied by an intellectual statement of
\nthe truths of being upon which the solution rests. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nSo far the justifying truths that have been offered
\nto it are those with which it is already familiar, and they are only sufficient
\nas a starting-point. There is first the distinction between the Self and the
\nindividual being in Nature. The distinction has been used to point out that this
\nindividual being in Nature is necessarily subject, so long as he lives shut up
\nwithin the action of the ego, to the workings of the three gunas which make up
\nby their unstable movements the whole scope and method of the reason, the mind
\nand the life and senses in the body. And within this circle there is no
\nsolution. Therefore the solution has to be found by an ascent out of the circle,
\nabove this nature of the gunas, to the one immutable Self and silent Spirit,
\nbecause then one gets beyond that action of the ego and desire which is the
\nwhole root of the difficulty. But since this by itself seems to lead straight
\ntowards inaction, as beyond Nature there is no instrumentality of action and no
\ncause or determinant of action,\u2014for the immutable Self is inactive, impartial
\nand equal to all things, all workings and all happenings,\u2014the Yoga idea is
\nbrought in of the Ishwara, the Divine as master of works and sacrifice, and it
\nis hinted but not yet expressly stated that this Divine exceeds even the
\nimmutable Self <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-234<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nand that in him lies the key to cosmic existence.
\nTherefore by rising to him through the Self it is possible to have spiritual
\nfreedom from our works and yet to continue in the works of Nature. But it has
\nnot yet been stated who is this Supreme, incarnate here in the divine teacher
\nand charioteer of works, or what are his relations to the Self and to the
\nindividual being in Nature. Nor is it clear how the Will to works coming from
\nhim can be other than the will in the nature of the three gunas. And if it is
\nonly that, then the soul obeying it can hardly fail to be in subjection to the
\ngunas in its action, if not in its spirit, and if so, at once the freedom
\npromised becomes either illusory or incomplete. Will seems to be an aspect of
\nthe executive part of being, to be power and active force of nature, Shakti,
\nPrakriti. Is there then a higher Nature than that of the three gunas? Is there a
\npower of pragmatic creation, will, action other than that of ego, desire, mind,
\nsense, reason and the vital impulse? <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nTherefore, in this uncertainty, what has now to be
\ndone is to give more completely the knowledge on which divine works are to be
\nfounded. And this can only be the complete, the integral knowledge of the Divine
\nwho is the source of works and in whose being the worker becomes by knowledge
\nfree; for he knows the free Spirit from whom all works proceed and participates
\nin his freedom. Moreover this knowledge must bring a light that justifies the
\nassertion with which the first part of the Gita closes. It must ground the
\nsupremacy of bhakti over all other motives and powers of spiritual consciousness
\nand action; it must be a knowledge of the supreme Lord of all creatures to whom
\nalone the soul can offer itself in the perfect self-surrender which is the
\nhighest height of all love and devotion. This is what the Teacher proposes to
\ngive in the opening verses of the seventh chapter which initiate the development
\nthat occupies all the rest of the book. "Hear," he says, "how by practising Yoga
\nwith a mind attached to Me and with Me as āśraya<\/i> (the whole basis,
\nlodgment, point of resort of the conscious being and action) thou shalt know Me
\nwithout any remainder of doubt, integrally, samagram mām.<\/i> I will speak to
\nthee without omission or remainder, aśesatah,"
\n<\/i>(for otherwise a ground of doubt may remain), "the essential knowledge,
\nattended with all the comprehensive knowledge, by knowing which there shall be
\nno other thing here left to be known." The implication of the phrase is that the
\nDivine Being is all, vāsudevah sarvam,<\/i> and therefore if he is known
\nintegrally in all his powers and <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-235<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nprinciples, then all is known, not only the pure
\nSelf, but the world and action and Nature. There is then nothing else here left
\nto be known, because all is that Divine Existence. It is only because our view
\nhere is not thus integral, because it rests on the dividing mind and reason and
