{"id":3636,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:07","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3636"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:07","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:07","slug":"39-the-three-purushas-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\/39-the-three-purushas-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-39_The Three Purushas.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nTHE THREE PURUSHAS * <\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nT<\/font>HE DOCTRINE
\n<\/font>of the Gita from the beginning to the end converges
\non all its lines and through all the flexibility of its turns towards one
\ncentral thought, and to that it is arriving in all its balancing and
\nreconciliation of the disagreements of various philosophic systems
\nand its careful synthetising of the truths of spiritual experience, lights often
\nconflicting or at least divergent when taken separately and exclusively pursued along their outer arc and curve of radiation, hut
\nhere brought together into one focus of grouping vision. This central
\nthought is the idea of a triple consciousness, three and yet one, present in the whole scale of existence.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThere is a spirit here at work in the world that is one in innumerable appearances. It is the developer of birth and action, the moving
\npower of life, the inhabiting and associating consciousness in the
\nmyriad mutabilities of Nature; it is the constituting reality of all
\nthis stir in Time and Space; it is itself Time and Space and Circumstance. It is this multitude of souls in the worlds; it is the gods and
\nmen and creatures and things and forces and qualities and quantities and powers and presences. It is Nature, which is power of the
\nSpirit, and objects, which are its phenomena of name and idea and
\nform, and existences, who are portions and births and becomings o\u00a3
\nthis single self-existent spiritual entity, the One, the Eternal. But what
\nwe see obviously at work before us is not this Eternal and his conscious
\nShakti, but a Nature which in the blind stress of her operations is
\nignorant of the spirit within her action. Her work is a confused,
\nignorant and limiting play of certain fundamental modes, qualities,
\nprinciples of force in mechanical operation and the fixity or the
\nflux of their consequences. And whatever soul comes to the surface in
\nher action, is itself in appearance ignorant, suffering, bound to the incomplete
\nand unsatisfying play of this inferior Nature. The inherent Power in her is yet other than what it thus seems to be; for, <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* Gita, XV. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n Page-388<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nhidden in its truth, manifest in its appearances, it is the Kshara, the
\nuniversal Soul, the spirit in the mutability of cosmic phenomenon
\nand becoming, one with the Immutable and the Supreme. We have
\nto arrive at the hidden truth behind its manifest appearances; we
\nhave to discover the Spirit behind these veils and to see all as the
\nOne, vāsudeva iti sarvam,<\/i> individual, universal, transcendent. But
\nthis is a thing impossible to achieve with any completeness of inner
\nreality, so long as we live concentrated in the inferior Nature. For
\nin this lesser movement Nature is an ignorance, a Maya; she shelters
\nthe Divine within its folds and conceals him from herself and her
\ncreatures. The Godhead is hidden by the Maya of his own all-creating
\nYoga, the Eternal figured in transience. Being absorbed and covered
\nup by its own manifesting phenomena. In the Kshara taken alone
\nas a thing in itself, the mutable universal apart from the undivided
\nImmutable and the Transcendent, there is no completeness of knowledge, no completeness of our being and therefore no liberation. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut then there is another spirit of whom we become aware and
\nwho is none of these things, but self and self only. This Spirit is
\neternal, always the same, never changed or affected by manifestation,
\nthe one, the stable, a self-existence undivided and not even seemingly
\ndivided by the division of things and powers in Nature, inactive in
\nher action, immobile in her motion. It is the Self of all and yet unmoved, indifferent, intangible, as if all these things which depend
\nupon it were not-self, not its own results and powers and consequences, but a drama of action developed before the eye of an unmoved unparticipating spectator. For the mind that stages and shares
\nin the drama is other than the Self which indifferently contains the
\naction. This spirit is timeless, though we see it in Time; it is unextended in space, though we see it as if pervading space. We become
\naware of it in proportion as we draw back from out inward, or look
\nbehind the action and motion for something that is eternal and stable,
\nor get away from time and its creation to the uncreated, away from
\nphenomenon to being, from the personal to impersonality, from becoming to unalterable self-existence. This is the Akshara, the immutable in the mutable, the immobile in the mobile, the imperishable
\nin things perishable. Or rather, since there is only an appearance of
\npervasion, it is the immutable, immobile and imperishable in which
\nproceeds all the mobility of mutable and perishable things. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe Kshara spirit visible to us as all natural existence and the <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n Page-389<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\ntotality of all existences moves and acts pervadingly in the immobile
\nand eternal Akshara. This mobile Power of Self acts in that fundamental stability of Self, as the second principle of material Nature,
\nVayu, with its contactual force of aggregation and separation, attraction and repulsion, supporting the formative force of the fiery (radiant, gaseous and electric) and other elemental movements, ranges
\npervadingly in the subtly massive stability of ether. This Akshara
\nis the self higher than the buddhi\u2014it exceeds even that highest subjective principle of Nature in our being, the liberating intelligence,
\nthrough which man returning beyond his restless mobile mental to
\nhis calm eternal spiritual self is at last free from the persistence o\u00a3
\nbirth and the long chain of action, of Karma. This self in its highest status,
\nparam dhāma,<\/i> is an unmanifest beyond even the unmanifest principle of the original cosmic Prakriti, Avyakta, and, if the
\nsoul turns to this Immutable, the hold of cosmos and Nature falls
\naway from it and it passes beyond birth to an unchanging eternal
\nexistence. These two then are the two spirits we see in the world; one emerges in front in its action, the other remains behind it steadfast in that perpetual silence from which the action comes and in which all actions cease and disappear into timeless being, Nirvana.
