{"id":3624,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:02","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3624"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:02","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:02","slug":"09-sankhya-yoga-and-vedanta-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\/09-sankhya-yoga-and-vedanta-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-09_Sankhya yoga and Vedanta.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nSANKHYA, YOGA AND VEDANTA <\/b><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font><\/b>HE WHOLE<\/font> object of the first six chapters of the Gita is to synthetise
\nin a large frame of Vedantic truth the two methods, ordinarily supposed to be diverse and even opposite, of the Sankhyas and the Yogins.
\nThe Sankhya is taken as the starting-point and the basis; but it is
\nfrom the beginning and with a progressively increasing emphasis
\npermeated with the ideas and methods of Yoga and remoulded in its
\nspirit. The practical difference, as it seems to have presented itself to the
\nreligious minds of that day, lay first in this that Sankhya proceeded by knowledge and through the Yoga of the intelligence, while
\nYoga proceeded by works and the transformation of the active consciousness and, secondly,\u2014a corollary of this first distinction,\u2014that
\nSankhya led to entire passivity and the renunciation of works,
\nsannyasa,<\/i> while Yoga held to be quite sufficient the inner renunciation of desire, the purification of the subjective principle which leads
\nto action and the turning of works Godwards, towards the divine existence and towards liberation. Yet both had the same aim, the transcendence of birth and of this terrestrial existence and the union of
\nthe human soul with the Highest. This at least is the difference as it
\nis presented to us by the Gita. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe difficulty which Arjuna feels in understanding any possible
\nsynthesis of these oppositions is an indication of the hard line that
\nwas driven in between these two systems in the normal ideas of the
\ntime. The Teacher sets out by reconciling works and the Yoga of the
\nintelligence: the latter, he says, is far superior to mere works; it is by
\nthe Yoga of the Buddhi, by knowledge raising man out of the ordinary
\nhuman mind and its desires into the purity and equality of the
\nBrahmic condition free from all desire that works can be made acceptable. Yet are works a means of salvation, but works thus purified
\nby knowledge. Filled with the notions of the then prevailing culture,
\nmisled by the emphasis which the Teacher lays upon the ideas proper to Vedantic Sankhya, conquest of the senses, withdrawal from mind <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-74<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\ninto the Self, ascent into the Brahmic condition, extinction of our
\nlower personality in the Nirvana of impersonality,\u2014for the ideas
\nproper to Yoga are as yet subordinated and largely held back,\u2014Arjuna
\nis perplexed and asks, "If thou boldest the intelligence to be greater
\nthan works, why then dost thou appoint me to a terrible work? Thou
\nseemest to bewilder my intelligence with a confused and mingled
\nspeech; tell me then decisively that one thing by which I may attain to
\nmy soul’s weal." <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIn answer Krishna affirms that the Sankhya goes by knowledge and
\nrenunciation, the Yoga by works; but the real renunciation is impossible without Yoga, without works done as a sacrifice, done with
\nequality and without desire of the fruit, with the perception that it
\nis Nature which does the actions and not the soul; but immediately
\nafterwards he declares that the sacrifice of knowledge is the highest,
\nall work finds its consummation in knowledge, by the fire of knowledge all works are burnt up; therefore by Yoga works are renounced
\nand their bondage overcome for the man who is in possession of his
\nSelf. Again Arjuna is perplexed; here are desireless works, the principle of Yoga, and renunciation of works, the principle of Sankhya,
\nput together side by side as if part of one method, yet there is no
\nevident reconciliation between them. For the kind of reconciliation
\nwhich the Teacher has already given,\u2014in outward inaction to see
\naction still persisting and in apparent action to see a real inaction since
\nthe soul has renounced its illusion of the worker and given up works
\ninto the hands of the Master of sacrifice,\u2014is for the practical mind of