\nthe separative idea of the ego, that our mental perception of things is an
\nignorance. We have to get away from -this mental and egoistic view to the true
\nunifying knowledge, and that has two aspects, the essential, j\u00f1āna,<\/i> and
\nthe comprehensive, vij\u00f1āna,
\n<\/i>the direct spiritual awareness of the supreme Being and the right intimate
\nknowledge of the principles of his existence, Prakriti, Purusha and the rest, by
\nwhich all that is can be known in its divine origin and in the supreme truth of
\nits nature. That integral knowledge, says the Gita, is a rare and difficult
\nthing; "among thousands of men one here and there strives after perfection, and
\nof those who strive and attain to perfection one here and there knows Me in all
\nthe principles of my existence, tattvatah."<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThen, to start with and in order to found this
\nintegral knowledge, the Gita makes that deep and momentous distinction which is
\nthe practical basis of all its Yoga, the distinction between the two Natures,
\nthe phenomenal and the spiritual Nature. "The five elements (conditions of
\nmaterial being), mind, reason, ego, this is my eightfold divided Nature. But
\nknow my other Nature different from this, the supreme which becomes the Jiva and
\nby which this world is upheld." Here is the first new metaphysical idea of the
\nGita which helps it to start from the notions of the Sankhya philosophy and yet
\nexceed them and give to their terms, which it keeps and extends, a Vedantic
\nsignificance. An eightfold Nature constituted of the five bhūtas,\u2014<\/i>
\nelements, as it is rendered, but rather elemental or essential conditions of
\nmaterial being to which are given the concrete names of earth, water, fire, air
\nand ether,\u2014the mind with its various senses and organs, the reason-will and the
\nego, is the Sankhya description of Prakriti. The Sankhya stops there, and
\nbecause it stops there, it has to set up an unbridgeable division between the
\nsoul and Nature; it has to posit them as two quite distinct primary entities.
\nThe Gita also, if it stopped there, would have to make the same incurable
\nantinomy between the Self and cosmic Nature which would then be only the Maya of
\nthe three gunas and all this cosmic existence would be simply the result of this
\nMaya; it could be nothing else. But there is something else, there is a higher
\nprinciple, a nature of spirit, parāprakrtir <\/i> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-236<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nme.<\/i> There is a supreme nature of the Divine
\nwhich is the real source of cosmic existence and its fundamental creative force
\nand effective energy and of which the other lower and ignorant Nature is only a
\nderivation and a dark shadow. In this highest dynamis Purusha and Prakriti are
\none. Prakriti there is only the will and the executive power of the Purusha, his
\nactivity of being,\u2014not a separate entity, but himself in Power. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis supreme Prakriti is not merely a presence of
\nthe power of spiritual being immanent in cosmic activities. For then it might be
\nonly the inactive presence of the all-pervading Self, immanent in all things or
\ncontaining them, compelling in a way the world action but not itself active. Nor
\nis this highest Prakriti the avyakta<\/i> of the Sankhyas, the primary
\nunmanifest seed-state of the manifest active eightfold nature of things, the one
\nproductive original force of Prakriti out of which her many instrumental and
\nexecutive powers evolve. Nor is it sufficient to interpret that idea of
\navyakta<\/i> in the Vedantic sense and say that this supreme Nature is the power
\ninvolved and inherent in unmanifest Spirit or Self out of which cosmos comes and
\ninto which it returns. It is that, but it is much more; for that is only one of
\nits spiritual states. It is the integral conscious-power of the supreme Being,
\ncit-śakti,<\/i> which is behind the self and cosmos. In the immutable Self it is
\ninvolved in the Spirit; it is there, but in nivrtti<\/i> or a holding back
\nfrom action: in the mutable self and the cosmos it comes out into action,
\npravrtti.<\/i> There by its dynamic presence it evolves in the Spirit all
\nexistences and appears in them as their essential spiritual nature, the
\npersistent truth behind their play of subjective and objective phenomena. It is
\nthe essential quality and force, svdbhāva,
\n<\/i>the self-principle of all their becoming, the inherent principle and divine
\npower behind their phenomenal existence. The balance of the gunas is only a
\nquantitative and quite derivative play evolved out of this supreme Principle.