\nDvāv imau purusau loke ksaraś cāksara eva ca.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe difficulty which baffles our intelligence is that these two seem to be irreconcilable opposites with no real nexus between them or any transition from the one to the other except by an intolerant
\nmovement of separation. The Kshara acts, or at least motives action,
\nseparately in the Akshara; the Akshara stands apart, self-centered,
\nseparate in its inactivity from the Kshara. At first sight it would
\nalmost seem better, more logical, more easy of comprehension, if we
\nadmitted with the Sankhyas an original and eternal duality of Purusha and Prakriti, if not even an eternal plurality of souls. Our experience of the Akshara would then be simply the withdrawal of
\neach Purusha into himself, his turning away from Nature and therefore from all contact with other souls in the relations of existence; for each is self-sufficient and infinite and complete in his own essence.
\nBut after all the final experience is that of a unity of all beings which is not merely a community of experience, a common subjection to
\none force of Nature, but a oneness in the spirit, a vast identity of
\nconscious being beyond all this endless variety of determination, behind all this apparent separativism of relative existence. The Gita <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n Page-390<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\ntakes its stand in that highest spiritual experience. It appears indeed to admit an eternal plurality of souls subject to and sustained by
\ntheir eternal unity, for cosmos is for ever and manifestation goes on
\nin unending cycles; nor does it affirm anywhere or use any expression
\nthat would indicate an absolute disappearance, laya,<\/i> the annullation
\nof the individual soul in the Infinite. But at the same time it affirms
\nwith a strong insistence that the Akshara is the one self of all these
\nmany souls, and it is therefore evident that these two spirits are a
\ndual status of one eternal and universal existence. That is a very
\nancient doctrine; it is the whole basis of the largest vision of the
\nUpanishads,\u2014as when the Isha tells us that Brahman is both the
\nmobile and the immobile, is the One and the Many, is the Self and
\nall existences, ātman, sarvabhūtāni,<\/i> is the Knowledge and the Ignorance, is the eternal unborn status and also the birth of existences,
\nand that to dwell only on one of these things to the rejection of its
\neternal counterpart is a darkness of exclusive knowledge or a darkness
\nof ignorance. It too insists like the Gita that man must know and
\nmust embrace both and learn of the Supreme in his entirety\u2014 samagram mām,<\/i> as the Gita puts it\u2014in order to enjoy immortality and
\nlive in the Eternal. The teaching of the Gita and this side of the
\nteaching of the Upanishads are so far at one; for they look at and
\nadmit both sides of the reality and still arrive at identity as the conclusion and the highest truth of existence. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut this greater knowledge and experience, however true and
\nhowever powerful in its appeal to our highest seeing, has still to get
\nrid of a very real and pressing difficulty, a practical as well as a logical
\ncontradiction which seems at first sight to persist up to the highest
\nheights of spiritual experience. The Eternal is other than this mobile
\nsubjective and objective experience, there is a greater consciousness,
\nna idamyad upāsate:<\/i>1<\/sup> and yet at the same time all this is the Eternal,
\nall this is the perennial self-seeing of the Self, sarvam khalu idam brahma, ayam
\nātmā brahma.<\/i>2<\/sup> The Eternal has become all existences,
\natma abhut sarvab}iutdm;3<\/i> as the Swetaswatara puts it, "Thou art this
\nboy and yonder girl and that old man walking supported on his
\nstaff,"\u2014even as in the Gita the Divine says that he is Krishna and <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1<\/sup> Kena Upanisliad.<\/i>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n2<\/sup> Mandukya Upanishad:<\/i> Verily all this that is
\nthe Brahman, and the Self is
\nthe Brahman. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n3<\/sup>Isha Upanishad.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n Page-391<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nArjuna and Vyasa and Ushanas, and the lion and the aswattha tree,
\nand consciousness and intelligence and all qualities and the self
\nof all creatures. But how are these two the same, when they seem not
\nonly so opposite in nature, but so difficult to unify in experience?
