{"id":3635,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:06","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3635"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:06","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:06","slug":"21-the-determinism-of-nature-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\/21-the-determinism-of-nature-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-21_The Determinism of Nature.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE DETERMINISM OF NATURE <\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nW<\/font>HEN WE <\/font>can live in the higher Self by the unity of works and
\nself-knowledge, we become superior to the method of the lower
\nworkings of Prakriti. We are no longer enslaved to Nature and her
\ngunas, but, one with the Ishwara, the master of our nature, we are
\nable to use her without subjection to the chain of Karma, for the purposes of the Divine Will in us; for that is what the greater Self in
\nus is, he is the Lord of her works and unaffected by the troubled stress
\nof her reactions. The soul ignorant in Nature, on the contrary, is enslaved by that ignorance to her modes, because it is identified there,
\nnot felicitously with its true self, not with the Divine who is seated
\nabove her, but stupidly and unhappily with the ego-mind which is a
\nsubordinate factor in her operations in spite of the exaggerated figure
\nit makes, a mere mental knot and point of reference for the play of
\nthe natural workings. To break this knot, no longer to make the ego
\nthe centre and beneficiary of our works, but to derive all from and
\nrefer all to the divine Supersoul is the way to become superior to all
\nthe restless trouble of Nature’s modes. For it is to live in the supreme
\nconsciousness, of which the ego-mind is a degradation, and to act in
\nan equal and unified Will and Force and not in the unequal play
\nof the gunas which is a broken seeking and striving, a disturbance, an
\ninferior Maya. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe passages in which the Gita lays stress on the subjection of the
\nego-soul to Nature, have by some been understood as the enunciation
\nof an absolute and a mechanical determinism which leaves no room
\nfor any freedom within the cosmic existence. Certainly, the language
\nit uses is emphatic and seems very absolute. But we must take, here
\nas elsewhere, the thought of the Gita as a whole and not force its
\naffirmations in their solitary sense quite detached from each other,\u2014
\nas indeed every truth, however true in itself, yet, taken apart from
\nothers which at once limit and complete it, becomes a snare to bind
\nthe intellect and a misleading dogma; for in reality each is one thread <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-189<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nof a complex weft and no thread must be taken apart from the weft.
\nEverything in the Gita is even so interwoven and must be understood in its relation to the whole. The Gita itself makes a distinction
\nbetween those who have not the knowledge of the whole, akrtsnavidah,<\/i> and are misled by the partial truths of existence, and the Yogin
\nwho has the synthetic knowledge of the totality, krtsna-vit.<\/i> To see all
\nexistence steadily and see it whole and not be misled by its conflicting truths, is the first necessity for the calm and complete wisdom to
\nwhich the Yogin is called upon to rise. A certain absolute freedom is
\none aspect of the soul’s relations with Nature at one pole of our complex being; a certain absolute determinism by Nature is the opposite
\naspect at its opposite pole; and there is also a partial and apparent,
\ntherefore an unreal eidolon of liberty which the soul receives by a
\ncontorted reflection of these two opposite truths in the developing
\nmentality. It is the latter to which we ordinarily give, more or less,
\ninaccurately, the name of free will; but the Gita regards nothing as
\nfreedom which is not a complete liberation and mastery. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nWe have always to keep in mind the two great doctrines which
\nstand behind all the Gita’s teachings with regard to the soul and
\nNature,\u2014the Sankhya truth of the Purusha and Prakriti corrected
\nand completed by the Vedantic truth of the threefold Purusha and
\nthe double Prakriti of which the lower form is the Maya of the three
\ngunas and the higher is the divine nature and the true soul-nature..