\nArjuna too slight, too subtle and expressed almost in riddling words; he has not caught their sense or at least not penetrated into their
\nspirit and reality. Therefore he asks again, "Thou declarest to me the
\nrenunciation of works, 0 Krishna, and again thou declarest to me
\nYoga; which one of these is the better way, that tell me with a clear
\ndecisiveness." <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe answer is important, for it puts the whole distinction very
\nclearly and indicates though it does not develop entirely the line of
\nreconciliation. "Renunciation and Yoga of works both bring about the
\nsoul’s salvation, but of the two the Yoga of works is distinguished
\nabove the renunciation of works. He should be known as always a
\nSannyasin (even when he is doing action) who neither dislikes nor
\ndesires; for free from the dualities he is released easily and happily
\nHorn the bondage. Children speak of Sankhya and Yoga apart from <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-75<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\neach other, not the wise; if a man applies himself integrally to one,
\nhe gets the fruit of both," because in their integrality each contains
\nthe other. "The status which is attained by the Sankhya, to that the
\nmen of the Yoga also arrive; who sees Sankhya and Yoga as one, he
\nsees. But renunciation is difficult to attain without Yoga; the sage who
\nhas Yoga attains soon to the Brahman; his self becomes the self of all
\nexistences (of all things that have become), and even though he does
\nworks, he is not involved in them." He knows that the actions are
\nnot his, but Nature’s and by that very knowledge he is free; he has
\nrenounced works, does no actions, though actions are done through
\nhim; he becomes the Self, the Brahman, ‘brahmabhūta,<\/i> he sees all
\nexistences as becomings (bhūtāni’)<\/i> of that self-existent Being, his own
\nonly one of them, all their actions as only the development of cosmic
\nNature working through their individual nature and his own actions
\nalso as a part of the same cosmic activity. This is not the whole teaching of the Gita; for as yet there is only the idea of the immutable self
\nor Purusha, the Akshara Brahman, and of Nature, Prakriti, as that
\nwhich is responsible for the cosmos and not yet the idea, clearly expressed, of the Ishwara, the Purushottama; as yet only the synthesis of 
\nworks and knowledge and not yet, in spite of certain hints, the introduction of the supreme element of devotion which becomes so important afterwards; as yet only the one inactive Purusha and the lower
\nPrakriti and not yet the distinction of the triple Purusha and the
\ndouble Prakriti. It is true the Ishwara is spoken of, but his relation to
\nthe self and nature is not yet made definite. The first six chapters
\nonly carry the synthesis so far as it can be carried without the clear
\nexpression and decisive entrance of these all-important truths which,
\nwhen they come in, must necessarily enlarge and modify, though
\nwithout abolishing, these first reconciliations. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nTwofold, says Krishna, is the self-application of the soul by which it
\nenters into the Brahmic condition: "that of the Sankhyas by the Yoga
\nof knowledge, that of the Yogins by the Yoga of works." This identification of Sankhya with Jnanayoga and of Yoga with the way of works
\nis interesting; for it shows that quite a different order of ideas prevailed at that time from those we now possess as the result of the
\ngreat Vedantic development of Indian thought, subsequent evidently
\nto the composition of the Gita, by which the other Vedic philosophies
\nfell into desuetude as practical methods of liberation. To justify the
\nlanguage of the Gita we must suppose that at that time it was the <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-76<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nSankhya method which was very commonly1 <\/sup>adopted by those who
\nfollowed the path of knowledge. Subsequently, with the spread of
\nBuddhism, the Sankhya method of knowledge must have been much
\novershadowed by the Buddhistic. Buddhism, like the Sankhya non-Theistic and anti-Monistic, laid stress on the impermanence of the
\nresults of the cosmic energy, which it presented not as Prakriti but as
\nKarma because the Buddhists admitted neither the Vedantic Brahman
\nnor the inactive Soul of the Sankhyas, and it made the recognition of
\nthis impermanence by the discriminating mind its means of liberation.
