{"id":3629,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:03","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3629"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:03","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:03","slug":"19-equality-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\/19-equality-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-19_Equality.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\nS<\/font>INCE KNOWLEDGE<\/font>,
\ndesirelessness, impersonality, equality, the inner
\nself-existent peace and bliss, freedom from or at least superiority to
\nthe tangled interlocking of the three modes of Nature are the signs
\nof the liberated soul, they must accompany it in all its activities.
\nThey are the condition of that unalterable calm which this soul
\npreserves in all the movement, all the shock, all the clash of forces
\nwhich surround it in the world. That calm reflects the equable immutability of the Brahman in the midst of all mutations, and it belongs to the indivisible and impartial Oneness which is for ever
\nimmanent in all the multiplicities of the universe. For an equal and
\nall-equalising spirit is that Oneness in the midst of the million differences and inequalities of the world; and equality of the spirit is the
\nsole real equality. For in all else in existence there can only be similarity, adjustment and balance; but even in the greatest similarities
\nof the world we find difference of inequality and difference of unlikeness and the adjusted balancings of the world can only come about
\nby a poising of combined unequal weights. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nHence the immense importance attached by the Gita in its elements
\nof Karmayoga to equality; it is the nodus of the free spirit’s free relations with the world. Self-knowledge, desirelessness, impersonality,
\nbliss, freedom from the modes of Nature, when withdrawn into
\nthemselves, self-absorbed, inactive, have no need of equality; for they
\ntake no cognisance of the things in which the opposition of equality
\nand inequality arises. But the moment the spirit takes cognisance of
\nand deals with the multiplicities, personalities, differences, inequalities of the action of Nature, it has to effectuate these other signs of
\nits free status by this one manifesting sign of equality. Knowledge "
\nis the consciousness of unity with the One; and in relation with the
\nmany different beings and existences of the universe it must show
\nitself by an equal oneness with all. Impersonality is the one immutable spirit’s superiority to the variations of its multiple personality <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-168<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nin the world; in its dealings with the personalities of the universe
\nit must show itself in the equal and impartial spirit of its action with
\nregard to all, however various that action may be made by the variety
\nof relations into which it is moulded or of the conditions under which
\nit has to take place. So Krishna in the Gita says that none is dear to
\nhim, none hated, to all he is equal in spirit; yet is the God-lover the
\nspecial receiver of his grace, because the relation he has created is
\ndifferent and the one impartial Lord of all yet meets each soul according to its way of approach to him. Desirelessness is the illimitable
\nSpirit’s superiority to the limiting attraction of the separate objects of
\ndesire in the world; when it has to enter into relations with those objects, it must show it either by an equal and impartial indifference
\nin their possession or by an equal and impartial unattached delight in
\nall and love for all which, because it is self-existent, does not depend
\nupon possession or non-possession, but is in its essence unperturbed
\nand immutable. For the spirit’s bliss is in itself, and if this bliss is to
\nenter into relations with things and creatures, it is only in this way
\nthat it can manifest its free spirituality. Traigunātītya,<\/i> transcendence
\nof the gunas, is the unperturbed spirit’s superiority to that flux of
\naction of the modes of Nature which is in its constant character
\nperturbed and unequal; if it has to enter into relations with the conflicting and unequal activities of Nature, if the free soul is to allow
\nits nature any action at all, it must show its superiority by an impartial equality towards all activities, results or happenings. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nEquality is the sign and also for the aspirant the test. Where there
\nis inequality in the soul, there is in evidence some unequal
\nplay of the modes of Nature, motion of desire, play of personal will,
\nfeeling and action, activity of joy and grief o\u00bb that disturbed and
\ndisturbing delight which is not true spiritual bliss but a mental satisfaction bringing in its train inevitably a counterpart or recoil of
\nmental dissatisfaction. Where there is inequality of soul, there
\nis deviation from knowledge, loss of steadfast abiding in the all-embracing and all-reconciling oneness of the Brahman and unity of
\nthings. By his equality the Karmayogin knows in the midst of his
\naction that he is free. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIt is the spiritual nature of the equality enjoined, high and universal in its character and comprehension, which gives its distinctive note
\nto the teaching of the Gita in this matter. For otherwise the mere
\nteaching of equality in itself as the most desirable status of the mind, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-169<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nfeelings and temperament in which we rise superior to human weakness, is by no means peculiar to the Gita. Equality has always been
\nheld up to admiration as the philosophic ideal and the characteristic
\ntemperament of the sages. The Gita takes up indeed this philosophic
\nideal, but carries it far beyond into a higher region where we find ourselves breathing a larger and purer air. The Stoic poise, the philosophic poise of the soul are only its first and second steps of ascension
\nout of the whirl of the passions and the tossings of desire to a serenity
\nand bliss, not of the Gods, but of the Divine himself in his supreme
\nself-mastery. The Stoic equality, making character its pivot, founds itself upon self-mastery by austere endurance; the happier and serener
\nphilosophic equality prefers self-mastery by knowledge, by detachment, by a high intellectual indifference seated above the disturbances
\nto which our nature is prone, udāsīnavad āsīnah,<\/i> as the Gita expresses
\nit; there is also the religious or Christian equality which is a perpetual
\nkneeling or a prostrate resignation and submission to the will of God.