\nThis is the key which reconciles and explains what we might have
\notherwise to leave as contradictions and inconsistencies. There are, in
\ntact, different planes of our conscious existence, and what is practical
\ntruth on one plane ceases to be true, because it assumes a quite different appearance, as soon as we rise to a higher level from which we
\ncan see things more in the whole. Recent scientific discovery has
\nshown that man, animal, plant and even the metal have essentially
\nthe same vital reactions and they would, therefore, it each has a certain kind of what for want of a better word we must call nervous consciousness, possess the same basis of mechanical psychology. Yet i\u00a3
\neach of these could give its own mental account of what it experiences, we should have four quite different and largely contradictory
\nstatements of the same reactions and the same natural principles, because they get, as we rise in the scale of being, a different meaning
\nand value and have to be judged by a different outlook. So it is with
\nthe levels o\u00a3 the human soul. What we now call in our ordinary <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-190<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nmentality our free will and have a certain limited justification for
\nso calling it, yet appears to the Yogin who has climbed beyond and
\nto whom our night is day and our day night, not free will at all, but
\na subjection to the modes of Nature. He regards the same facts, but
\nfrom the higher outlook of the whole-knower, krtsna-vit,<\/i> while we
\nview it altogether from the more limited mentality of our partial
\nknowledge, akrtsnavidah,<\/i> which is an ignorance. What we vaunt of
\nas our freedom is to him bondage. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe perception of the ignorance of our assumption of freedom
\nwhile one is all the time in the meshes of this lower nature, is the
\nview-point at which the Gita arrives and it is in contradiction to this
\nignorant claim that it affirms the complete subjection of the ego-soul
\non this plane to the gunas. "While the actions are being entirely done
\nby the modes of Nature," it says, "he whose self is bewildered by
\negoism thinks that it is his T which is doing them. But one who
\nknows the true principles of the divisions of the modes and of works,
\nrealises that it is the modes which are acting and reacting on each
\nother and is not caught in them by attachment. Those who are bewildered by the modes, not knowers of the whole, let not the knower
\nof the whole disturb in their mental standpoint. Giving up thy works
\nto Me, free from desire and egoism, fight delivered from the fever of
\nthy soul." Here there is the clear distinction between two levels of
\nconsciousness, two standpoints of action, that of the soul caught in the
\nweb of its egoistic nature and doing works with the idea, but not
\nthe reality of free will, under the impulsion of Nature, and that of
\nthe soul delivered from its identification with the ego, observing, sanctioning and governing the works of Nature from above her. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nWe speak of the soul being subject to Nature; but, on the other
\nhand, the Gita in distinguishing the properties of the soul and Nature affirms that while Nature is the executrix, the soul is always the
\nlord, Iśvara.<\/i> It speaks here of the self being bewildered by egoism,
\nbut the real Self to the Vedantin is the divine, eternally free and self-aware. What then is this self that is bewildered by Nature, this soul
\nthat is subject to her? The answer is that we are speaking here in the
\ncommon parlance of our lower or mental view of things; we are speaking of the apparent self, or the apparent soul, not of the real self, not
\nof the true Purusha. It is really the ego which is subject to Nature,
\ninevitably, because it is itself part of Nature, one functioning of her
\nmachinery; but when the self-awareness in the mind-consciousness <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-191<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nidentifies itself with the ego, it creates the appearance of a lower self,
\nan ego-self. And so too what we think of ordinarily as the soul is really
\nthe natural personality, not the true Person, the Purusha, but the
\ndesire-soul in us which is a reflection of the consciousness of the
\nPurusha in the workings of Prakriti: it is, in tact, itself only an action
\nof the three modes and therefore a part of Nature. Thus there are,
\nwe may say, two souls in us, the apparent or desire-soul, which
\nchanges with the mutations of the gunas and is entirely constituted
\nand determined by them, and the free and eternal Purusha not limited by Nature and her gunas. We have two selves, the apparent self,
\nwhich is only the ego, that mental centre in us which takes up this
\nmutable action of Prakriti, this mutable personality, and which says
\n"I am this personality, I am this natural being who am doing these
\nworks,"\u2014but the natural being is simply Nature, a composite of the
\ngunas,\u2014and the true self which is, indeed, the upholder, the possessor
\nand the lord of Nature and figured in her, but is not itself the mutable
\nnatural personality. The way to be free must then be to get rid of the
\ndesires of this desire-soul and the false self-view of this ego. "Having