\nAll this activity of forms, all this mental, sensuous, intelligential striving
\nof the lower nature is only a phenomenon, which could not be at all except for
\nthis spiritual force and this power of being; it comes from that and it exists
\nin that and by that solely. If we dwell in the phenomenal nature only and see
\nthings only by the notions it impresses on us, we shall not get at the real
\ntruth of our active existence. The real truth is this spiritual power, this
\ndivine force of being, this essential quality of the spirit in things or rather
\no\u00a3 the spirit in which things are and from which <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-237<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthey draw all their potencies and the seeds of
\ntheir movements. Get at that truth, power, quality and we shall get at the real
\nlaw of our becoming and the divine principle of our living, its source and
\nsanction in the Knowledge and not only its process in the Ignorance. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis is to throw the sense of the Gita into
\nlanguage suited to our modem way of thinking; but if we look at its description
\nof the Para Prakriti, we shall find that this is practically the substance of
\nwhat it says. For, first, this other higher Prakriti is, says Krishna, my
\nsupreme nature, prakrtim me parām.<\/i> And this "I" here is the
\nPurushottama, the supreme Being, the supreme Soul, the transcendent and
\nuniversal Spirit. The original and eternal nature of the Spirit and its
\ntranscendent and originating Shakti is what is meant by the Para Prakriti. For
\nspeaking first of the origin of the world from the point of view of the active
\npower of his Nature, Krishna assevers, "This is the womb of all beings,"
\netad-yonīni bhutāni.<\/i> And in the next line of the couplet, again stating the
\nsame fact from the point of view of the originating Soul, he continues, "I am
\nthe birth of the whole world and so too its dissolution; there is nothing else
\nsupreme beyond Me." Here then the supreme Soul, Purushottama, and the supreme
\nNature, Para Prakriti, are identified: they are put as two ways of looking at
\none and the same reality. For when Krishna declares I am the birth of the world
\nand its dissolution, it is evident that it is this Para Prakriti, supreme
\nNature, of his being which is both these things. The Spirit is the supreme Being
\nin his infinite consciousness and the supreme Nature is the infinity of power or
\nwill of being of the Spirit,\u2014it is his infinite consciousness in its inherent
\ndivine energy and its supernal divine action. The birth is the movement of
\nevolution of this conscious Energy out of the Spirit, para -prakrtir
\njīvabhūtā,<\/i> its activity in the mutable universe; the dissolution is the
\nwithdrawing of that activity by involution of the Energy into the immutable
\nexistence and self-gathered power of the Spirit. That then is what is initially
\nmeant by the supreme Nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe supreme Nature, -parā prakrtih,<\/i> is then
\nthe infinite timeless conscious power of the self-existent Being out of which
\nall existences in the cosmos are manifested and come out of timelessness into
\nTime. But in order to provide a spiritual basis for this manifold universal
\nbecoming in the cosmos the supreme Nature formulates itself as the Jiva. To put
\nit otherwise, the eternal multiple soul of the Purushottama appears as
\nindividual spiritual existence in all the forms <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-238<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nof the cosmos. All existences are instinct
\nwith the life of the one indivisible Spirit; all are supported in their
\npersonality, actions and forms by the eternal multiplicity of the one Purusha.