\nThese are the three steps and means towards divine peace, heroic endurance, sage indifference, pious resignation, titiksā, udāsīnatā, namas
\n<\/i>or nati.<\/i> The Gita takes them all in its large synthetic manner and
\nweaves them into its upward soul-movement, but it gives to each a profounder root, a larger outlook, a more universal and transcendent significance. For to each it gives the values of the spirit, its power of
\nspiritual being beyond the strain of character, beyond the difficult
\npoise of the understanding, beyond the stress of the emotions. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe ordinary human soul takes a pleasure in the customary disturbances of its nature-life; it is because it has this pleasure and because,
\nhaving it, it gives a sanction to the troubled play of the lower nature
\nthat the play continues perpetually; for the Prakriti does nothing except for the pleasure and with the sanction of its lover and enjoyer, the
\nPurusha. We do not recognise this truth because under the actual
\nstroke of the adverse disturbance, smitten by grief, pain, discomfort,
\nmisfortune, failure, defeat, blame, dishonour, the mind shrinks back
\nfrom the blow, while it leaps eagerly to the embrace of the opposite
\nand pleasurable disturbances, joy, pleasure, satisfactions of all kinds,
\nprosperity, success, victory, glory, praise; but this does not alter the
\ntruth of the soul’s pleasure in life which remains constant behind the
\ndualities of the mind. The warrior does not feel physical pleasure in
\nhis wounds or find mental satisfaction in his defeats; but he has a complete delight in the godhead of battle which brings to him defeat and <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-170<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nwounds as well as the joy of victory, and he accepts the chances of the
\nformer and the hope of the latter as part of the mingled weft of war,
\nthe thing which the delight in him pursues. Even, wounds bring him
\na joy and pride in memory, complete when the pain of them has
\npassed, but often enough present even while it is there and actually
\nfed by the pain. Defeat keeps for him the joy and pride of indomitable
\nresistance to a superior adversary, or, if he is of a baser kind, the passions of hatred and revenge which also have their darker and crueller
\npleasures. So it is with the pleasure of the soul in the normal play or
\nour life. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe mind recoils by pain and dislike from the adverse strokes or
\nlife; that is Nature’s device for enforcing a principle of self-protection,
\njugupsā, so<\/i> that the vulnerable nervous and bodily parts of us may not
\nunduly rush upon self-destruction to embrace it: it takes joy in the
\nfavourable touches of life; that is Nature’s lure of rajasic pleasure, so
\nthat the force in the creature may overcome the tamasic tendencies of
\ninertia and inactivity and be impelled fully towards action, desire,
\nstruggle, success, and by its attachment to these things her ends may
\nbe worked out. Our secret soul takes a pleasure in this strife and effort,
\nand even a pleasure in adversity and suffering, which can be complete
\nenough in memory and retrospect, but is present too behind at the
\ntime and often even rises to the surface of the afflicted mind to support
\nit in its passion; but what really attracts the soul is the whole mingled
\nweft of the thing we call life with all its disturbance of struggle and
\nseeking, its attractions and repulsions, its offer and its menace, its varieties of every kind. To the rajasic desire-soul in us a monotonous pleasure, success without struggle, joy without a shadow must after a time
\nbecome fatiguing, inspid, cloying; it needs a background of darkness
\nto give full value to its enjoyment of light: for the happiness it seeks
\nand enjoys is of that very nature, it is in its very essence relative and
\ndependent on the perception and experience of its opposite. The joy
\nof the soul in the dualities is the secret of the mind’s pleasure in living. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAsk it to rise out of all this disturbance to the unmingled joy of the
