{"id":3638,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:08","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3638"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:08","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:08","slug":"31-the-supreme-word-of-the-gita-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\/31-the-supreme-word-of-the-gita-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-31_The Supreme Word of the Gita.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

THE SUPREME WORD OF THE GITA <\/font>
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nW<\/font>E HAVE<\/font> now got to the inmost kernel of the Gita’s Yoga, the
\nwhole living and breathing centre of its teaching. We can see now
\nquite clearly that the ascent of the limited human soul, when it withdraws from the ego and the lower nature into the immutable Self
\ncalm, silent and stable, was only a first step, an initial change. And
\nnow too we can see why the Gita from the first insisted on the
\nIshwara, the Godhead in the human form, who speaks always of himself, aham, mām,<\/i> as of some great secret and omnipresent Being,
\nlord of all the worlds and master of the human soul, one who is
\ngreater even than that immutable self-existence which is still and
\nunmoved for ever and abides for ever untouched by the subjective and
\nobjective appearances of the natural universe. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAll Yoga is a seeking after the Divine, a turn towards union with
\nthe Eternal. According to the adequacy of our perception of the
\nDivine and the Eternal will be the way of the seeking, the depth
\nand fullness of the union and the integrality of the realisation. Man,
\nthe mental being, approaches the Infinite through his finite mind and
\nhas to open some near gate of this finite upon that Infinite. He seeks
\nfor some conception on which his mind is able to seize, selects some
\npower of his nature which by force of an absolute self-heightening
\ncan reach out and lay its touch on the infinite Truth that in itself is beyond
\nhis mental comprehension. Some face of that infinite Truth for, because it is infinite, it has numberless faces, words of its meaning, self-suggestions\u2014he attempts to see, so that by attaching himself
\nto it he can arrive through direct experience to the immeasurable
\nreality it figures. However narrow the gate may be, he is satisfied if it
\noffers some prospect into the wideness which attracts him, if it sets
\nhim on the way to the fathomless profundity and unreachable heights of that which calls to his spirit. And as he approaches it, so it receives
\nhim, ye yathā mām prapadyante.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nPhilosophic mind attempts to attain to the Eternal by an abstractive <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-299<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nknowledge. The business of knowledge is to comprehend and for the
\nfinite intellect that means to define and determine. But the only way
\nto determine the indeterminable is by some kind of universal negation,
\nneti neti.<\/i> Therefore the mind proceeds to exclude from the conception of the Eternal all that offers itself as limitable by the senses and
\nthe heart and the understanding. An entire opposition is made between the Self and the not-self, between an eternal, immutable,
\nindefinable self-existence and all forms of existence,\u2014between Brahman and Maya, between the ineffable Reality and all that undertakes
\nto express, but cannot express the Ineffable,\u2014between Karma and
\nNirvana, between the ever continuous but ever impermanent action
\nand conception of the universal Energy and some absolute ineffable
\nsupreme Negation of its action and conception which is empty of all
\nlife and mentality and dynamic significance. That strong drive of
\nknowledge towards the Eternal leads away from everything that is
\ntransient. It negates life in order to return to its source, cuts away from
\nus all that we seem to be in order to get from it to the nameless and
\nimpersonal reality of our being. The desires of the heart, the works of
\nthe will and the conceptions of the mind are rejected; even in the end
\nknowledge itself is negated and abolished in the Identical and Unknowable. By the way of an increasing quietude ending in an absolute passivity the maya-created soul or the bundle of associations we
\ncall ourselves enters into annihilation of its idea of personality, makes
\nan end of the lie of living, disappears into Nirvana. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut this difficult abstractive method of self-negation, however it
\nmay draw to it some exceptional natures, cannot satisfy universally
\nthe embodied soul in man, because it does not give an outlet to all
\nthe straining of his complex nature towards the perfect Eternal. Not
\nonly his abstracting contemplative intellect but his yearning heart,
\nhis active will, his positive mind in search of some Truth to which
\nhis existence and the existence of the world is a manifold key, have
\ntheir straining towards the Eternal and Infinite and seek to find in it
\ntheir divine Source and the justification of their being and their nature. From this need arise the religions of love and works, whose
\nstrength is that they satisfy and lead Godwards the most active and
\ndeveloped powers of our humanity,\u2014for only by starting from these
\ncan knowledge be effective. Even Buddhism with its austere and uncompromising negation both of subjective self and objective things
\nhad still to found itself initially on a divine discipline of works and <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-300<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nto admit as a substitute for bhakti the spiritualised emotionalism of
\na universal love and compassion, since so only could it become an
\neffective way for mankind, a truly liberating religion. Even illusionist Mayavada with its ultra-logical intolerance of action and the creations of mentality had to allow a provisional and practical reality to
\nman and the universe and to God in the world in order to have a
\nfirst foothold and a feasible starting-point; it had to affirm what it