\nFor when we live in the mobility of the becoming, we may be aware
\nof but hardly live in the immortality of timeless self-existence. And
\nwhen we fix ourselves in timeless being, Time and Space and circumstance fall away from us and begin to appear as a troubled dream
\nin the Infinite. The most persuasive conclusion would be, at first
\nsight, that the mobility of the spirit in Nature is an illusion, a thing
\nreal only when we live in it, but not real in essence, and that is why,
\nwhen we go back into self, it falls away from our incorruptible
\nessence. That is the familiar cutting of the knot of the riddle, Brahma<\/i>
\nsatyam jagan mithyā.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe Gita does not take refuge in this explanation which has enormous difficulties of its own, besides its failure to account for the
\nillusion,\u2014for it only says that it is all a mysterious and incomprehensible Maya, and then we might just as well say that it is all a mysterious and incomprehensible double reality, spirit concealing itself from
\nspirit. The Gita speaks of Maya, but only as a bewildering partial
\nconsciousness which loses hold of the complete reality, lives in the
\nphenomenon of mobile Nature and has no sight of the Spirit of
\nwhich she is the active Power, me prakrtih.<\/i> When we transcend this
\nMaya, the world does not disappear, it only changes its whole heart
\nof meaning. In the spiritual vision we find not that all this does not
\nreally exist, but rather that all is, but with a sense quite other than
\nits present mistaken significance: all is self and soul and nature of the
\nGodhead, all is Vasudeva. The world for the Gita is real, a creation of
\nthe Lord, a power of the Eternal, a manifestation from the Parabrahman, and even this lower nature of the triple Maya is a derivation
\nfrom the supreme divine Nature. Nor can we take refuge altogether
\nin this distinction that there is a double, an inferior active and temporal and a superior calm still and eternal reality beyond action and
\nthat our liberation is to pass from this partiality to that greatness, from
\nthe action to the silence. For the Gita insists that we can and should,
\nwhile we live, be conscious in the self and its silence and yet act with
\npower in the world of Nature. And it gives the example of the Divine
\nhimself who is not bound by necessity of birth, but free, superior to
\nthe cosmos, and yet abides eternally in action, varta eva ca karmani.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n Page-392<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nTherefore it is by putting on a likeness of the divine nature in its
\n<\/i>completeness that the unity of this double experience becomes entirely possible. But what is the principle of that oneness? <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe Gita finds it in its supreme vision of the Purushottama; for
\nthat is the type, according to its doctrine, of the complete and the
\nhighest experience, it is the knowledge of the whole-knowers, krtsnavidah.<\/i> The Akshara is para,<\/i> supreme in relation to the elements and
\naction of cosmic Nature. It is the immutable Self of all, and the immutable Self of all is the Purushottama. The Akshara is he in the
\nfreedom of his self-existence unaffected by the action of his own
\npower in Nature, not impinged on by the urge of his own becoming,
\nundisturbed by the play of his own qualities. But this is only one
\naspect, though a great aspect of the integral knowledge. The Purushottama is at the same time greater than the Akshara, because he is
\nmore than this immutability and he is not limited even by the highest
\neternal status of his being, param dhāma.<\/i> Still, it is through whatever
\nis immutable and eternal in us that we arrive at that highest status
\nfrom which there is no returning to birth, and that was the liberation
\nwhich was sought by the wise of old, the ancient sages. But when
\npursued through the Akshara alone, this attempt at liberation becomes
\nthe seeking of the Indefinable, a thing hard for our nature embodied
\nas we are here in Matter. The Indefinable, to which the Akshara, the
\npure intangible self here in us rises in its separative urge, is some
\nsupreme Unmanifest, paro avyaktah,<\/i> and that highest unmanifest
\nAkshara is still the Purushottama. Therefore, the Gita has said, those
\nalso who follow after the Indefinable, come to Me, the eternal Godhead. But yet is he more even than a highest unmanifest Akshara,
\nmore than any negative Absolute, neti neti,<\/i> because he is to be known
\nalso as the supreme Purusha who extends this whole universe in his
\nown existence. He is a supreme mysterious All, an ineffable positive
\nAbsolute of all things here. He is the Lord in the Kshara, Purushottama not only there, but here in the heart of every creature, Ishwara.