\npure bliss-soul which all the time secretly supports its strength in the
\nstruggle and makes its own continued existence possible,\u2014it will draw
\nback at once from the call. It does not believe in such an existence; or
\nit believes that it would not be life, that it would not be at all the varied existence in the world around it in which it is accustomed to take
\npleasure; it would be something tasteless and without savour. Or it     <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-171<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nfeels that the effort would be too difficult for it; it recoils from the
\nstruggle of the ascent, although in reality the spiritual change is not at
\nall more difficult than the realisation of the dreams the desire-soul pursues, nor entails more struggle and labour in the attainment than the
\ntremendous effort which the desire-soul expends in its passionate chase
\nafter its own transient objects of pleasure and desire. The true cause of
\nits unwillingness is that it is asked to rise above its own atmosphere
\nand breathe a rarer and purer air of life, whose bliss and power it cannot realise and hardly even conceives as real, while the joy of this
\nlower turbid nature is to it the one thing familiar and palpable. Nor is
\nthis lower satisfaction in itself a thing evil and unprofitable; it is rather
\nthe condition for the upward evolution of our human nature out of the
\ntamasic ignorance and inertia to which its material being is most subject; it is the rajasic stage of the graded ascent of man towards the supreme self-knowledge, power and bliss. But if we rest eternally on
\nthis plane, the madhyamā gatih<\/i> of the Gita, our ascent remains unfinished, the evolution of the soul incomplete. Through the sattwic
\nbeing and nature to that which is beyond the three gunas lies the way of the soul to its perfection. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe movement which will lead us out of the disturbances of the
\nlower nature must be necessarily a movement towards equality in the
\nmind, in the emotional temperament, in the soul. But it is to be
\nnoted that, although in the end we must arrive at a superiority to all
\nthe three gunas of the lower nature, it is yet in its incipience by a
\nresort to one or other of the three that the movement must begin.
\nThe beginning of equality may be sattwic, rajasic or tamasic; for
\nthere is a possibility in the human nature of a tamasic equality. It
\nmay be purely tamasic, the heavy equability of a vital temperament
\nrendered inertly irresponsive to the shocks of existence by a sort of
\ndull insensibility undesirous of the joy of life. Or it may result from
\na weariness of the emotions and desires accumulated by a surfeit and
\nsatiety of the pleasure or else, on the contrary, a disappointment and a
\ndisgust and shrinking from the pain of life, a lassitude, a fear and
\nhorror and dislike of the world: it is then in its nature a mixed movement, rajasotamasic, but the lower quality predominates. Or, approaching the sattwic principle, it may aid itself by the intellectual
\nperception that the desires of life cannot be satisfied, that the soul is
\ntoo weak to master life, that the whole thing is nothing but sorrow
\nand transient effort and nowhere in it is there any real truth or sanity <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-172<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nor light <\/b> or happiness; this is the sattwotamasic principle of equality
\nand is not so much equality, though it may lead to that, as indifference or equal refusal. Essentially, the movement of tamasic equality
\nis a generalisation of Nature’s principle of jugupsā<\/i> or self-protecting
\nrecoil extended from the shunning of particular painful effects to a
\nshunning of the whole life of Nature itself as in sum leading to pain
\nand self-tormenting and not to the delight which the soul demands. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIn tamasic equality by itself there is no real liberation; but it can be made a powerful starting-point, if, as in Indian asceticism, it is
\nturned into the sattwic by the perception of the greater existence, the
\ntrue power, the higher delight of the immutable Self above Nature.