\ndenied in order to give some reality to man’s bondage and to his effort
\nfor liberation. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut the weakness of the kinetic and the emotional religions is that
\nthey are too much absorbed in some divine Personality and in the
\ndivine values of the finite. And, even when they have a conception
\nof the infinite Godhead, they do not give us the full satisfaction of
\nknowledge because they do not follow it out into its most ultimate
\nand supernal tendencies. These religions fall short of a complete absorption in the Eternal and the perfect union by identity,\u2014and yet
\nto that identity in some other way, if not in the abstractive, since
\nthere all oneness has its basis, the spirit that is in, man must one day
\narrive. On the other hand, the weakness of a contemplative quietistic spirituality is that it arrives at this result by a too absolute abstraction and in the end it turns into a nothing or a fiction the human soul whose aspiration was yet all the time the whole sense of
\nthis attempt at union; for without the soul and its aspiration liberation and union could have no meaning. The little that this way of
\nthinking recognises of his other powers of existence, it relegates to
\nan inferior preliminary action which never arrives at any full or satisfying realisation in the Eternal and Infinite. Yet these things too
\nwhich it restricts unduly, the potent will, the strong yearning of love,
\nthe positive light and all-embracing intuition of the conscious mental
\nbeing are from the Divine, represent essential powers of him and
\nmust have some justification in their Source and some dynamic way
\nof self-fulfilment in him. No God-knowledge can be integral, perfect
\nor universally satisfying which leaves unfulfilled their absolute claim,
\nno wisdom utterly wise which in its intolerant asceticism of search
\nnegates or in the pride of pure knowledge belittles the spiritual reality behind these ways of the Godhead. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe greatness of the central thought of the Gita in which all its
\nthreads are gathered up and united, consists in the synthetic value
\nof a conception which recognises the whole nature of the soul of <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-301<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nman in the universe and validates by a large and wise unification its
\nmany-sided need of the supreme and infinite Truth, Power, Love,
\nBeing to which our humanity turns in its search for perfection and
\nimmortality and some highest joy and power and peace. There is a
\nstrong and wide endeavour towards a comprehensive spiritual view
\nof God and man and universal existence. Not indeed that everything without any exception is seized in these eighteen chapters, no
\nspiritual problem left for solution; hut still so large a scheme is laid
\nout that we have only to fill in, to develop, to modify, to stress, to
\nfollow out points, to work out hint and illuminate adumbration in
\norder to find a clue to any farther claim of our intelligence and
\nneed of our spirit. The Gita itself does not evolve any quite novel
\nsolution out of its own questionings. To arrive at the comprehensiveness at which it aims, it goes back behind the great philosophical
\nsystems to the original Vedanta of the Upanishads; for there we have
\nthe widest and profoundest extant synthetic vision of spirit and man
\nand cosmos. But what is in the Upanishads undeveloped to the intelligence, because wrapped up in a luminous kernel of intuitive
\nvision and symbolic utterance, the Gita brings out in the light of a
\nlater intellectual thinking and distinctive experience. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIn the frame of its synthesis it admits the seeking of the abstractive thinkers tor the Indefinable, anirdesyam,<\/i> the ever unmanifest
\nImmutable, avyaktam aksaram.<\/i> Those who devote themselves to this
\nsearch, find, they also, the Purushottama, the supreme Divine Person, mām,<\/i> the Spirit and highest Soul and Lord of things. For his
\nutmost self-existent way of being is indeed an unthinkable, acintyarupam,<\/i> an unimaginable positive, an absolute quintessence of all absolutes far beyond the determination of the intelligence. The method
\nof negative passivity, quietude, renunciation of life and works by
\nwhich men feel after this intangible Absolute is admitted and ratified in the Gita’s philosophy, but only with a minor permissive sanction. This negating knowledge approaches the Eternal by one side
\nonly of the truth and that side the most difficult to reach and follow
\nfor the embodied soul in Nature, duhkham dehavadbhir avāpyate;<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nit proceeds by a highly specialised, even an unnecessarily arduous
\nway, "narrow and difficult to tread as a razor’s edge." Not by denying all relations, but through all relations is the Divine Infinite naturally approachable to man and most easily, widely, intimately seizable.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-302<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nThis seeing is not after all the largest or the truest truth that
\nthe Supreme is without any relations with the mental, vital, physical
\nexistence of man in the universe, avyavāharyam,<\/i> nor that what is
\ndescribed as the empirical truth of things, the truth of relations,
\nvyavahāre,<\/i> is altogether the opposite of the highest spiritual truth,
\nparamārtha.<\/i> On the contrary, there are a thousand relations by which
\nthe supreme Eternal is secretly in contact and union with our human
\nexistence and by all essential ways of our nature and of the world’s
\nnature, sarva-bhāvena,<\/i> can that contact be made sensible and that
\nunion made real to our soul, heart, will, intelligence, spirit. Therefore
\nis this other way natural and easy for man, sukham āptum.<\/i> God does
\nnot make himself difficult of approach to us; only one thing is needed,
\none demand made, the single indomitable will to break through the
\nveil of our ignorance and the whole, the persistent seeking of the mind
\nand heart and life for that which is all the time near to it, within it,