\nbecome free from desire and egoism," cries the Teacher, "fight with all
\nthe fever of thy soul passed away from thee,"\u2014nirāśīr<\/i> nirmamo<\/i>
\nbhūtvā.<\/i> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThis view of our being starts from the Sankhya analysis of the dual principle in our nature, Purusha and Prakriti. Purusha is inactive,
\nakartā,<\/i> Prakriti is active kartrī<\/i>: Purusha is the being full of the light
\nof consciousness; Prakriti is the Nature, mechanical, reflecting all her
\nworks in the conscious witness, the Purusha. Prakriti works by the inequality of her three modes, gunas, in perpetual collision and intermixture and mutation with each other; and by her function of ego’
\nmind she gets the Purusha to identify himself with all this working
\nand so creates the sense of active, mutable, temporal personality in
\nthe silent eternity of the Self. The impure natural consciousness overclouds the pure soul-consciousness; the mind forgets the Person in
\nthe ego and the personality; we suffer the discriminating intelligence
\nto be carried away by the sense-mind and its outgoing functions and
\nby the desire of the life and the body. So long as the Purusha sanctions this action, ego and desire and ignorance must govern the natural being. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut if this were all, then the only remedy would be to withdraw
\naltogether the sanction, suffer or compel all our nature by this withdrawal <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-192<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nto fall into a motionless equilibrium of the three gunas and so
\ncease from all action. But this is precisely the remedy\u2014though it is
\nundoubtedly a remedy, one which abolishes, we might say, the patient along with the disease,\u2014which the Gita constantly discourages.
\nEspecially, to resort to a tamasic inaction is just what the ignorant will,
\ndo if this truth is thrust upon them; the discriminating mind in them
\nwill fall into a false division, a false opposition, buddhibheda;<\/i> their
\nactive nature and their intelligence will be divided against each other
\nand produce a disturbance and confusion without true issue, a false
\nand self-deceiving line of action, mithyācāra,<\/i> or else a mere tamasic
\ninertia, cessation of works, diminution of the will to life and action,
\nnot therefore a liberation, but rather a subjection to the lowest of the
\nthree gunas, to tamas,<\/i> the principle of ignorance and of inerita. Or
\nelse they will not be able to understand at all, they will find fault
\nwith this higher teaching, assert against it their present mental experience, their ignorant idea of free will and, yet more confirmed by the
\nplausibility of their logic in their bewilderment and the deception of
\nego and desire, lose their chance of liberation in a deeper, more obstinate confirmation of the ignorance. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIn fact, these higher truths can only be helpful, because there only
\nthey are true to experience and can be lived, on a higher and vaster
\nplane of consciousness and being. To view these truths from below is
\nto mis-see, misunderstand and probably to misuse them. It is a higher
\ntruth that the distinction of good and evil is indeed a practical fact
\nand law valid for the egoistic human life which is the stage of transition from the animal to the divine, but on a higher plane we rise
\nbeyond good and evil, are above their duality even as the Godhead
\nis above it. But the unripe mind, seizing on this truth without rising
\nfrom the lower consciousness where it is not practically valid, will
\nsimply make it a convenient excuse for indulging its Asuric propensities, denying the distinction between good and evil altogether and
\nfalling by self-indulgence deeper into the morass of perdition, sarvaj\u00f1ānavimūdhān
\nmastan acetasah.<\/i> So too with this truth of the determinism of Nature; it will be mis-seen and misused, as those misuse it who declare that a man is what his nature has made him and
\ncannot do otherwise than as his nature compels him. It is true in a
\nsense, but not in the sense which is attached to it, not in the sense
\nthat the ego-self can claim irresponsibility and impunity for itself in
\nits works; for it has will and it has desire and so long as it acts according<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-193<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nto its will and desire, even though that be its nature, it must bear
\nthe reactions of its Karma. It is in a net, if you will, a snare which
\nmay well seem perplexing, illogical, unjust, terrible to its present experience, to its limited self-knowledge, hut a snare of its own choice, a net of its own weaving. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Gita says, indeed, "All existences follow their nature and what shall coercing it avail?" which seems, it we take it by itself, a hopelessly absolute assertion of the omnipotence of Nature over the soul; "even the man of knowledge acts according to his own nature." And
\non this it founds the injunction to follow faithfully in our action the
\nlaw of our nature. "Better is one’s own law of works, svadharma,
\n<\/i>though in itself faulty than an alien law well wrought out; death
\n<\/b>in
\n<\/b>one’s own law of being is better, perilous is it to follow an alien law."