\nThe natural turn of such a movement, however, is towards Sannyasa,
\nthe renunciation of life and works, rather than to that union of inner
\nrenunciation of desire with continued activity in the world of Nature
\nwhich the Gita advocates. The Gita, however, admits and makes room
\nfor this movement; it allows as a recoiling starting-point the perception of the defects of the world-existence, birth and disease and death
\nand old age and sorrow, the historic starting-point of the Buddha,
\njanma-mrtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duhkha-dosānhdarśanam,<\/i> and it accepts the
\neffort of those whose self-discipline is motived by a desire for release,
\neven in this spirit, from the curse of age and death, jarā-marana-moksāya
\nmām āsritya yatanti ye.<\/i> But that, to be of any profit, must be accompanied by the sattwic perception of a higher state and the taking
\ndelight and refuge in the existence of the Divine, mām āśritya.<\/i> Then
\nthe soul by its recoil comes to a greater condition of being, lifted
\nbeyond the three gunas and free from birth and death and age and
\ngrief, and enjoys the immortality of its self-existence, janma-mrtyu-jarā-duhkhair vimukto ‘mrtam aśnute.<\/i> The tamasic unwillingness to accept the pain and effort of life is indeed by itself a weakening and
\ndegrading thing, and in this lies the danger of preaching to all alike
\nthe gospel of asceticism and world-disgust, that it puts the stamp of
\na tamasic weakness and shrinking on unfit souls, confuses their understanding, buddhi-bhedam janayet,<\/i> diminishes the sustained aspiration, the confidence in living, the power of effort which the soul of
\nman needs for its salutary, its necessary rajasic struggle to master its
\nenvironment, without really opening to it\u2014for it is yet incapable of
\nthat\u2014a higher goal, a greater endeavour, a mightier victory. But in
\nsouls that are fit this tamasic recoil may serve a useful spiritual purpose by slaying their rajasic attraction, their eager preoccupation with <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-173<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe lower life which prevents the sattwic awakening to a higher possibility. Seeking then for a refuge in the void they have created, they
\nare able to hear the divine call, "0 soul that findest thyself in this
\ntransient and unhappy world, turn and put thy delight in Me,"
\nanityam asukham lokam imam prāpya bhajasva mām.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nStill, in this movement, the equality consists only in an equal recoil
\nfrom all that constitutes the world; and it arrives at indifference and
\naloofness, but does not include that power to accept equally all the
\ntouches of the world pleasurable or painful without attachment or
\ndisturbance which is a necessary element in the discipline of the Gita.
\nTherefore, even it we begin with the tamasic recoil,\u2014which is not
\nat all necessary,\u2014it can only be as a first incitement to a greater endeavour, not as a permanent pessimism. The real discipline begins
\nwith the movement to mastery over these things from which we were
\nfirst inclined merely to flee. It is here that the possibility of a kind of
\nrajasic equality comes in, which is at its lowest the strong nature’s
\npride in self-mastery, self-control, superiority to passion and weakness; but the Stoic ideal seizes upon this point of departure and makes
\nit the key to an entire liberation of the soul from subjection to all
\nweakness of its lower nature. As the tamasic inward recoil is a generalisation of Nature’s principle of jugupsā<\/i> or self-protection from
\nsuffering, so the rajasic upward movement is a generalisation of Nature’s other principle of the acceptance of struggle and effort and the
\ninnate impulse of life towards mastery and victory; but it transfers
\nthe battle to the field where alone complete victory is possible. Instead
\nof a struggle for scattered outward aims and transient successes, it
\nproposes nothing less than the conquest of Nature and the world itself by a spiritual struggle and an inner victory. The tamasic recoil
\nturns from both the pains and pleasures of the world to flee from
\nthem; the rajasic movement turns upon them to bear, master and rise
\nsuperior to them. The Stoic self-discipline calls desire and passion
\ninto its embrace of the wrestler and crushes them between its arms,
\nas did old Dhritarashtra in the epic the iron image of Bhima. It endures the shock of things painful and pleasurable, the causes of the
\nphysical and mental affections of the nature, and breaks their effects
\nto pieces; it is complete when the soul can bear all touches without
\nbeing pained or attracted, excited or troubled. It seeks to make man the conqueror and king of his nature. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Gita, making its call on the warrior nature or Arjuna, starts <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-174<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nwith this heroic movement. It calls on him to turn on the great enemy
\ndesire and slay it. Its first description of equality is that of the Stoic
\nphilosopher. "He whose mind is undisturbed in the midst of sorrows
\nand amid pleasures is tree from desire, from whom liking and fear
\nand wrath have passed away, is the sage of settled understanding.