\nits own soul of being and spiritual essence and the secret of its personality and its impersonality, its self and its nature. This is our one
\ndifficulty; the rest the Master of our existence will himself see to and
\naccomplish, aham tvām moksayisyāmi mā śuch.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIn the very part of its teaching in which the Gita’s synthesis leans
\nmost towards the side of pure knowledge, we have seen that it constantly prepares for this fuller truth and more pregnant experience,
\nIndeed, it is implied in the very form the Gita gives to the realisation
\nof the self-existent Immutable. That immutable Self of all existences seems indeed to stand back from any active intervention in
\nthe workings of Nature; but it is not void of all relation whatever
\nand remote from all connection. It is our witness and supporter,
\nit gives a silent and impersonal sanction; it has even an impressive enjoyment. The many-sided action of Nature is still possible
\neven when the soul is poised in that calm self-existence: for the witness soul is the immutable Purusha, and Purusha has always some
\nrelation with Prakriti. But now the reason of this double aspect of
\nsilence and activity is revealed in its entire significance,\u2014because
\nthe silent all-pervading Self is only one side of the truth of the divine
\nbeing. He who pervades the world as the one unchanging self that
\nsupports all its mutations, is equally the Godhead in man, the Lord
\nin the heart of every creature, the conscient Cause and Master of all
\nour subjective becoming and all our inward-taking and outward-going <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-303<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nobjectivised action. The Ishwara of the Yogins is one with the Brahman of the seeker of knowledge, one supreme and universal Spirit,
\none supreme and universal Godhead. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis Godhead is not the limited personal God of so many exoteric
\nreligions; for those are all only partial and outward formations of this
\nother, this creative and directive, this personal side of his complete
\ntruth of existence. This is the one supreme Person, Soul, Being, Purusha of whom all godheads are aspects, all individual personality a
\nlimited development in cosmic Nature. This Godhead is not a particularised name and form of Divinity, ista-devatā,<\/i> constructed by the
\nintelligence or embodying the special aspiration of the worshipper.
\nAll such names and forms are only powers and faces of the one Deva
\nwho is the universal Lord of all worshippers and all religions: hut
\nthis is itself that universal Deity, deva-deva.<\/i> This Ishwara is not a reflection of the impersonal and indeterminable Brahman in illusive
\nMaya: for from beyond all cosmos as well as within it he rules and is
\nthe Lord of the worlds and their creatures. He is Parabrahman who
\nis Parameswara, supreme Lord because he is the supreme Self and
\nSpirit, and from his highest original existence he originates and governs the universe, not self-deceived, but with an all-knowing omnipotence. Nor is the working of his divine Nature in the cosmos an illusion whether of his or our consciousness. The only illusive Maya is
\nthe ignorance of the lower Prakriti which is not a creator of nonexistent things on the impalpable background of the One and Absolute, but because of its blind encumbered and limited working
\nmisrepresents to the human mind by the figure of ego and other inadequate figures of mind, life and matter the greater sense, the deeper
\nrealities of existence. There is a supreme, a divine Nature which is
\nthe true creatrix of the universe. All creatures and all objects are becomings of the one ‘divine Being; all life is a working of the power
\nof the one Lord; all nature is a manifestation of the one Infinite. He
\nis the Godhead in man; the Jiva is spirit of his Spirit. He is the Godhead of the universe; this world in Space and Time is his phenomenal
\nself-extension. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIn the unrolling of this comprehensive vision of existence and
\nsuper-existence the Yoga of the Gita finds its unified significance and
\nunexampled amplitude. This supreme Godhead is the one unchanging imperishable Self in all that is; therefore to the spiritual sense of <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-304<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthis unchanging imperishable Self man has to awake and to unify
\nwith it his inner impersonal being. He is the Godhead in man who
\noriginates and directs all his workings; therefore man has to awake to
\nthe Godhead within himself, to know the divinity he houses, to rise
\nout of all that veils and obscures it and to become united with this
\ninmost Self of his self, this greater consciousness of his consciousness,
\nthis hidden Master of all his will and works, this Being within him
\nwho is the fount and object of all his various becoming. He is the
\nGodhead whose divine nature, origin of all that we are, is thickly
\nveiled by these lower natural derivations; therefore man has to get
\nback from his lower apparent existence, imperfect and mortal, to his
\nessential divine nature of immortality and perfection. This Godhead
\nis one in all things that are, the self who lives in all and the self in
\nwhom all live and move; therefore man has to discover his spiritual
\nunity with all creatures, to see all in the self and the self in all beings,
\neven to see all things and creatures as himself, ātmaupamyena sarvatra,<\/i> and accordingly think, feel and act in all his mind, will and
\nliving. This Godhead is the origin of all that is here or elsewhere and
\nby his Nature he has become all these innumerable existences, abhūt
\nsarva-bhūtāni;<\/i> therefore man has to see and adore the One in all
\nthings animate and inanimate, to worship the manifestation in
\nsun and star and flower, in man and every living creature, in the
\nforms and forces, qualities and powers of Nature, vāsudevah sarvam
\niti.<\/i> He has to make himself by divine vision and divine sympathy and
\nfinally by a strong inner identity one universality with the universe.