\nWe must be careful not to make the mistake of thinking that this supreme Nature
\nis identical with the Jiva manifested in Time in the sense that there is nothing
\nelse or that it is only nature of becoming and not at all nature of being: that
\ncould not be the supreme Nature of the Spirit. Even in time it is something
\nmore; for otherwise the only truth of it in the cosmos would be nature of
\nmultiplicity and there would be no nature of unity in the world. That is not
\nwhat the Gita says: it does not say that the supreme Prakriti is in its essence
\nthe Jiva, jīvātmakām,<\/i> but that it has become the Jiva, jīvabhūtām;<\/i>
\nand it is implied in that expression that behind its manifestation as the Jiva
\nhere it is originally something else and higher, it is nature of the one supreme
\nSpirit. The Jiva, as we are told later on, is the Lord, isvara,<\/i> but in
\nhis partial manifestation, mamaivāmśah;<\/i> even all the multiplicity of
\nbeings in the universe or in numberless universes could not be in their becoming
\nthe integral Divine, but only a partial manifestation of the infinite One. In
\nthem Brahman the one indivisible existence resides as if divided, avibhaktam
\nca bhūtesu vibhaktam iva ca sthitam.<\/i> The unity is the greater truth, the
\nmultiplicity is the lesser truth, though both are a truth and neither of them is
\nan illusion. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIt is by the unity of this spiritual nature that
\nthe world is sustained, yayedam dhāryate jagat,<\/i> even as it is that from
\nwhich it is born with all its becomings, etad-yonīni bhūtāni sarvāni,<\/i>
\nand that also which withdraws the whole world and its existences into itself in
\nthe hour of dissolution, aham krtsnasya jagatah prabhavah pralayas tathā.<\/i>
\nBut in the manifestation which is thus put forth in the Spirit,’ upheld in its
\naction, withdrawn in its periodical rest from action, the Jiva is the basis of
\nthe multiple existence; it is the multiple soul, if we may so call it, or, if we
\nprefer, the soul of the multiplicity we experience here. It is one always with
\nthe Divine in its being, different from it only in the power of its
\nbeing,\u2014different not in the sense that it is not at all the same power, but in
\nthis sense that it only supports the one power in a partial multiply
\nindividualised action. Therefore all things are initially, ultimately and in the
\nprinciple of their continuance too the Spirit. The fundamental nature of all is
\nnature of the Spirit, and only in their lower differential phenomena <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-239<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ndo they seem to be something else, to be nature of
\nbody, life, mind, reason, ego and the senses. But these are phenomenal
\nderivatives, they are not the essential truth of our nature and our existence. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe supreme nature of spiritual being gives us then
\nboth an original truth and power of existence beyond cosmos and a first basis of
\nspiritual truth for the manifestation in the cosmos. But where is the link
\nbetween this supreme nature and the lower phenomenal nature? On Me, says
\nKrishna, all this, all that is here, sarvam<\/i> idam<\/i>\u2014the common phrase in the
\nUpanishads for the totality of phenomena in the mobility of the universe\u2014is
\nstrung like pearls upon a thread. But this is only an image which we cannot
\npress very far; for the pearls are only kept in relation to each other by the
\nthread and have no other oneness or relation with the pearl-string except their
\ndependence on it for this mutual connection. Let us go then from the image to
\nthat which it images. It is the supreme nature of Spirit, the infinite conscious
\npower of its being, self-conscient, all-conscient, all wise, which maintains
\nthese phenomenal existences in relation to each other, penetrates them, abides
\nin and supports them and weaves them into the system of its manifestation. This
\none supreme power manifests not only in all as the One, but in each as the Jiva,
\nthe individual spiritual presence; it manifests also as the essence of all
\nquality of Nature. These are therefore the concealed spiritual powers behind all
\nphenomena. This highest quality is not the working of the three gunas, which is
\nphenomenon of quality and not its spiritual essence. It is rather the inherent,
\none, yet variable inner power of all these superficial variations. It is a
\nfundamental truth of the Becoming, a truth that supports and gives a spiritual
\nand divine significance to all its appearances. The workings of the gunas are
\nonly the superficial unstable becomings of reason, mind, sense, ego, life and
\nmatter,
\nsāttvikā bhāvā rājasās tāmasāś ca;<\/i> but this is rather the essential
\nstable original intimate power of the becoming, svabhāva.<\/i> It is that
\nwhich determines the primary law of all becoming and of each Jiva; <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nit constitutes the essence and develops the
\nmovement of the nature.