\nWhen the reaction against Buddhism arrived, it took up not the old
\nSankhya notion, but the Vedantic form popularised by Shankara who
\nreplaced the Buddhistic impermanence by the cognate Vedantic idea
\nof illusion, Maya, and the Buddhistic idea of Non-Being, indefinable
\nNirvana, a negative Absolute, by the opposite and yet cognate Vedantic idea of the indefinable Being, Brahman, an ineffably positive
\nAbsolute in which all feature and action and energy cease because
\nin That they never really existed and are mere illusions of the mind.
\nIt is the method of Shankara based upon these concepts of his philosophy, it is the renunciation of life as an illusion of which we ordinarily
\nthink when we speak now of the Yoga of knowledge. But in the time
\nof the Gita Maya was evidently not yet quite the master word of the
\nVedantic philosophy, nor had it, at least with any decisive clearness,
\nthe connotation which Shankara brought out of it with such a luminous force and distinctness; for in the Gita there is little talk of Maya
\nand much of Prakriti and, even, the former word is used as little
\nmore than an equivalent of the latter but only in its inferior status; it
\nis the lower Prakriti of the three gunas, traigunyamayī. māyā.<\/i> Prakriti,
\nnot illusive Maya, is in the teaching of the Gita the effective cause of
\ncosmic existence. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nStill, whatever the precise distinctions of their metaphysical ideas,
\nthe practical difference between the Sankhya and Yoga as developed
\nby the Gita is the same as that which now exists between Vedantic
\nYogas of knowledge and of works, and the practical results of the
\ndifference are also the same. The Sankhya proceeded like the Vedantic Yoga of knowledge by the Buddhi, by the discriminating intelligence; it arrived by reflective thought, vicāra,<\/i> at right discrimination, viveka,<\/i> of the true nature of the soul and of the imposition on <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1<\/sup> The systems of the Puranas and Tantras are full of the ideas of the Sankhya,
\n"tough subordinated to the Vedantic idea and mingled with many others. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-77<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nit of the work of Prakriti through attachment and identification, just
\nas the Vedantic method arrives by the same means at the right discrimination of the true nature of the Self and of the imposition on it
\nof cosmic appearances by mental illusion which leads to egoistic identification and attachment. In the Vedantic method Maya ceases for
\nthe soul by its return to its true and eternal status as the one Self,
\nthe Brahman, and the cosmic action disappears; in the Sankhya
\nmethod the working of the gunas<\/i> falls to rest by the return of the
\nsoul to its true and eternal status as the inactive Purusha and the
\ncosmic action ends. The Brahman of the Mayavadins is silent, immutable and inactive; so too is the Purusha of the Sankhya; therefore
\nfor both ascetic renunciation of life and works is a necessary means of
\nliberation. But for the Yoga of the Gita, as for the Vedantic Yoga of
\nworks, action is not only a preparation but itself the means of liberation; and it is the justice of this view which the Gita seeks to bring
\nout with such unceasing force and insistence,\u2014an insistence, unfortunately, which could not prevail in India against the tremendous
\ntide of Buddhism,2<\/sup> was lost afterwards in the intensity of ascetic
\nillusionism and the fervour of world-shunning saints and devotees and
\nis only now beginning to exercise its real and salutary influence on
\nthe Indian mind. Renunciation is indispensable, but the true renunciation is the inner rejection of desire and egoism; without that the
\nouter physical abandoning of works is a thing unreal and ineffective,
\nwith it ceases even to be necessary, although it is not forbidden.