\nWhat is precisely meant by this svadharma<\/i> we have to wait to see
\nuntil we get to the more elaborate disquisition in the closing chapters
\nabout Purusha and Prakriti and the gunas; but certainly it does not
\nmean that we are to follow any impulse, even though evil, which what
\nwe call our nature dictates to us. For between these two verses the
\nGita throws in this further injunction. "In the object of this or that
\nsense liking and disliking are set in ambush; fall not into their power,
\nfor they are the besetters of the soul in its path." And immediately
\nafter this, in answer to Arjuna’s objection who asks him, if there is
\nno fault in following our Nature, what are we then to say of that in
\nus which drives a man to sin, as if by force, even against his own
\nstruggling will, the Teacher replies that this is desire and its companion wrath, children of rajas, the second guna, the principle of
\npassion, and this desire is the soul’s great enemy and has to be slain.
\nAbstention from evildoing it declares to be the first condition for
\nliberation, and always it enjoins self-mastery, self-control, samyama,<\/i> control of the mind, senses, all the lower being. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThere is therefore a distinction to be made between what is essential in the nature, its native and inevitable action, which it avails not
\nat all to repress, suppress, coerce, and what is accidental to it, its
\nwanderings, confusions, perversions, over which we must certainly get
\ncontrol. There is a distinction implied too between coercion and suppression, nigraha,<\/i> and control with right use and right guidance,
\nsamyama.<\/i> The former is a violence done to the nature by the will,
\nwhich in the end depresses the natural powers of the being, ātmānam
\navasādayet;<\/i> the latter is the control of the lower by the higher self,  <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-194<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nwhich successfully gives to those powers their right action and their
\nmaximum efficiency,\u2014yogah karmasu kauśalam.<\/i> This nature of samyama<\/i> is made very clear by the Gita in the opening of its sixth chapter, "By the self thou shouldst deliver the self, thou shouldst not
\ndepress and cast down the self (whether by self-indulgence or suppression); for the self is the friend of the self and the self is the
\nenemy. To the man is his self a friend in whom the (lower) self has
\nbeen conquered by the (higher) self, but to him who is not in possession of his (higher) self, the (lower) self is as if an enemy and it
\nacts as an enemy." When one has conquered one’s self and attained
\nto the calm of a perfect self-mastery and self-possession, then is the
\nsupreme self in a man founded and poised even in his outwardly
\nconscious human being, samāhita.<\/i> In other words, to master the lower
\nself by the higher, the natural self by the spiritual is the way of man’s
\nperfection and liberation. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nHere then is a very great qualification of the determinism of Nature, a precise limitation of its meaning and scope. How the passage
\nfrom subjection to mastery works out is best seen if we observe the
\nworking of the gunas in the scale of Nature from the bottom to the
\ntop. At the bottom are the existences in which the principle of tamas
\nis supreme, the beings who have not yet attained to the light of self-consciousness and are utterly driven by the current of Nature. There
\nis a will even in the atom, but we see clearly enough that it is not
\nfree-will, because it is mechanical and the atom does not possess the
\nwill, but is possessed by it. Here the buddhi,<\/i> the element of intelligence and will in Prakriti, is actually and plainly what the Sankhya
\nasserts it to be, jada,<\/i> a mechanical, even an inconscient principle in
\nwhich the light of the conscious Soul has not at all struggled to the
\nsurface: the atom is not conscious of an intelligent will; tamas, the
\ninert and ignorant principle, has its grip on it, contains rajas,<\/i> conceals
\nsattva<\/i> within itself and holds a high holiday of mastery, Nature compelling this form of existence to act with a stupendous force indeed,
\nbut as a mechanical instrument, yantrārūdham māyayā.<\/i> Next, in the
\nplant the principle of rajas<\/i> has struggled to the surface, with its
\npower of life, with its capacity of the nervous reactions which in us
\nare recognisable as pleasure and suffering, but sattva<\/i> is quite involved,
\nhas not yet emerged to awaken the light of a conscious intelligent
\nwill; all is still mechanical, subconscient or half-conscient, tamas
\nStronger than rajas, both gaolers of the imprisoned sattwa. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-195<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nIn the animal, though tamas is still strong, though we may still
\ndescribe him as belonging to the tamasic creation, tāmasa sarga,<\/i> yet
\nrajas prevails much more against tamas, brings with it its developed
\npower of life, desire, emotion, passion, pleasure, suffering, while
\nsattwa, emerging, but still dependent on the lower action, contributes
\nto these the first light of the conscious mind, the mechanical sense of
\nego, conscious memory, a certain kind of thought, especially the wonders of instinct and animal intuition. But as yet the buddhi, the intelligent will, has not developed the full light of consciousness; therefore, no responsibility can be attributed to the animal for its actions.