\nA passive relationless identity excludes love and action, but this larger
\nand richer oneness fulfils itself by works and by a pure emotion: it
\nbecomes the source and continent and substance and motive and divine purpose of all our acts and feelings. Kasmai devāya
\nhavisā vidhema, to<\/i> what Godhead shall we give all our life and activities as an
\noffering? This is that Godhead, this the Lord who claims our sacrifice. A passive relationless identity excludes the joy of adoration and
\ndevotion; but bhakti is the very soul and heart and summit of this
\nricher, completer, more intimate union. This Godhead is the fulfilment of all relations, father, mother, lover, friend and refuge of the
\nsoul of every creature. He is the one supreme and universal Deva,
\nAtman, Purusha, Brahman, Ishwara of the secret wisdom. He has
\nmanifested the world in himself in all these ways by his divine Yoga: <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-305<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nits multitudinous existences are one in him and he is one in them in
\nmany aspects. To awaken to the revelation of him in all these ways
\ntogether is man’s side of the same divine Yoga. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nTo make it perfectly and indisputably clear that this is the supreme
\nand entire truth of his teaching, this the integral knowledge which he
\nhad promised to reveal, the divine Avatar declares, in a brief reiteration of the upshot of all that he has been saying, that this and no
\nother is his supreme word, paramam vacah.<\/i> "Again hearken to my
\nsupreme word," bhūya eva śrnu me paramam vacah.<\/i> This supreme
\nword of the Gita is, we find, first the explicit and unmistakable declaration that the highest worship and highest knowledge of the
\nEternal are the knowledge and the adoration of him as the supreme
\nand divine Origin of all that is in existence and the mighty Lord of
\nthe world and its peoples of whose being all things are the becomings.
\nIt is, secondly, the declaration of a unified knowledge and bhakti as
\nthe supreme Yoga; that is the destined and the natural way given to
\nman to arrive at union with the eternal Godhead. And to make more
\nsignificant this definition of the way, to give an illuminating point to ‘
\nthis highest importance of bhakti founded upon and opening to
\nknowledge and made the basis and motive-power for divinely appointed works, the acceptance of it by the heart and mind of the
\ndisciple is put as a condition for the farther development by which the
\nfinal command to action comes at last to be given to the human instrument, Arjuna. "I will speak this supreme word to thee" says the Godhead "from my will for thy soul’s good, now that thy heart is taking
\ndelight in Me," te prīyamānāya vaksyāmi.<\/i> For this delight of the heart
\nin God is the whole constituent and essence of true bhakti, bhajanti prītipūrvakam.<\/i> As soon as the supreme word is given, Arjuna is made
\nto utter his acceptance of it and to ask for a practical way of seeing
\nGod in all things in Nature, and from that question immediately and
\nnaturally there develops the vision of the Divine as the Spirit of the
\nuniverse and there arises the tremendous command to the worldaction.1<\/sup> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe idea of the Divine on which the Gita insists as the secret of the
\nwhole mystery of existence, the knowledge that leads to liberation,
\nis one that bridges the opposition between the cosmic procession in
\nTime and a supracosmic eternity without denying either of them or
\ntaking anything from the reality of either. It harmonises the pantheistic,<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1<\/sup>Gita, X. 1-18. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-306<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthe theistic and the highest transcendental terms of our spiritual
\nconception and spiritual experience. The Divine is the unborn
\nEternal who has no origin; there is and can be nothing before him
\nfrom which he proceeds, because he is one and timeless and absolute.