\nKnowledge is essential, there is no higher force for liberation, but
\nworks with knowledge are also needed; by the union of knowledge
\nand works the soul dwells entirely in the Brahmic status not only in
\nrepose and inactive calm, but in the very midst and stress and violence
\nof action. Devotion is all-important, but works with devotion are also
\nimportant; by the union of knowledge, devotion and works the soul is
\ntaken up into the highest status of the Ishwara to dwell there in the
\nPurushottama who is master at once of the eternal spiritual calm and
\nthe eternal cosmic activity. This is the synthesis of the Gita. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut, apart from the distinction between the Sankhya way of knowledge and the Yoga way of works, there was another and similar opposition <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n2<\/sup> At the same time the Gita seems to have largely influenced Mahayanist
\nBuddhism and texts are taken bodily from it into the Buddhist Scriptures. It
\nmay therefore have helped largely to turn Buddhism, originally a school of
\nquietistic and illuminated ascetics, into that religion of meditative devotion and
\ncompassionate action which has so powerfully influenced Asiatic culture. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-78<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nin the Vedanta itself, and this also the Gita has to deal with,
\nto correct and to fuse into its large restatement of the Aryan spiritual
\nculture. This was the distinction between Karmakanda and Jnanakanda, between the original thought that led to the philosophy of the
\nPurva Mimansa, the Vedavada, and that which led to the philosophy
\nof the Uttara Mimansa,3<\/sup> the Brahmavada, between those who dwelt
\nin the tradition of the Vedic hymns and the Vedic sacrifice and those
\nwho put these aside as a lower knowledge and laid stress on the lofty
\nmetaphysical knowledge which emerges from the Upanishads. For
\nthe pragmatic mind of the Vedavadins the Aryan religion of the Rishis
\nmeant the strict performance of the Vedic sacrifices and the use of
\nthe sacred Vedic mantras in order to possess all human desires in this
\nworld, wealth, progeny, victory, every kind of good fortune, and the
\njoys of immortality in Paradise beyond. For the idealism of the
\nBrahmavadins this was only a preliminary preparation and the real
\nobject of man, true purusārtha,<\/i> began with his turning to the knowledge of the Brahman which would give him the true immortality of an
\nineffable spiritual bliss far beyond the lower joys of this world or of
\nany inferior heaven. Whatever may have been the true and original
\nsense of the Veda, this was the distinction which had long established
\nitself and with which therefore the Gita has to deal. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAlmost the first word of the synthesis of works and knowledge is
\na strong, almost a violent censure and repudiation of the Vedavada,
\n"this flowery word which they declare who have not clear discernment, devoted to the creed of the Veda, whose creed is that there is
\nnothing else, souls of desire, seekers of Paradise,\u2014it gives the fruits of
\nthe works of birth, it is multifarious with specialities of rites, it is
\ndirected to enjoyment and lordship as its goal." The Gita even seems
\nto go on to attack the Veda itself which, though it has been practically
\ncast aside, is still to Indian sentiment intangible, inviolable, the sacred
\nOrigin and authority for all its philosophy and religion. "The action of
\nthe three gunas is the subject-matter of the Veda; but do thou become
\ntree from the triple guna, 0 Arjuna." The Vedas in the widest terms,
\n"all the Vedas,"\u2014which might well include the Upanishads also and
\nseems to include them, for the general term Sruti<\/i> is used later on,\u2014are <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n3<\/sup> Jaimini’s idea of liberation is the eternal Brahmaloka in which the soul
\nthat has come to know Brahman still possesses a divine body and divine enjoyments. For the Gita the Brahmaloka is not liberation; the soul must pass beyond.
\nto the supracosmic status. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-79<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ndeclared to be unnecessary for the man who knows. "As much use as
\nthere is in a well with water in flood on every side, so much is there in
\nall the Vedas for the Brahmin who has the knowledge." Nay, the Scriptures are even a stumbling-block; for the letter of the Word\u2014perhaps
\nbecause of its conflict of texts and its various and mutually dissentient
\ninterpretations\u2014bewilders the understanding, which can only find
\ncertainty and concentration by the light within. "When thy intelligence shall cross beyond the whorl of delusion, then shalt thou become indifferent to Scripture heard or that which thou hast yet to
\nhear, gantāsi nirvedam śrotavyasya śrutasya ca.<\/i> When thy intelligence
\nwhich is bewildered by the Sruti, śrutivipratipannā,<\/i> shall stand unmoving and stable in Samadhi, then shalt thou attain to Yoga." So
\noffensive is all this to conventional religious sentiment that attempts
\nare naturally made by the convenient and indispensable human faculty of text-twisting to put a different sense on some of these verses,
\nbut the meaning is plain and hangs together from beginning to end.
