{"id":3644,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:09","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3644"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:09","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:09","slug":"13-the-lord-of-the-sacrifice-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\/13-the-lord-of-the-sacrifice-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-13_The Lord of the Sacrifice.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE LORD OF THE SACRIFICE <\/b><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nW<\/font>E HAVE<\/font>, before we can proceed further, to gather up all that has
\nbeen said in its main principles. The whole of the Gita’s gospel o\u00a3
\nworks rests upon its idea of sacrifice and contains in fact the eternal
\nconnecting truth of God and the world and works. The human mind
\nseizes ordinarily only fragmentary notions and standpoints of a manysided eternal truth of existence and builds upon them its various
\ntheories of life and ethics and religion, stressing this or that sign or
\nappearance, but to some entirety of it must always tend to reawaken
\nwhenever it returns in an age of large enlightenment to any entire
\nand synthetic relation of its world-knowledge with its God-knowledge and
\nself-knowledge. The gospel of the Gita reposes upon this fundamental Vedantic truth that all being is the one Brahman and all
\nexistence the wheel of Brahman, a divine movement opening out from
\nGod and returning to God. All is the expressive activity of Nature
\nand Nature a power of the Divine which works out the consciousness
\nand will of the divine Soul master of her works and inhabitant of her
\nforms. It is for his satisfaction that she descends into the absorption
\nof the forms of things and the works of life and mind and returns
\nagain through mind and self-knowledge to the conscious possession
\nof the Soul that dwells within her. There is first an involving of self
\nand all it is or means in an evolution of phenomena; there is afterwards an evolution of self, a revelation of all it is and means, all that
\nis hidden and yet suggested by the phenomenal creation. This cycle
\nof Nature could not be what it is but for the Purusha assuming and
\nmaintaining simultaneously three eternal poises each of which is necessary to the totality of this action. It must manifest itself in the
\nmutable, and there we see it as the finite, the many, all existences,
\nsarvabhūtāni.<\/i> It appears to us as the finite personality of these million
\ncreatures with their infinite diversities and various relations and it
\nappears to us behind these as the soul and force of the action of the
\ngods,\u2014that is to say, the cosmic powers and qualities of the Divine
\nwhich preside over the workings of the life of the universe and constitute <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-112<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nto our perception different universal forms of the one Existence,
\nor, it may be, various self-statements of personality of the one supreme
\nPerson. Then, secret behind and within all forms and existences, we
\nperceive too an immutable, and infinite, a timeless, an impersonal, a
\none unchanging spirit of existence, an indivisible Self of all that is,
\nin which all these may find themselves to be really one. And therefore by returning to that the active, finite personality of the individual
\nbeing discovers that it can release itself into a silent largeness of universality and the peace and poise of an immutable and unattached
\nunity with all that proceeds from and is supported by this indivisible
\nInfinite. Or even he may escape into it from individual existence. But
\nthe highest secret of all, uttamam rahasyam,<\/i> is the Purushottama.
\nThis is the supreme Divine, God, who possesses both the infinite and
\nthe finite and in whom the personal and the impersonal, the one
\nSelf and the many existences, being and becoming, the world-action
\nand the supracosmic peace, -pravrtti<\/i> and nivrtti,<\/i> meet, are united, are
\npossessed together and in each other. In God all things find their
\nsecret truth and their absolute reconciliation. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAll truth of works must depend upon the truth of being. All active
\nexistence must be in its inmost reality a sacrifice of works offered by
\nPrakriti to Purusha, Nature offering to the supreme and infinite
\nSoul the desire of the multiple finite Soul within her. Life is an altar
\nto which she brings her workings and the fruits of her workings and
\nlays them before whatever aspect of the Divinity the consciousness
\nin her has reached for whatever result of the sacrifice the desire of
\nthe living soul can seize on as its immediate or its highest good. According to the grade of consciousness and being which the soul has
\nreached in Nature, will be the Divinity it worships, the delight which
\nit seeks and the hope for which it sacrifices. And in the movement of
\nthe mutable Purusha in Nature all is and must be interchange; for
\nexistence is one and its divisions must found themselves on some law
\nof mutual dependence, each growing by each and living by all. Where
\nsacrifice is not willingly given, Nature exacts it by force, she satisfies
\nthe law of her living. A mutual giving and receiving is the law of
\nLife without which it cannot for one moment endure, and this fact