\nAnd there too even in his highest eternal status, paro avyaktah,<\/i> he is
\nthe supreme Lord, Parameshwara, no aloof and unrelated Indefinable,
\nbut the origin and father and mother and first foundation and eternal
\nabode of self and cosmos and Master of all existences and enjoyer of
\naskesis and sacrifice. It is by knowing him at once in the Akshara and
\nthe Kshara, it is by knowing him as the Unborn who partially manifests himself in all birth and even himself descends as the constant <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n Page-393<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nAvatar, it is by knowing him in his entirety,
\nsamagram mām,<\/i> that the
\nsoul is easily released from the appearances of the lower Nature and
\nreturns by a vast sudden growth and broad immeasurable ascension
\ninto the divine being and supreme Nature. For the truth of the
\nKshara too is a truth of the Purushottama. The Purushottama is in
\nthe heart of every creature and is manifested in his countless Vibhutis; the Purushottama is the cosmic spirit in Time and it is he that
\ngives the command to the divine action of the liberated human spirit.
\nHe is both Akshara and Kshara, and yet he is other because he is
\nmore and greater than either of these opposites. Uttamah purusas
\ntvanyah paramātmetyudāhrtah, yo lokatrayam āviśya vibhartyavyaya īśvarah,<\/i> "But other than these two is that highest spirit called the
\nsupreme Self, who enters the three worlds and upbears them, the
\nimperishable Lord." This verse is the keyword of the Gita’s reconciliation of these two apparently opposite aspects of our existence. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe idea of the Purushottama has been prepared, alluded to,
\nadumbrated, assumed even from the beginning, but it is only now
\nin the fifteenth chapter that it is expressly stated and the distinction
\nilluminated by a name. And it is instructive to see how it is immediately approached and developed. To ascend into the divine nature,
\nwe have been told, one must first fix oneself in a perfect spiritual
\nequality and rise above the lower nature of the three gunas. Thus
\ntranscending the lower Prakriti we fix ourselves in the impersonality,
\nthe imperturbable superiority to all action, the purity from all definition and limitation by quality which is one side of the manifested
\nnature of the Purushottama, his manifestation as the eternity and
\nunity of the self, the Akshara. But there is also an ineffable eternal
\nmultiplicity of the Purushottama, a highest truest truth behind the
\nprimal mystery of soul manifestation. The Infinite has an eternal
\npower, an unbeginning and unending action of his divine Nature,
\nand in that action the miracle of soul personality emerges from a play
\nof apparently impersonal forces, prakrtir jīvabhūtā.<\/i> This is possible
\nbecause personality too is a character of the Divine and finds in the
\nInfinite its highest spiritual truth and meaning. But the Person in
\nthe Infinite is not the egoistic, separative, oblivious personality of the
\nlower Prakriti; it is something exalted, universal and transcendent,
\nimmortal and divine. That mystery of the supreme Person is the
\nsecret of love and devotion. The spiritual person, purusa,<\/i> the eternal
\nsoul in us offers itself and all it has and is to the eternal Divine, the <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n Page-394<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nsupreme Person and Godhead of whom it is a portion, amsa.<\/i> The
\ncompleteness of knowledge finds itself in this self-offering, this uplifting of our personal nature by love and adoration to the ineffable
\nMaster of our personality and its acts; the sacrifice of works receives
\nby it its consummation and perfect sanction. It is, then, through
\nthese things that the soul of man fulfils itself most completely in this
\nother and dynamic secret, this other great and intimate aspect of the
\ndivine nature and possesses by that fulfilment the foundation of immortality, the supreme felicity and the eternal Dharma. And having
\nso stated this double requisite, equality in the one self, adoration of
\nthe one Lord, at first separately as if they were two different ways of
\narriving at the Brahmic status, brahmabhūyāya,\u2014one<\/i> taking the form
\nof quietistic sannyāsa,<\/i> the other a form of divine love and divine action,\u2014the Gita proceeds now to unite the personal and the impersonal
\nin the Purushottama and to define their relations. For the object of
\nthe Gita is to get rid of exclusions and separative exaggerations and
\nfuse these two sides of knowledge and spiritual experience into a
\nsingle and perfect way to the supreme perfection. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nFirst there comes a description of cosmic existence in the Vedantic image of the aswattha tree. This tree of cosmic existence has no