\nIt is a principle in each creature that derives from and is immediately
\nrelated to a transcendent divine Becoming, that of the Ishwara,
\nmadbhāvah.<\/i> In this relation of the divine bhāva<\/i> to the
\nsvabhāva<\/i> and of the svabhāva to<\/i> the superficial bhāvāh,<\/i> of
\nthe divine Nature to the individual self-nature and of the self-nature in its
\npure and original quality to the phenomenal nature in all its mixed and confused <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-240<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nplay of qualities, we find the
\nlink between that supreme and this lower existence. The degraded powers and values of the inferior
\nPrakriti derive from the absolute powers and values of the supreme Shakti and
\nmust go back to them to find their own source and truth and the essential law of
\ntheir operation and movement. So too the soul or Jiva involved here in the
\nshackled, poor and inferior play of the phenomenal qualities, if he would escape
\nfrom it and be divine and perfect, must by resort to the pure action of his
\nessential quality of swabhava go back to that higher law of his own being in
\nwhich he can discover the will, the power, the dynamic principle, the highest
\nworking of his divine nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis is clear from the immediately subsequent
\npassage ill which the Gita gives a number of instances to show how the Divine in
\nthe power of his supreme nature manifests and acts within the animate and
\nso-called inanimate existences of the universe. We may disentangle them from
\nthe loose and free order which the exigence of the poetical form imposes and put
\nthem in their proper philosophical series. First, the divine Power and Presence
\nworks within the five elemental conditions of matter. "I am taste in the waters,
\nsound in ether, scent in earth, energy of light in fire," and, it may b\u00a3 added
\nfor more completeness, touch or contact in air. That is to say, the Divine
\nhimself in his Para Prakriti is the energy at the basis of the various sensory
\nrelations of which, according to the ancient Sankhya system, the ethereal, the
\nradiant, electric and gaseous, the liquid and the other elemental conditions of
\nmatter are the physical medium. The five elemental conditions of matter are the
\nquantitative or material element in the lower nature and are the basis of
\nmaterial forms. The five Tanmatras\u2014taste, touch, scent, and the others\u2014are the
\nqualitative element. These Tanmatras are the subtle energies whose action puts
\nthe sensory consciousness in relation to the gross forms of matter, \u2014they are
\nthe basis of all phenomenal knowledge. From the material point of view matter is
\nthe reality and the sensory relations are derivative; but from the spiritual
\npoint of view the truth is the opposite. Matter and the material media are
\nthemselves derivative powers and at bottom are only concrete ways or conditions
\nin which the workings of the quality of Nature in things manifest themselves to
\nthe sensory consciousness of the Jiva. The one original and eternal fact is the
\nenergy of Nature, the power and quality of being which so manifests itself to
\nthe soul through the senses. And what is essential in the <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-241<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nsenses, most spiritual, most subtle is itself stuff
\nof that eternal quality and power. But energy or power of being in Nature is the
\nDivine himself in his Prakriti; each sense in its purity is therefore that
\nPrakriti, each sense is the Divine in his dynamic conscious force. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis we gather better from the other terms of the
\nseries. "I am the light of sun and moon, the manhood in man, the intelligence of
\nthe intelligent, the energy of the energetic, the strength of the strong, the
\nascetic force of those who do askesis, tapasyā."<\/i> "I am life in all
\nexistences." In each case it is the energy of the essential quality on which
\neach of these becomings depends for what it has become, that is given as the
\ncharacteristic sign indicating the presence of the divine Power in their nature.
\nAgain, "I am Pranava in all the Vedas," that is to say, the basic syllable OM,
\nwhich is the foundation of all the potent creative sounds of the revealed word;
\nOM is the one universal formulation of the energy of sound and speech, that
\nwhich contains and sums up, synthetises and releases, all the spiritual power
\nand all the potentiality of Vak and Shabda and of which the other sounds, out of
\nwhose stuff words of speech are woven, are supposed to be the developed
\nevolutions. That makes it quite clear. It is not the phenomenal developments of
\nthe senses or of life or of light, intelligence, energy, strength, manhood,
\nascetic force that are proper to the supreme Prakriti. It is the essential
\nquality in its spiritual power that constitutes the Swabhava. It is the force of
\nspirit so manifesting, it is the light of its consciousness and the power of its
\nenergy in things revealed in a pure original sign that is the self-nature. That
\nforce, light, power is the eternal seed from which all other things are the
\ndevelopments and derivations and variabilities and plastic circumstances.