\n"Neither the gods nor the great Rishis know any birth of Me . . .
\nHe who knows Me as the unborn without origin …" are the opening utterances of this supreme word. And it gives the high promise
\nthat this knowledge, not limiting, not intellectual, but pure and
\nspiritual,\u2014for the form and nature, if we can use such language, or
\nthis transcendental Being, his svarūpa,<\/i> are necessarily unthinkable
\nby the mind, acintyarūpa,\u2014<\/i> liberates mortal man from all confusion
\nof ignorance and from all bondage of sin, suffering and evil, yo vetti
\nasammūdhah sa martyesu sarva-pāpaih pramucyate.<\/i> The human soul
\nthat can dwell in the light of this supreme spiritual knowledge is
\nlifted by it beyond the ideative or sensible formulations of the universe. It rises into the ineffable power of an all-exceeding, yet
\nall-fulfilling identity, the same beyond and here. This spiritual experience of the transcendental Infinite breaks down the limitations
\nof the pantheistic conception of existence. The infinite of a cosmic
\nmonism which makes God and the universe one, tries to imprison the
\nDivine in his world manifestation and leaves us that as our sole possible means of knowing him; but this Experience liberates us into
\nthe timeless and spaceless Eternal. "Neither the gods nor the Titans
\nknow thy manifestation," cries Arjuna in his reply: the whole universe or even numberless universes cannot manifest him, cannot
\ncontain his ineffable light and infinite greatness. All other lesser
\nGod-knowledge has its truth only by dependence on the ever unmanifested and ineffable reality of the transcendent Godhead. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut at the same time the divine Transcendence is not a negation,
\nnor is it an Absolute empty of all relation to the universe. It is a supreme positive, it is an absolute of all absolutes. All cosmic relations
\nderive from this Supreme; all cosmic existences return to it and find
\nin it alone their true and immeasurable existence. "For I am altogether
\nand in every way the origin of the gods and the great Rishis." The
\ngods are the great undying Powers and immortal Personalities who
\nconsciously inform, constitute, preside over the subjective and objective forces of the cosmos. The gods are spiritual forms of the eternal
\nand original Deity who descend from him into the many processes
\nof the world. Multitudinous, universal, the gods weave out of the primary <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-307<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nprinciples of being and its thousand complexities the whole web
\nof this diversified existence of the One. All their own existence,
\nnature, power, process proceeds in every way, in every principle, in
\nits every strand from the truth of the transcendent Ineffable. Nothing
\nis independently created here, nothing is caused self-sufficiently by
\nthese divine agents; everything finds its origin, cause, first spiritual
\nreason for being and will to be in the absolute and supreme Godhead,
\n\u2014aham ādih sarvaśah.<\/i> Nothing in the universe has its real cause in the
\nuniverse; all proceeds from this supernal Existence. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe great Rishis, called here as in the Veda the seven original
\nSeers, maharsayah sapta -purve,<\/i> the seven Ancients of the world, are
\nintelligence powers of that divine Wisdom which has evolved all
\nthings out of its own self-conscious infinitude, praj\u00f1ā purānī,\u2014 <\/i>developed them down the range of the seven principles of its own
\nessence. These Rishis embody the all-upholding, all-illumining, all-manifesting seven Thoughts of the Veda, saptā
\ndhiyah,\u2014<\/i>the Upanishad speaks of all things as being arranged in septettes, sapta sapta.
\n<\/i>Along with these are coupled the four eternal Manus, fathers of
\nman,\u2014for the active nature of the Godhead is fourfold and humanity expresses this nature in its fourfold character. These also, as their
\nname implies, are mental beings. Creators of all this life that depends
\non manifest or latent mind for its action, from them are all these living
\ncreatures in the world; all are their children and offspring, yesām
\nloka imāh prajāh.<\/i> And these great Rishis and these Manus are
\nthemselves perpetual mental becomings of the supreme Soul2 and
\nborn out of his spiritual transcendence into cosmic Nature,\u2014originators, but he the origin of all that originates in the universe. Spirit of
\nall spirits. Soul of all souls, Mind of all mind, Life of all life, Substance of all form, this transcendent Absolute is no complete opposite
\nof all we are, but, on the contrary, the originating and illuminating
\nAbsolute of all the principles and powers of our and the world’s being
\nand nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis transcendent Origin of our existence is not separated from us
\nby any unbridgeable gulf and does not disown the creatures that derive from him or condemn them to be only the figments of an illusion.