\nIt is confirmed and emphasised by a subsequent passage in which the
\nknowledge of the knower is described as passing beyond the range or Veda and Upanishad,
\nśabdabrahmātivartate.<\/i> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nLet us see, however, what all this means; for we may be sure that a
\nsynthetic and catholic system like the Gita’s will not treat such important parts of the Aryan culture in a spirit of mere negation and
\nrepudiation. The Gita has to synthetise the Yoga doctrine of liberation
\nby works and the Sankhya doctrine of liberation by knowledge; it has
\nto fuse karma<\/i> with J\u00f1a\u00f1a.<\/i> It has at the same time to synthetise the
\nPurusha and Prakriti idea common to Sankhya and Yoga with the
\nBrahmavada of the current Vedanta in which the Purusha, Deva, Ish-supreme Soul, God, Lord,\u2014of the Upanishads all became merged in the one all-swallowing concept of the immutable Brahman; and it has to bring out again from its over-shadowing by that concept but not with any denial of it the Yoga idea of the Lord or
\nIshwara. It has too its own luminous thought to add, the crown of its
\nsynthetic system, the doctrine of the Purushottama and of the
\ntriple Purusha for which, though the idea is there, no precise and
\nindisputable authority can be easily found in the Upanishads and
\nwhich seems indeed at first sight to be in contradiction with that
\ntext of the Sruti where only two Purushas are recognised. Moreover, in synthetising works and knowledge it has <\/b> to take account
\nnot only of the opposition of Yoga and Sankhya, <\/b> but of the opposition <\/b> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-80<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nof works to knowledge in Vedanta itself, where the connotation of the two words and therefore their point of conflict is not
\nquite the same as the point of the Sankhya-Yoga opposition, it is
\nnot surprising at all, one may observe in passing, that with the conflict
\nof so many philosophical schools all founding themselves on the texts
\nof the Veda and Upanishads, the Gita should describe the understanding as being perplexed and confused, led in different directions
\nby the Sruti śrutivipratipannā.<\/i> What battles are even now delivered
\nby Indian pundits and metaphysicians over the meaning of the ancient texts and to what different conclusions they lead! The understanding may well get disgusted and indifferent, gantāsi nirvedam,<\/i> refuse to hear any more texts new or old,
\nśrotavyasya śrutasya ca,<\/i> and go
\ninto itself to discover the truth in the light of a deeper and inner and
\ndirect experience. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIn the first six chapters the Gita lays a large foundation for its
\nsynthesis of works and knowledge, its synthesis of Sankhya, Yoga and
\nVedanta. But first it finds that Karma,<\/i> works, has a particular sense in
\nthe language of the Vedantins; it means the Vedic sacrifices and ceremonies or at most that and the ordering of life according to the
\nGrihyasutras in which these rites are the most important part, the
\nreligious kernel of the life. By works the Vedantins understood these
\nreligious works, the sacrificial system, the yaj\u00f1a,<\/i> full of a careful order,
\nvidhi,<\/i> of exact and complicated rites, kriyā-viśesā bahulām.<\/i> But in
\nYoga works had a much wider significance. The Gita insists on this
\nwider significance; in our conception of spiritual activity all works
\nhave to be included, sarvakarmāni. At<\/i> the same time it does not, like
\nBuddhism, reject the idea of the sacrifice, it prefers to uplift and enlarge it. Yes, it says in effect, not only is sacrifice, yaj\u00f1a,<\/i> the most
\nimportant part of life, but all life, all works should be regarded as
\nsacrifice, are yaj\u00f1a,<\/i> though by the ignorant they are performed without the higher knowledge and by the most ignorant not in the true
\norder, avidhipūrvakam.<\/i> Sacrifice is the very condition of life; with
\nsacrifice as their eternal companion the Father of creatures created
\nthe peoples. But the sacrifices of the Vedavadins are offerings of desire directed towards material rewards, desire eager for the result of
\nWorks, desire looking to a larger enjoyment in Paradise as immortality
\nand highest salvation. This the system of the Gita cannot admit; for
\nthat in its very inception starts with the renunciation of desire, with
\nits rejection and destruction as the enemy of the soul. The Gita does <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-81<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nnot deny the validity even of the Vedic sacrificial works; it admits
\nthem, it admits that by these means one may get enjoyment here and
\nParadise beyond; it is I myself, says the divine Teacher, who accept
\nthese sacrifices and to whom they are offered, I who give these fruits
\nin the form of the gods since so men choose to approach me. But this
\nis not the true road, nor is the enjoyment of Paradise the liberation
\nand fulfilment which man has to seek. It is the ignorant who worship
\nthe gods, not knowing whom they are worshipping ignorantly in these
\ndivine forms; for they are worshipping, though in ignorance, the One,
\nthe Lord, the only Deva, and it is he who accepts their offering.