\nTherefore the Gita throws in as the most general statement in the series, "Know
\nMe to be the eternal seed of all existences, 0 son of Pritha." This eternal seed
\nis the power of spiritual being, the conscious will in the being, the seed
\nwhich, as is said elsewhere, the Divine casts into the great Brahman, into the
\nsupramental vastness, and from that all are born into phenomenal existence. It
\nis that seed of spirit which manifests itself as the essential quality <\/b>
\nin
\nall becomings and constitutes their Swabhava. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe practical distinction between this original
\npower of essential quality and the phenomenal derivations of the lower nature,
\nbetween the thing itself in its purity and the thing in its lower appearances,
\nis indicated very clearly at the close of the series. "I am the strength of <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-242<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthe strong devoid of desire and liking," stripped
\nof all attachment to the phenomenal pleasure of things. "I am in beings the
\ndesire which is not contrary to their dharma." And as for the secondary
\nsubjective becomings of Nature, bhāvāh<\/i> (states of mind, affections of
\ndesire, movements of passion, the reactions of the senses, the limited and dual
\nplay of reason, the turns of the feeling and moral sense), which are sattwic,
\nrajasic and tamasic, as for the working of the three gunas, they are, says the
\nGita, not themselves the pure action of the supreme spiritual nature, but are
\nderivations from it; "they are verily from Me,"
\nmatta eva,<\/i> they have no other origin, "but I am not in them, it is they
\nthat are in Me." Here is indeed a strong and yet subtle distinction. "I am,"
\nsays the Divine, "the essential light, strength, desire, power, intelligence,
\nbut these derivations from them I am not in my essence, nor am I in them, yet
\nare they all of them from Me and they are all in my being." It is then upon the
\nbasis of these statements that we have to view the transition of things from the
\nhigher to the lower and again from the lower back to the higher nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe first statement offers no difficulty. The
\nstrong man in spite of the divine nature of the principle of strength in him
\nfalls into subjection to desire and to attachment, stumbles into sin, struggles
\ntowards virtue. But that is because he descends in all his derivative action
\ninto the grasp of the three gunas and does not govern that action from above,
\nfrom his essential divine nature. The divine nature of his strength is not
\naffected by these derivations, it remains the same in its essence in spite of
\nevery obscuration and every lapse. The Divine is there in that nature and
\nsupports him by its strength through the confusions of his lower existence till
\nhe is able to recover the light, illumine wholly his life with the true sun of
\nhis being and govern his will and its acts by the pure power of the divine will
\nin his higher nature. But how can the Divine be desire, kāma?<\/i> for this
\ndesire, this kāma<\/i> has been declared to be our one great enemy who has to
\nbe slain. But that desire was the desire of the lower nature of the gunas which
\nhas its native point of origin in the rajasic being,
\nrajoguna-samudbhavah;<\/i> for this is what we usually mean when we speak of
\ndesire. This other, the spiritual, is a will not contrary to the dharma. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIs it meant that the spiritual kāma<\/i> is a
\nvirtuous desire, ethical in its nature, a sattwic desire,\u2014for virtue is always
\nsattwic in its origin and motive-force? But then there would be here an obvious
\ncontradiction,<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-243<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\u2014since in the very next line all sattwic
\naffections are declared to be not the Divine, but only lower derivations.