\nHe is the Being, all are his becomings. He does not create out of a
\nvoid, out of a Nihil or out of an unsubstantial matrix of dream. Out of
\nhimself he creates, in himself he becomes; all are in his being and all <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n2<\/sup> mad-bhāvāh mānāsa jātāh.<\/i> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-308<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nis of his being. This truth admits and exceeds the pantheistic seeing of
\nthings. Vasudeva is all, vdsudevah. sarvam,<\/i> but Vasudeva is all that
\nappears in the cosmos because he is too all that does not appear in it,
\nall that is never manifested. His being is in no way limited by his becoming; he is in no degree bound by this world of relations. Even in
\nbecoming all he is still a Transcendence; even in assuming finite
\nforms he is always the Infinite. Nature, Prakriti, is in her essence
\nhis spiritual power, self-power, ātmaśakti;<\/i> this spiritual self-power develops infinite primal qualities of becoming in the inwardness or
\nthings and turns them into an external surface of form and action.
\nFor in her essential, secret and divine order the spiritual truth of each
\nand all comes first, a thing of her deep identities; their psychological
\ntruth of quality and nature is dependent on the spiritual for all in it
\nthat is authentic, it derives from the spirit; least in necessity, last
\nin order the objective truth of form and action derives from inner
\nquality of nature and depends on it for all these variable presentations
\npf existence here in the external order. Or in other words, the objective
\nfact is only an expression of a sum of soul factors and these go back
\nalways to a spiritual cause of their appearance. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis finite outward becoming is an expressive phenomenon of the
\ndivine Infinite. Nature is, secondarily, the lower Nature, a subordinate variable development of a few selective combinations out of the
\nmany possibilities of the Infinite. Evolved out of essential and psychological quality of being and becoming, svabhāva,<\/i> these combinations
\nof form and energy, action and movement exist for a quite limited
\nrelation and mutual experience in the cosmic oneness. And in this
\nlower, outward and apparent order of things Nature as an expressive power of the Godhead is disfigured by the perversions of an obscure cosmic Ignorance and her divine significances lost in the
\nmaterialised, separative and egoistic mechanism of our mental and
\nvital experience. But still here also all is from the supreme Godhead,
\na birth, a becoming, an evolution,3<\/sup> a process of development through
\naction of Nature out of the Transcendent. Aham sarvasya prabhavo
\nmattah sarvam pravartate,<\/i> "I am the birth of everything and from
\nMe all proceeds into development of action and movement." Not only
\nis this true of all that we call good or praise and recognise as divine, all
\nthat is luminous, sattwic, ethical, peace-giving, spiritually joy-giving,
\n"understanding and knowledge and freedom from the bewilderment<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n3<\/font><\/sup>
\n<\/font><\/font><\/i>prabbava, bhāva, pravrtti.<\/i>
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-309<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nof the Ignorance, forgiveness and truth and self-government and
\ncalm of inner control, non-injuring and equality, contentment and
\nausterity and giving." It is true also of the oppositions that perplex
\nthe mortal mind and bring in ignorance and its bewilderment, "grief
\nand pleasure, coming into being and destruction, fear and fearlessness, glory and ingloriousness" with all the rest of the interplay of
\nlight and darkness, all the myriad mixed threads that quiver so painfully and yet with a constant stimulation through the entanglement
\nof our nervous mind and its ignorant subjectivities. All here in their
\nseparate diversities are subjective becomings of existences in the one
\ngreat Becoming and they get their birth and being from Him who
\ntranscends them. The Transcendent knows and originates these
\nthings, but is not caught as in a web in that diversified knowledge
\nand is not overcome by his creation. We must observe here the emphatic collocation of the three words from the verb
\nbhū,<\/i> to become,
\nbhavanti, bhābah, bhūtānām.<\/i> All existences are becomings of the
\nDivine, bhūtāni;<\/i> all subjective states and movements are his and
\ntheir psychological becomings, bhāvāh.<\/i> These even, our lesser subjective conditions and their apparent results no less than the highest
\nspiritual states, are all becomings from the supreme Being,4<\/sup> bhavanti
\nmatta eva.<\/i> The Gita recognises and stresses the distinction between
\nBeing and becoming, but does not turn it into an opposition. For that
\nwould be to abrogate the universal oneness. The Godhead is one in
\nhis transcendence, one all-supporting Self of things, one in the unity
\nof his cosmic nature. These three are one Godhead; all derives from
\nhim, all becomes from his being, all is eternal portion or temporal
\nexpression of the Eternal. In the Transcendence, in the Absolute,
\nif we are to follow the Gita, we must look, not for a supreme negation
\nof all things, but for the positive key of their mystery, the reconciling
\nsecret of their existence. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut there is another supreme reality of the Infinite that must also
\nbe recognised as an indispensable element of the liberating knowledge. This reality is that of the transcendent downlook as well as the
\nclose immanent presence of the divine government of the universe.