\nWho in all things is without affection though visited by this good or
\nthat evil and neither hates nor rejoices, his intelligence sits firmly
\nfounded in wisdom." If one abstains from food, it says, giving a physical example, the object of sense ceases to affect, but the affection itself
\nof the sense, the rasa,<\/i> remains; it is only when, even in the exercise of
\nthe sense, it can keep back from seeking its sensuous aim in the object, artha,<\/i> and abandon the affection, the desire for the pleasure of
\ntaste, that the rightest level of the soul is reached. It is by using the
\nmental organs on the objects, "ranging over them with the senses,"
\nvisayān indriyaiścaran,<\/i> but with senses subject to the self, freed from
\nliking and disliking, that one gets into a large and sweet clearness of
\nsoul and temperament in which passion and grief find no place. All
\ndesires have to enter into the soul, as waters into the sea, and yet it
\nhas to remain immovable, filled but not disturbed: so in the end all
\ndesires can be abandoned. To be freed from wrath and passion and
\nfear and attraction is repeatedly stressed as a necessary condition of
\nthe liberated status, and for this we must learn to bear their shocks,
\nwhich cannot be done without exposing ourselves to their causes. "He
\nwho can bear here in the body the velocity of wrath and desire, is
\nthe Yogin, the happy man." Titiksā,<\/i> the will and power to endure, is
\nthe means. "The material touches which cause heat and cold, happiness and pain, things transient which come and go, these learn to
\nendure. For the man whom these do not trouble nor pain, the firm
\nand wise who is equal in pleasure and suffering, makes himself apt
\nfor immortality." The equal-souled has to bear suffering and not
\nhate, to receive pleasure and not rejoice. Even the physical affections are to be mastered by endurance and this too is part of the Stoic
\ndiscipline. Age, death, suffering, pain are not fled from, but accepted
\nand vanquished by a high indifference.1<\/sup> Not to flee appalled from
\nNature in her lower masks, but to meet and conquer her is the true
\ninstinct of the strong nature, ‘purusarsabha,<\/i> the leonine soul among <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1<\/sup> Dhīras tatra na muhyati,<\/i> says the Gita; the strong and wise soul is not perplexed, troubled or moved by them. But still they are accepted only to be conquered, jarā-marana-moksāya yatanti.<\/i> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-175<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nmen. Thus compelled, she throws aside her mask and reveals to him
\nhis true nature as the free soul, not her subject but her king and lord, svarāt, samrāt.<\/i> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut the Gita accepts this Stoic discipline, this heroic philosophy, <\/b>on the same condition that it accepts the tamasic recoil,\u2014it must have
\nabove it the sattwic vision of knowledge, at its root the aim at self-realisation and in its steps the ascent to the divine Nature. A Stoic
\ndiscipline which merely crushed down the common affections of our
\nhuman nature,\u2014although less dangerous than a tamasic weariness of
\nlife, unfruitful pessimism and sterile inertia, because it would at least
\nincrease the power and self-mastery of the soul,\u2014would still be no
\nunmixed good, since it might lead to insensibility and an inhuman
\nisolation without giving the true spiritual release. The Stoic equality
\nis justified as an element in the discipline of the Gita because it can
\nbe associated with and can help to the realisation of the tree immutable Self in the mobile human being, ‘param drstvā,<\/i> and to status in
\nthat new self-consciousness, esā brāhmī sthitih.<\/i> "Awakening by the understanding to the Highest which is beyond even the discerning
\nmind, put force on the self by the self to make it firm and still, and
\nslay this enemy who is so hard to assail, Desire." Both the tamasic
\nrecoil of escape and the rajasic movement of struggle and victory are
\nonly justified when they look beyond themselves through the sattwic
\nprinciple to the self-knowledge which legitimises both the recoil and the struggle. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe pure philosopher, the thinker, the born sage not only relies upon the sattwic principle in him as his ultimate justification, but
\nuses it from the beginning as his instrument of self-mastery. He starts
\nfrom the sattwic equality. He too observes the transitoriness of the
\nmaterial and external world and its failure to satisfy the desires or to
\ngive the true delight, but this causes in him no grief, fear or disappointment. He observes all with an eye of tranquil discernment and
\nmakes his choice without repulsion or perplexity. "The enjoyments
\nborn of the touches of things are causes of sorrow, they have a beginning and an end; therefore the sage, the man of awakened understanding,