\nUndoubtedly sin has to be abandoned if one is to get anywhere near the Godhead; but so too has virtue to be overpassed if we are to
\nenter into the Divine Being. The sattwic nature has to be attained, but it has
\nthen to be exceeded. Ethical action is only a means of purification by which we
\ncan rise towards the divine nature, but that nature itself is lifted beyond the
\ndualities,\u2014and indeed there could otherwise be no pure divine presence or divine
\nstrength in the strong man who is subjected to the rajasic passions. Dharma in
\nthe spiritual sense is not morality or ethics. Dharma, says the Gita elsewhere,
\nis action governed by the Swabhava, the essential law of one’s nature. And this
\nSwabhava is at its core the pure quality of the spirit in its inherent power of
\nconscious will and in its characteristic force of action. The desire meant here
\nis therefore the purposeful will of the Divine in us searching for and
\ndiscovering not the pleasure of the lower Prakriti, but the Ananda of its own
\nplay and self-fulfilling; it is the desire of the divine Delight of existence
\nunrolling its own conscious force of action in accordance with the law of the
\nSwabhava. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut what again is meant by saying that the Divine
\nis not in the becomings, the forms and affections of the lower nature, even the
\nsattwic, though they all are in his being? In a sense he must evidently be in
\nthem, otherwise they could not exist. But what is meant is that the true and
\nsupreme spiritual nature of the Divine is not imprisoned there; they are only
\nphenomena in his being created out of it by the action of the ego and the
\nignorance. The ignorance presents everything to us in an inverted vision and at
\nleast a partially falsified experience. We imagine that the soul is in the body,
\nalmost a result and derivation from the body; even we so feel it: but it is the
\nbody that is in the soul and a result and derivation from the soul. We think of
\nthe spirit as a small part of us\u2014the Purusha who is no bigger than the thumb\u2014in
\nthis great mass of material and mental phenomena: in reality, the latter for all its imposing
\nappearance is a very small thing in the infinity of the being of the spirit. So
\nit is here; in much the same sense these things are in the Divine rather than
\nthe Divine in these things. This lower nature of the three gunas which creates
\nso false a view of things and imparts to them an inferior character is a Maya, a
\npower of illusion, by which it is not meant that it is all non-existent or deals
\nwith unrealities, but that it bewilders our <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-244<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nknowledge, creates false values, envelops us in
\nego, mentality, sense, physicality, limited intelligence and there conceals from
\nus the supreme truth of our existence. This illusive Maya hides from us the
\nDivine that we are, the infinite and the imperishable spirit. "By these three
\nkinds of becoming which are of the nature of the gunas, this whole world is
\nbewildered and does not recognise Me supreme beyond them and imperishable." If
\nwe could see that that Divine is the real truth of our existence, all else also
\nwould change to our vision, assume its true character and our life and action
\nacquire the divine values and move in the law of the divine nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut why then, since the Divine is there after all
\nand the divine nature at the root even of these bewildering derivations, since
\nwe are the Jiva and the Jiva is that, is this Maya so hard to overcome, māyā
\nduratyayā?<\/i> Because is still the Maya of the Divine, daivī hyesā
\ngunamayī mama māyā;<\/i> "this is my divine Maya of the gunas." It is itself
\ndivine and a development from the nature of the Divine, but the Divine in the
\nnature of the gods; it is dam,<\/i> of the godheads or, if you will, of the
\nGodhead, but of the Godhead in its divided subjective and lower cosmic aspects,
\nsattwic, rajasic and tamasic. It is a cosmic veil which the Godhead has spun
\naround our understanding; Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra have woven its complex
\nthreads; the Shakti, the Supreme Nature is there at its base and is hidden in
\nits every tissue. We have to work out this webb in ourselves and turn through it
\nand from it leaving it behind us when its use is finished, turn from the gods to
\nthe original and supreme Godhead in whom we shall discover at the same time the
\nlast sense of the gods and their works and the inmost spiritual verities of our
\nown imperishable existence. "To Me who turn and come, they alone cross over
\nbeyond this Maya." <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n Page-245<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOK TWO\u2013PART I   THE SYNTHESIS OF WORKS, LOVE AND KNOWLEDGE   THE TWO NATURES *   THE FIRST six chapters of the Gita have…<\/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-3619","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\/3619","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=3619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}