\nbeginning and no end, nānto na cādih,<\/i> in space or in time; for it is
\neternal and imperishable, avyaya.<\/i> The real form of it cannot be perceived by us in this material world of man’s embodiment, nor has it
\nany apparent lasting foundation here; it is an infinite movement and
\nits foundation is above in the supreme of the Infinite. Its principle is
\nthe ancient sempiternal urge to action, pravrtti,<\/i> which for ever proceeds without beginning or end from the original Soul of all existence,
\nādyam purusam yatah pravrttih prasrtā purānī.<\/i> Therefore its original
\nsource is above beyond Time in the Eternal, but its branches stretch
\ndown below and it extends and plunges its other roots, well-fixed and
\nclinging roots of attachment and desire with their consequences of
\nmore and more desire and an endlessly developing action, plunges
\nthem downward here into the world of men. The hymns of the Veda
\nare compared to its leaves and the man who knows this tree of the
\ncosmos is the Veda-knower. And here we see the sense of that rather
\ndisparaging view of the Veda or at least of the Vedavada, which we
\nhad to notice at the beginning. For the knowledge the Veda gives
\nus is a knowledge of the gods, of the principles and powers of the
\ncosmos, and its fruits are the fruits of a sacrifice which is offered with <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n Page-395<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\ndesire, fruits of enjoyment and lordship in the nature of the three
\nworlds, in earth and heaven and the world between earth and heaven.
\nThe branches of this cosmic tree extend both below and above, below
\nin the material, above in the supraphysical planes; they grow by the
\ngunas of Nature, for the triple guna is all the subject of the Vedas,
\ntraigunya-visayā vedāh.<\/i> The Vedic rhythms, chandāmsi,<\/i> are the leaves
\nand the sensible objects of desire supremely gained by a right doing
\nof sacrifice are the constant budding of the foliage. Man, therefore,
\nso long as he enjoys the play of the gunas and is attached to desire,
\nis held in the coils of Pravritti, in the movement of birth and action,
\nturns about constantly between the earth and the middle planes and
\nthe heavens and is unable to get back to his supreme spiritual infinitudes. This was perceived by the sages. To achieve liberation they
\nfollowed the path of Nivritti or cessation from the original urge to
\naction, and the consummation of this way is the cessation of birth
\nitself and a transcendent status in the highest supracosmic reach of
\nthe Eternal. But for this purpose it is necessary to cut these long-fixed
\nroots of desire by the strong sword of detachment and then to seek for
\nthat highest goal whence, once having reached it, there is no compulsion of return to mortal life. To be tree from the bewilderment of this
\nlower Maya, without egoism, the great fault of attachment conquered,
\nall desires stilled, the duality of joy and grief cast away, always to be
\nfixed in a pure spiritual consciousness, these are the steps of the way
\nto that supreme Infinite. There we find the timeless being which is
\nnot illumined by sun or moon or fire, but is itself the light of the
\npresence of the eternal Purusha. I turn away, says the Vedantic verse,
\nto seek that original Soul alone and to reach him in the great passage. That is the highest status of the Purushottama, his supracosmic existence, <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut it would seem that this can be attained very well, best even, pre-eminently, directly, by the quiescence of Sannyasa. Its appointed
\npath would seem to be the way of the Akshara, a complete renunciation of works and life, an ascetic seclusion, an ascetic inaction. Where
\nis the room here, or at least where is the call, the necessity, for the
\ncommand to action, and what has all this to do with the maintenance
\nof the cosmic existence, lokasamgraha,<\/i> the slaughter of Kurukshetra,
\nthe ways of the Spirit in Time, the vision of the million-bodied Lord
\nand his high-voiced bidding, "Arise, slay the foe, enjoy a wealthy
\nkingdom"? And what then is this soul in Nature? This spirit, too, <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n Page-396<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthis Kshara, this enjoyer of our mutable existence is the Purushottama; it is he in his eternal multiplicity, that is the Gita’s answer. "It
\nis an eternal portion of Me that becomes the Jiva in a world of
\nJivas." This is an epithet, a statement of immense bearing and consequence. For it means that each soul, each being in its spiritual reality
\nis the very Divine, however partial its actual manifestation of him in
\nNature. And it means too, if words have any sense, that each manifesting spirit, each of the many, is an eternal individual, an eternal