\n<\/b>To
\n<\/b>that Lord must the sacrifice be offered, the true sacrifice of all the
\nlife’s energies and activities, with devotion, without desire, for His
\nsake and for the welfare of the peoples. It is because the Vedavada
\nobscures this truth and with its tangle of ritual ties man down to the
\naction of the three gunas that it has to be so severely censured and
\nput roughly aside; but its central idea is not destroyed; transfigured
\nand uplifted, it is turned into a most important part of the true spiritual experience and of the method of liberation. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe Vedantic idea of knowledge does not present the same difficulties. The Gita takes it over at once and completely and throughout
\nthe six chapters quietly substitutes the still immutable Brahman of
\nthe Vedantins, the One without a second immanent in all cosmos,
\nfor the still immutable but multiple Purusha of the Sankhyas. It accepts throughout these chapters knowledge and realisation of the
\nBrahman as the most important, the indispensable means of liberation, even while it insists on desireless works as an essential part of
\nknowledge. It accepts equally Nirvana of the ego in the infinite equality of the immutable, impersonal Brahman as essential to liberation; it practically identifies this extinction with the Sankhya return of
\nthe inactive immutable Purusha upon itself when it emerges out of
\nidentification with the actions of Prakriti; it combines and fuses the
\nlanguage of the Vedanta with the language of the Sankhya, as had
\nalready indeed been done by certain of the Upanishads.4<\/sup> But still
\nthere is a defect in the Vedantic position which has to be overcome.
\nWe may, perhaps, conjecture that at this time the Vedanta had not
\nyet redeveloped the later theistic tendencies which in the Upanishads
\nare already present as an element, but not so prominent as in the
\nVaishnava philosophies of the later Vedantins where they become in<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n4<\/sup> Especially the Swetaswatara. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-82<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ndeed not only prominent but paramount. We may take it that the
\northodox Vedanta was, at any rate in its main tendencies, pantheistic
\nat the basis, monistic at the summit.5<\/sup> It knew of the Brahman, one
\nwithout a second; it knew of the Gods, Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma and
\nthe rest, who all resolve themselves into the Brahman; but the one
\nsupreme Brahman as the one Ishwara, Purusha, Deva\u2014words often
\napplied to it in the Upanishads and justifying to that extent, yet passing beyond the Sankhya and the theistic conceptions\u2014was an idea
\nthat had fallen from its pride of place;6<\/sup> the names could only be applied in a strictly logical Brahmavada to subordinate or inferior phases
\nof the Brahman-idea. The Gita proposes not only to restore the original equality of these names and therefore of the conceptions they indicate, but to go a step farther. The Brahman in its supreme and not
\nin any lower aspect has to be presented as the Purusha with the lower
\nPrakriti for its Maya, so to synthetise thoroughly Vedanta and Sankhya, and as Ishwara, so to synthetise thoroughly both with Yoga; but
\nthe Gita is going to represent the Ishwara, the Purushottama, as higher
\neven than the still and immutable Brahman, and the loss of ego in the
\nimpersonal comes in at the beginning as only a great initial and necessary step towards union with the Purushottama. For the Purushottama
\nis the supreme Brahman. It therefore passes boldly beyond the Veda
\nand the Upanishads as they were taught by their best authorised exponents and affirms a teaching of its own which it has developed from
\nthem, but which may not be capable of being fitted in within the four
\ncorners of their meaning as ordinarily interpreted by the Vedantins.7<\/sup>
\nIn fact without this free and synthetic dealing with the letter of the