\nThe Supreme who becomes all creation, yet infinitely transcends it,
\nis not a will-less cause aloof from his creation. He is not an involuntary <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n4<\/sup> Cf. the Upanishad, ātma eva abhūt sarvabhūtāni,<\/i> the Self has become
\nall
\nexistences, with this contained significance in the choice of the words, the Self-existent has become all these becomings. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-310<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\noriginator who disowns all responsibility for these results of his
\nuniversal Power or casts them upon an illusive consciousness entirely
\ndifferent from his own or leaves them to a mechanical Law or to a
\nDemiurge or to a Manichean conflict of Principles. He is not an aloof
\nand indifferent Witness who waits impassively for all to abolish itself
\nor return to its unmoved original principle. He is the mighty lord
\nof the worlds and peoples, loka-maheśvara,<\/i> and governs all not only
\nfrom within but from above, from his supreme transcendence. Cosmos
\ncannot be governed by a Power that does not transcend cosmos.
\nA divine government implies the free mastery of an omnipotent
\nRuler and not an automatic force or mechanical law of determinative
\nbecoming limited by the apparent nature of the cosmos. This is the
\ntheistic seeing of the universe, but it is no shrinking and gingerly
\ntheism afraid of the world’s contradictions, but one which sees God
\nas the omniscient and omnipotent, the sole original Being who manifests in himself all, whatever it may be, good and evil, pain and
\npleasure, light and darkness as stuff of his own existence and governs himself what in himself he has manifested. Unaffected by its
\noppositions, unbound by his creation, exceeding, yet intimately related to this Nature and closely one with her creatures, their Spirit,
\nSelf, highest Soul, Lord, Lover, Friend, Refuge, he is ever leading
\nthem from within them and from above through the mortal appearances of ignorance and suffering and sin and evil, ever leading each
\nthrough his nature and all through universal nature towards a supreme light and bliss and immortality and transcendence. This is the
\nfullness of the liberating knowledge. It is a knowledge of the Divine
\nwithin us and in the world as at the same time a transcendent Infinite. An absolute who has become all that is by his divine Nature, his
\neffective power of Spirit, he governs all from his transcendence. He
\nis intimately present within every creature and the cause, ruler,
\ndirector of all cosmic happenings and yet is he far too great, mighty
\nand infinite to be limited by his creation. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis character of the knowledge is emphasised in three separate
\nverses of promise. "Whosoever knows Me," says the Godhead, "as the
\nunborn who is without origin, mighty lord of the worlds and peoples,
\nlives unbewildered among mortals and is delivered from all sin and
\nevil. Whosoever knows in its right principles this my pervading lordship and this my Yoga (the divine Yoga, aiśvara yoga,<\/i> by which the
\nTranscendent is one with all existences even while more than them all <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-311<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nand dwells in them and contains them as becomings of his own
\nNature), unites himself to Me by an untrembling Yoga . . . The
\nwise hold Me for the birth of each and all, hold each and all as developing from Me its action and movement, and so holding they
\nlove and adore Me. . . . and I give them the Yoga of the understanding by which they come to Me and I destroy for them the darkness which is born of the ignorance." These results must arise inevitably from the very nature of the knowledge and from the very
\nnature of the Yoga which converts that knowledge into spiritual
\ngrowth and spiritual experience. For all the perplexity of man’s mind
\nand action, all the stumbling, insecurity and affliction of his mind,
\nhis will, his ethical turn, his emotional, sensational and vital urging?