\nunborn undying power of the one Existence. We call this manifesting
\nspirit the Jiva, because it appears here as if a living creature in a
\nworld of living creatures, and we speak of this spirit in man as the
\nhuman soul and think of it in the terms of humanity only. But in
\ntruth it is something greater than its present appearance and not
\nbound to its humanity: it was a lesser manifestation than the human
\nin its past, it can become something much greater than mental man
\nin its future. And when this soul rises above all ignorant limitation,
\nthen it puts on its divine nature of which its humanity is only a
\ntemporary veil, a thing of partial and incomplete significance. The
\nindividual spirit exists and ever existed beyond in the Eternal, for
\nit is itself everlasting, sanātana.<\/i> It is evidently this idea of the eternal
\nindividual which leads the Gita to avoid any expression at all suggestive of a complete dissolution, laya,<\/i> and to speak rather of the highest state of the soul as a dwelling in the Purushottama, nivasisyasi
\nmayyeva.<\/i> If, when speaking of the one Self of all, it seems to use the
\nlanguage of Adwaita, yet this enduring truth of the eternal individual, mamāmśah sanātanah,<\/i> adds something which brings in a qualification and appears almost to accept the seeing of the Visishtadwaita,\u2014
\nthough we must not therefore leap at once to the conclusion that that
\nalone is the Gita’s philosophy or that its doctrine is identical with the
\nlater doctrine of Ramanuja. Still this much is clear that there is an
\neternal, a real and not only an illusive principle of multiplicity in the
\nspiritual being of the one divine Existence. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis eternal individual is not other than or in any way really separate from the Divine Purusha. It is the Lord himself, the Ishwara
\nwho by virtue of the eternal multiplicity of his oneness\u2014is not all
\nexistence a rendering of that truth of the Infinite?\u2014exists for ever as
\nthe immortal soul within us and has taken up this body and goes forth
\nfrom the transient framework when it is cast away to disappear into
\nthe elements of Nature. He brings in with him and cultivates for the <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n Page-397<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nenjoyment of the objects of mind and sense the subjective powers of
\nPrakriti, mind and the five senses, and in his going forth too he goes
\ntaking them as the wind takes the perfumes from a vase. But the
\nidentity of the Lord and the soul in mutable Nature is hidden from
\nus by outward appearance and lost in the crowding mobile deceptions
\nof that Nature. And those who allow themselves to be governed by
\nthe figures of Nature, the figure of humanity or any other form, will
\nnever see it, but will ignore and despise the Divine lodged in the
\nhuman body. Their ignorance, cannot perceive him in his coming in
\nand his going forth or in his staying and enjoying and assumption of
\nquality, but sees only what is there visible to the mind and senses,
\nnot the greater truth which can only be glimpsed by the eye of knowledge. Never can they have sight of him, even if they strive to do so,
\nuntil they learn to put away the limitations of the outward consciousness and build in themselves their spiritual being, create for it, as it
\nwere, a form in their nature. Man, to know himself, must be krtātmā,
\n<\/i>formed and complete in the spiritual mould, enlightened in the spiritual vision. The Yogins who have this eye of knowledge, see the
\nDivine Being we are in their own endless reality, their own eternity
\nof spirit. Illumined, they see the Lord in themselves and are delivered
\nfrom the crude material limitation, from the form of mental personality, from the transient life formulation: they dwell immortal in the
\ntruth of the self and spirit. But they see him too not only in themselves, but in all the cosmos. In the light of the sun that illumines all
\nthis world they witness the light of the Godhead which is in us; the
\nlight in the moon and in fire is the light of the Divine. It is the Divine
\nwho has entered into this form of earth and is the spirit of its material
\nforce and sustains by his might these multitudes. The Divine is the
\ngodhead of Soma who by the rasa,<\/i> the sap in the earth-mother, nourishes the plants and trees that clothe her surface. The Divine and no
\nother is the flame of life that sustains the physical body of living creatures and turns its food into sustenance of their vital force. He is
\nlodged in the heart of every breathing thing; from him are memory
\nand knowledge and the debates of the reason. He is that which is
\nknown by all the Vedas and by all forms of knowing; he is the