\nScripture a work of large synthesis in the then state of conflict between numerous schools and with the current methods of Vedic exegesis would have been impossible. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n5<\/sup> The pantheistic formula is that God and the All are one, the monistic adds
\nthat God or Brahman alone exists and the cosmos is only an illusory appearance or else a real hut partial manifestation. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n6<\/sup> This is a little doubtful, but we may say at least that there was a strong
\ntendency in that direction of which Shankara’s philosophy was the last culmination.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n7<\/sup> In reality the idea of the Purushottama is already announced in the Upanishads, though in a more scattered fashion than in the Gita and, as in the Gita,
\nthe Supreme Brahman or Supreme Purusha is constantly described as contain^g in himself the opposition of the Brahman with qualities and without qualities, nirguna gunī.<\/i> He is not one of these things to the exclusion of the other
\nwhich seems to our intellect to be its contrary. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-83<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nThe Gita in later chapters speaks highly of the Veda and the Upanishads. They are divine Scriptures, they are the Word. The Lord
\nhimself is the knower of Veda and the author of Vedanta, vedavid
\nvedāntakrt;<\/i> the Lord is the one object of knowledge in all the Vedas,
\nsarvair vedair aham eva vedyah,<\/i> a language which implies that the
\nword Veda means the hook of knowledge and that these Scriptures
\ndeserve their appellation. The Purushottama from his high supremacy
\nabove the Immutable and the mutable has extended himself in the
\nworld and in the Veda. Still the letter of the Scripture binds and confuses, as the apostle of Christianity warned his disciples when he
\nsaid that the letter killeth and it is the spirit that saves; and there is a
\npoint beyond which the utility of the Scripture itself ceases. The real
\nsource of knowledge is the Lord in the heart; "I am seated in the
\nheart of every man and from Me is knowledge," says the Gita; the
\nScripture is only a verbal form of that inner Veda, of that self-luminous Reality, it is
\nśabdabrahma:<\/i> the mantra, says the Veda, has risen j
\nfrom the heart, from the secret place where is the seat of the truth,
\nsadanād rtasya, guhāyām.<\/i> That origin is its sanction; but still the infinite Truth is greater than its word. Nor shall you say of any Scripture that it alone is all-sufficient and no other truth can be admitted,
\nas the Vedavadins said of the Veda, nānyad astīti vādinah.<\/i> This is a
\nsaving and liberating word which must be applied to all the Scriptures of the world. Take all the Scriptures that are or have been,
\nBible and Koran and the books of the Chinese, Veda and Upanishads
\nand Purana and Tantra and Shastra and the Gita itself and the sayings of thinkers and sages, prophets and Avatars, still you shall not
\nsay that there is nothing else or that the truth your intellect cannot
\nfind there is not true because you cannot find it there. That is the
\nlimited thought of the sectarian or the composite thought of the eclectic religionist, not the untrammelled truth-seeking of the free and
\nillumined mind and God-experienced soul. Heard or unheard before,
\nthat always is the truth which is seen by the heart of man in its illumined
\ndepths or heard within from the Master of all knowledge, the 
\nknower of the eternal Veda. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-84<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IX   SANKHYA, YOGA AND VEDANTA   THE WHOLE object of the first six chapters of the Gita is to synthetise in a large frame…<\/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-3624","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\/3624","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=3624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}