\nThe tiger can be no more blamed for killing and devouring than the
\natom for its blind movements, the fire for burning and consuming or
\nthe storm for its destructions. If it could answer the question, the
\ntiger would indeed say, like man, that it had free will, it would have
\nthe egoism of the doer, it would say, "I kill, I devour"; but we can see
\nclearly enough that it is not really the tiger, but Nature in the tiger
\nthat kills, it is Nature in the tiger that devours; and it refrains from
\nkilling or devouring, it is from satiety, from fear or from indolence,
\nfrom another principle of Nature in it, from the action of the guna
\ncalled tamas. As it was Nature in the animal that killed, so it is Nature in the animal that refrained from killing. Whatever soul is in it,
\nsanctions passively the action of Nature, is as much passive in its
\npassion and activity as in its indolence or inaction. The animal like
\nthe atom acts according to the mechanism of its Nature, and not
\notherwise, sadrśam cestate svasyāh prakrteh,<\/i> as if mounted on a machine, yantrārūdho māyaya.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nWell, but in man at least there is another action, a free soul, a free will, a sense of responsibility, a real doer other than Nature,
\nother than the mechanism of Maya? So it seems, because in man
\nthere is a conscious intelligent will; ‘buddhi<\/i> is full of the light of the
\nobserving Purusha, who through it, it seems, observes, understands,
\napproves or disapproves, gives or withholds the sanction, seems indeed
\nat last to begin to be the lord of his nature. Man is not like the tiger
\nor the fire or the storm; he cannot kill and say as a sufficient justification, "I am acting according to my nature," and he cannot do it,
\nbecause he has not the nature and not, therefore, the law of action,
\nsvadharma,<\/i> of the tiger, storm or fire. He has a conscious intelligent
\nwill, a buddhi,<\/i> and to that he must refer his actions. If he does not do
\nso, if he acts blindly according to his impulses and passions, then the <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-196<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nlaw of his being is not rightly worked out, svadharmah su-anusthitah,
\n<\/i>he has not acted according to the full measure of his humanity, but
\neven as might the animal. It is true that the principle of rajas<\/i> or the
\nprinciple of tamas<\/i> gets hold of his buddhi<\/i> and induces it to justify
\nany and every action he commits or any avoidance of action; but still
\nthe justification or at least the reference to the buddhi must be there
\neither before or after the action is committed. And, besides, in man
\nsattva<\/i> is awake and acts not only as intelligence and intelligent will,
\nbut as a seeking for light, for right knowledge and right action according to that knowledge, as a sympathetic perception of the existence and claims of others, as an attempt to know the higher law of his
\nown nature, which the sattwic principle in him creates, and to obey
\nit, and as a conception of the greater peace and happiness which
\nvirtue, knowledge and sympathy bring in their train. He knows more
\nor less imperfectly that he has to govern his rajasic and tamasic by his
\nsattwic nature and that thither tends the perfection of his normal
\nhumanity. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut is the condition of the predominantly sattwic nature freedom
\nand is this will in man a free will? That the Gita from the standpoint
\nof a higher consciousness in which alone is true freedom, denies.
\nThe buddhi or conscious intelligent will is still an instrument of
\nNature and when it acts, even in the most sattwic sense, it is still Nature which acts and the soul which is carried on the wheel by Maya.