\nbudhah,<\/i> does not place his delight in these." "The self in
\nhim is unattached to the touches of external things; he finds his happiness in himself." He sees, as the Gita puts it, that he is himself his
\nown enemy and his own friend, and therefore he takes care not to
\ndethrone himself by casting his being into the hands of desire and <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-176<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\npassion, nātmānam avasādayet,<\/i> but delivers himself out of that imprisonment by his own inner power uddhared
\nātmanātmānam;<\/i> for
\nwhoever has conquered his lower self finds in his higher self his best
\nfriend and ally. He becomes satisfied with knowledge, master of his
\nsenses, a Yogin by sattwic equality,\u2014for equality is Yoga, samatvam
\nyoga ucyate,\u2014<\/i> regarding alike clod and stone and gold, tranquil and
\nself-poised in heat and cold, suffering and happiness, honour and disgrace. He is equal in soul to friend and enemy and to neutral and
\nindifferent, because he sees that these are transitory relations born of
\nthe changing conditions of life. Even by the pretensions of learning
\nand purity and virtue and the claims to superiority which men base
\nupon these things, he is not led away. He is equal-souled to all men,
\nto the sinner and the saint, to the virtuous, learned and cultured
\nBrahmin and the fallen outcaste. All these are the Gita’s descriptions
\nof the sattwic equality, and they sum up well enough what is familiar
\nto the world as the calm philosophic equality of the sage. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nWhere then is the difference between this and the larger equality
\ntaught by the Gita? It lies in the difference between the intellectual
\nand philosophic discernment and the spiritual, the Vedantic knowledge of unity on which the Gita founds its teaching. The philosopher
\nmaintains his equality by the power of the buddhi, the discerning
\nmind; but even that by itself is a doubtful foundation. For, though
\nmaster of himself on the whole by a constant attention or an acquired
\nhabit of mind, in reality he is not free from his lower nature, and it
\ndoes actually assert itself in many ways and may at any moment take
\na violent revenge for its rejection and suppression. For, always, the
\nplay of the lower nature is a triple play, and the rajasic and tamasic
\nqualities are ever lying in wait for the sattwic man. "Even the mind
\nof the wise man who labours for perfection is carried away by the
\nvehement insistence of the senses." Perfect security can only be had by resorting to something higher than the sattwic quality, something
\nhigher than the discerning mind, to the Self,\u2014not the philosopher’s
\nintelligent self, but the divine sage’s spiritual self which is beyond the
\nthree gunas. All must be consummated by a divine birth into the
\nhigher spiritual nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAnd the philosopher’s equality is like the Stoic’s, like the world-fleeing ascetic’s, inwardly a lonely freedom, remote and aloof from
\nmen; but the man born to the divine birth has found the Divine not
\nonly in himself, but in all beings. He has realised his unity with all <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-177<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nand his equality is there\u00a3ore full of sympathy and oneness. He sees
\nall as himself and is not intent on his lonely salvation; he even takes
\nupon himself the burden of their happiness and sorrow by which he
\nis not himself affected or subjected. The perfect sage, the Gita more
\nthan once repeats, is ever engaged with a large equality in doing good
\nto all creatures and makes that his occupation and delight, sarvabhūtahite ratah.<\/i> The perfect Yogin is no solitary musing on the Self in his
\nivory tower of spiritual isolation, but yuktah krtsna-karma-krt,<\/i> a manysided universal worker for the good of the world,
\nfor God in the world.
\nFor he is a Vhakta,<\/i> a lover and devotee of the Divine, as well as a sage
\nand a Yogin, a lover who loves God wherever he finds Him and who
\nfinds Him everywhere; and what he loves, he does not disdain to
\nserve, nor does action carry him away from the bliss of union, since
\nall his acts proceed from the One in him and to the One in all they
\nare directed. The equality of the Gita is a large synthetic equality in
\nwhich all is lifted up into the integrality of the divine being and the divine nature. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-178<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XIX   EQUALITY   SINCE KNOWLEDGE, desirelessness, impersonality, equality, the inner self-existent peace and bliss, freedom from or at least superiority to the tangled interlocking…<\/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-3629","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\/3629","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=3629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}