\ncan be traced back to the groping and bewildered cognition and
\nvolition natural to his sense-obscured mortal mind in the body, sammoha.<\/i> But when he sees the divine Origin of all things, when he
\nlooks steadily from the cosmic appearance to its transcendent Reality
\nand back from that Reality to the appearance, he is then delivered
\nfrom this bewilderment of the mind, will, heart and senses, he walks
\nenlightened and free, asammūhhah martyesu.<\/i> Assigning to everything
\nits supernal and real and not any longer only its present and apparent
\nvalue, he finds the hidden links and connections; he consciously directs all life and acts to their high and true object and governs them
\nby the light and power which comes to him from the Godhead within
\nhim. Thus he escapes from the wrong cognition, the wrong mental
\nand volitional reaction, the wrong sensational reception and impulse
\nwhich here originate sin and error and suffering, sarva-pāpaih pramucyate.<\/i> For living thus in the transcendent and universal he sees
\nhis own and every other individuality in their greater values and is
\nreleased from the falsehood and ignorance of his separative and egoistic will and knowledge. That is always the essence of the spiritual
\nliberation. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe wisdom of the liberated man is not then, in the view of the
\nGita, a consciousness of abstracted and unrelated impersonality, a do nothing quietude. For the mind and soul of the liberated man are
\nfirmly settled in a constant sense, an integral feeling of the pervasion
\nof the world by the actuating and directing presence of the divine
\nMaster of the universe, etām vibhūtim mama yo vetti.<\/i> He is aware or
\nhis spirit’s transcendence of the cosmic order, but he is aware also or
\nhis oneness with it by the divine Yoga, yogam ca mama.<\/i> And he sees <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-312<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\neach aspect of the transcendent, the cosmic and the individual existence in its right relation to the supreme Truth and puts all in their
\nright place in the unity of the divine Yoga. He no longer sees each
\nthing in its separateness,\u2014the separate seeing that leaves all either
\nunexplained or one-sided to the experiencing consciousness. Nor does
\nhe see all confusedly together,\u2014the confused seeing that gives a wrong
\nlight and a chaotic action. Secure in the transcendence, he is not
\naffected by the cosmic stress and the turmoil of Time and circumstance. Untroubled in the midst of all this creation and destruction
\nof things, his spirit adheres to an unshaken and untrembling and
\nunvacillating Yoga of union with the eternal and spiritual in the
\nuniverse. He watches through it all the divine persistence of the
\nMaster of the Yoga and acts out of a tranquil universality and oneness with all things and creatures. And this close contact with all
\nthings implies no involution of soul and mind in the separative lower
\nnature, because his basis of spiritual experience is not the inferior
\nphenomenal form and movement but the inner All and the supreme
\nTranscendence. He becomes of like nature and law of being with the
\nDivine, sādharmyam āgatah,<\/i> transcendent even in universality of
\nspirit universal even in the individuality of mind, life and body. By
\nthis Yoga once perfected, undeviating and fixed, avikampena yogena
\nyujyate,<\/i> he is able to take up whatever poise of nature, assume whatever human condition, do whatever world-action without any fall
\nfrom his oneness with the divine Self, without any loss of his constant
\ncommunion with the Master of existence.5 <\/sup> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis knowledge translated into the affective, emotional, temperamental plane becomes a calm love and intense adoration of the original and transcendental Godhead above us, the ever-present Master of
\nall things here, God in man, God in Nature. It is at first a wisdom
\nof the intelligence, the buddhi;<\/i> but that is accompanied by a moved
\nSpiritualised state of the affective nature,6<\/sup> bhāava.<\/i> This change of the
\nheart and mind is the beginning of a total change of all the nature.
\nA new inner birth and becoming prepares us for oneness with the
\nsupreme object of our love and adoration, madbhāvāya.<\/i> There is an
\nintense delight of love in the greatness and beauty and perfection of
\nthis divine Being now seen everywhere in the world and above it,
\nprīti.<\/i> That deeper ecstasy assumes the place of the scattered and external <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n5<\/font><\/sup>
\n<\/font> sarvathā vartanāno’ pi sa yogī mayi vartate. <\/font><\/i> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n6<\/sup> budhā bhāva-samanvitāh.<\/i> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-313<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\npleasure of the mind in existence or rather it draws all other
\ndelight into it and transforms by a marvellous alchemy the mind’s and
\nthe heart’s feelings and all sense movements. The whole consciousness becomes full of the Godhead and replete with his answering
\nconsciousness; the whole life flows into one sea of bliss-experience.
\nAll the speech and thought of such God-lovers becomes a mutal utterance and understanding of the Divine. In that one joy is concentrated
\nall the contentment of the being, all the play and pleasure of the
\nnature. There is a continual union from moment to moment in the
\nthought and memory, there is an unbroken continuity of the experience of oneness in the spirit. And from the moment that this inner
\nstate begins, even in the stage of imperfection, the Divine confirms it
\nby the perfect Yoga of the will and intelligence. He uplifts the blazing
\nlamp of knowledge within us, he destroys the ignorance of the
\nseparative mind and will, he stands revealed in the human spirit. By
\nthe Yoga of the will and intelligence founded on an illumined union
\nof works and knowledge the transition was affected from our lower
\ntroubled mind-ranges to the immutable calm of the witnessing Soul
\nabove the active nature. But now by this greater yoga of the Buddhi
\nfounded on an illumined union of love and adoration with an all-comprehending knowledge the soul rises in a vast ecstasy to the whole
\ntranscendental truth of the absolute and all-originating Godhead.
\nThe Eternal is fulfilled in the individual spirit and individual nature; the individual spirit is exalted from birth in time to the infinitudes
\nof the Eternal. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-314<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VII   THE SUPREME WORD OF THE GITA   WE HAVE now got to the inmost kernel of the Gita’s Yoga, the whole living and…<\/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-3638","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\/3638","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=3638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}