\nAt any rate, at least nine-tenths of our freedom of will is a palpable
\nfiction; that will is created and determined not by its own self-existent
\naction at a given moment, but by our past, our heredity, our training, our environment, the whole tremendous complex thing we call
\nKarma, which is, behind us, the whole past action of Nature on us
\nand the world converging in the individual, determining what he is,
\ndetermining what his will shall be at a given moment and determining, as far as analysis can see, even its action at that moment. The
\nego associates itself always with its Karma and it says "I did" and "I
\nwill" and "I suffer," but if it looks at itself and sees how it was made,
\nit is obliged to say of man as of the animal, "Nature did this in me,
\nNature wills in me," and if it qualifies by saying "my Nature," that
\nonly means "Nature as self-determined in this individual creature."
\nIt was the strong perception of this aspect of existence which compelled the Buddhists to declare that all is Karma and that there is no
\nself in existence, that the idea of self is only a delusion of the ego<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-197<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nmind. When the ego thinks "I choose and will this virtuous and
\n<\/b>not
\n<\/b>that evil action," it is simply associating itself, somewhat like the fly
\non the wheel, or rather as might a cog or other part of a mechanism
\nif it were conscious, with a predominant wave or a formed current of
\nthe sattwic principle by which Nature chooses through the buddhi
\none type of action in preference to another. Nature forms itself in us
\nand wills in us, the Sankhya would say, for the pleasure of the inactive observing Purusha. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut even if this extreme statement has to be qualified, and we shall
\nsee hereafter in what sense, still the freedom of our individual will,
\nif we choose to give it that name, is very relative and almost infinitesimal, so much is it mixed up with other determining elements. Its
\nstrongest power does not amount to mastery. It cannot be relied upon
\nto resist the strong wave of circumstance or of other nature which
\neither overbears or modifies or mixes up with it or at the best subtly
\ndeceives and circumvents it. Even the most sattwic will is so overborne
\nor mixed up with or circumvented by the rajasic and tamasic gunas
\nas to be only in part sattwic, and thence arises that sufficiently strong
\nelement of self-deception, of a quite involuntary and even innocent
\nmake-believe and hiding from oneself which the merciless eye of the
\npsychologist detects even in the best human action. When we think
\nthat we are acting quite freely, powers are concealed behind our action which escape the most careful self-introspection; when we think
\nthat we are tree from ego, the ego is there, concealed, in the mind
\nof the saint as in that of the sinner. When our eyes are really opened
\non our action and its springs, we are obliged to say with the Gita
\n"gunā gunesu, vartante,"<\/i> "it was the modes of Nature that were acting upon the modes." <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nFor this reason even a high predominance of the sattwic principle does not constitute freedom. For, as the Gita points out, the sattwa
\nbinds, as much as the other gunas, and binds just in the same way,
\nby desire, by ego; a nobler desire, a purer ego,\u2014but so long as in any
\nform these two hold the being, there is no freedom. The man of virtue, of knowledge, has his ego of the virtuous man, his ego of knowledge, and it is that sattwic ego which he seeks to satisfy;
\nfor his own
\nsake he seeks virtue and knowledge. Only when we cease to satisfy
\nthe ego, to think and to will from the ego, the limited "I" in us, then is there a real freedom. In other words, freedom, highest self-mastery
\nbegin when above the natural self we see and hold the supreme Self <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-198<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nof which the ego is an obstructing veil and a blinding shadow. And
\nthat can only be when we see the one Self in us seated above Nature
\nand make our individual being one with it in being and consciousness
\nand in its individual nature of action only an instrument of a supreme
\nWill, the one Will that is really free. For that we must rise high
\nabove the three gunas, become trigunātita;<\/i> for that Self is beyond
\neven the sattwic principle. We have to climb to it through the sattwa,
\nbut we attain to it only when we get beyond sattwa; we reach out
\nto it from the ego, but only reach it by leaving the ego. We are drawn
\ntowards it by the highest, most passionate, most stupendous and ecstatic of all desires; but we can securely live in it only when all
\ndesire drops away from us. We have at a certain stage to liberate ourselves even from the desire of our liberation. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-199<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XXI   THE DETERMINISM OF NATURE   WHEN WE can live in the higher Self by the unity of works and self-knowledge, we become superior…<\/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-3635","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\/3635","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=3635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}