\nknower of Veda and the maker of Vedanta. In other words, the Divine is at once the Soul of matter and the Soul of life and the Soul
\nof mind as well as the Soul of the supramental light that is beyond
\nmind and its limited reasoning intelligence, <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n Page-398<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nThus the Divine is manifest in a double soul of his mystery, a twofold power, dvāv imau. purusau;<\/i> he supports at once the spirit of
\nmutable things that is all these existences, ksarah sarvani bhutani,
\n<\/i>and the immutable spirit that stands above them in his imperturbable
\nimmobility of eternal silence and calm. And it is by the force of the
\nDivine in them that the mind and heart and will of man are so powerfully drawn in different directions by these two spirits as if by
\nopposing and incompatible attractions one insistent to annul the
\nother. But the Divine is neither wholly the Kshara, nor wholly the
\nAkshara. He is greater than the immutable Self and he is much greater
\nthan the Soul of mutable things. If he is capable of being both at
\nonce, it is because he is other than they, anyah,<\/i> the Purushottama
\nabove all cosmos and yet extended in the world and extended in the
\nVeda, in self-knowledge and in cosmic experience. And whoever thus
\nknows and sees him as the Purushottama, is no longer bewildered
\nwhether by the world-appearance or by the separate attraction of
\nthese two apparent contraries. These at first confront each other here
\nin him as a positive of the cosmic action and as its negative in the Self
\nwho has no part in an action that belongs or seems to belong entirely
\nto the ignorance of Nature. Or again they challenge his consciousness
\nas a positive of pure, indeterminable, stable, eternal self-existence and
\nas its negative of a world of elusive determinations and relations, ideas
\nand forms, perpetual unstable becoming and the creating and uncreating tangle of action and evolution, birth and death, appearance
\nand disappearance. He embraces and escapes them, overcomes their
\nopposition and becomes all-knowing, sarvavid,<\/i> a whole-knower. He
\nsees the entire sense both of the self and of things; he restores the
\nintegral reality of the Divine;4 he unites the Kshara and the Akshara
\nin the Purushottama. He loves, worships, cleaves to and adores the
\nsupreme Self of his and all existence, the one Lord of his and all
\nenergies, the close and far-off Eternal in and beyond the world. And
\nhe does this too with no single side or portion of himself, exclusive
\nspiritualised mind, blinding light of the heart intense but divorced
\nfrom largeness, or sole aspiration of the will in works, but in all the
\nperfectly illumined ways of his being and his becoming, his soul and
\nhis nature. Divine in the equality of his imperturbable self-existence,
\none in it with all objects and creatures, he brings that boundless
\nequality, that deep oneness down into his mind and heart and life
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n4<\/sup> samagram
\nmām.<\/i> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-399<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nand body and founds on it in an indivisible integrality the trinity o\u00a3
\ndivine love, divine works and divine knowledge. This is the Gita’s way of salvation. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd is that not too after all the real Adwaita which makes no least
\nscission in the one eternal Existence? This utmost undividing Monism
\nsees the one as the one even in the multiplicities of Nature, in all
\naspects, as much in the reality of self and of cosmos as in that greatest
\nreality of the supracosmic which is the source of self and the truth o\u00a3
\nthe cosmos and is not bound either by any affirmation of universal
\nbecoming or by any universal or absolute negation. That at least is
\nthe Adwaita of the Gita. This is the most secret Shastra, says the
\nTeacher to Arjuna; this is the supreme teaching and science which
\nleads us into the heart of the highest mystery of existence. Absolutely
\nto know it, to seize it in knowledge and feeling and force and experience is to be perfected in the transformed understanding, divinely
\nsatisfied in heart and successful in the supreme sense and objective
\nof all will and action and works. It is the way to be immortal, to rise
\ntowards the highest divine nature and to assume the eternal Dharma. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-400<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XV   THE THREE PURUSHAS *   THE DOCTRINE of the Gita from the beginning to the end converges on all its lines and through…<\/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-3636","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\/3636","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=3636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}