\nis the stamp of the divine creative Will on the world it has manifested
\nin its being, the proof that with sacrifice as their eternal companion
\nthe Lord of creatures has created all these existences. The universal
\nlaw of sacrifice is the sign that the world is of God and belongs to <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-113<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nGod and that life is his dominion and house of worship and not a
\nfield for the self-satisfaction of the independent ego; not the fulfilment of the ego,\u2014that is only our crude and obscure beginning, but
\nthe discovery of God, the worship and seeking of the Divine and the
\nInfinite through a constantly enlarging sacrifice culminating in a
\nperfect self-giving founded on a perfect self-knowledge is that to
\nwhich the experience of life is at last intended to lead. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut the individual being begins with ignorance and persists long
\nin ignorance. Acutely conscious of himself he sees the ego as the cause
\nand whole meaning of life and not the Divine. He sees himself as the
\ndoer of works and does not see that all the workings of existence including his own internal and external activities are the workings of
\none universal Nature and nothing else. He sees himself as the enjoyer of works and imagines that for him all exists and him Nature
\nought to satisfy and obey his personal will; he does not see that she
\nis not at all concerned with satisfying him or at all careful of his will,
\nbut obeys a higher universal will and seeks to satisfy a Godhead who
\ntranscends her and her works and creations; his finite being, his will
\nand his satisfactions are hers and not his, and she offers them at every
\nmoment as a sacrifice to the Divine of whose purpose in her she makes
\nall this the covert instrumentation. Because of this ignorance whose
\nseal is egoism, the creature ignores the law of sacrifice and seeks to
\ntake all he can for himself and gives only what Nature by her internal
\nand external compulsion forces him to give. He can really take
\nnothing except what she allows him to receive as his portion, what
\nthe divine Powers within her yield to his desire. The egoistic soul in
\na world of sacrifice is as if a thief or robber who takes what these
\nPowers bring to him and has no mind to give in return. He misses
\nthe true meaning of life and, since he does not use life and works for
\nthe enlargement and elevation of his being through sacrifice, he lives
\nin vain. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nOnly when the individual being begins to perceive and acknowledge in his acts the value of the self in others as well as the power
\nand needs of his own ego, begins to perceive universal Nature behind
\nhis own workings and through the cosmic godheads gets some glimpse
\nof the One and the Infinite, is he on his way to the transcendence of
\nhis limitation by the ego and the discovery of his soul. He begins to
\ndiscover a law other than that of his desires, to which his desires must
\nbe more and more subordinated and subjected; he develops the purely <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-114<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\negoistic into the understanding and ethical being. He begins to give
\nmore value to the claims of the self in others and less to the claims
\nof his ego; he admits the strife between egoism and altruism and by
\nthe increase of his altruistic tendencies he prepares the enlargement of
\nhis own consciousness and being. He begins to perceive Nature and
\ndivine Powers in Nature to whom he owes sacrifice, adoration, obedience, because it is by them and by their law that the workings both
\nof the mental and the material world are controlled, and he learns
\nthat only by increasing their presence and their greatness in his
\nthought and will and life can he himself increase his powers, knowledge, right action and the satisfactions which these things bring to
\nhim. Thus he adds the religious and supraphysical to the material and
\negoistic sense of life and prepares himself to rise through the finite
\nto the Infinite. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut this is only a long intermediate stage. It is still subject to the
\nlaw of desire, to the centrality of all things in the conceptions and
\nneeds of his ego and to the control of his being as well as his works
\nby Nature, though it is a regulated and governed desire, a clarified
\nego and a Nature more and more subtilised and enlightened by the
\nsattwic, the highest natural principle. All this is still within the domain, though the very much enlarged domain, of the mutable, finite
\nand personal. The real self-knowledge and consequently the right
\nway of works lies beyond; for the sacrifice done with knowledge is the
\nhighest sacrifice and that alone brings a perfect working. That can
\nonly come when he perceives that the self in him and the self in
\nothers are one being and this self is something higher than the ego,
\nan infinite, an impersonal, a universal existence in whom all move and
\nhave their being,\u2014when he perceives that all the cosmic gods to whom
\nhe offers his sacrifice are forms of one infinite Godhead and when
\nagain, leaving all his limited and limiting conceptions of that one
\nGodhead, he perceives him to be the supreme and ineffable Deity who
\nis at once the finite and the infinite, the one self and the many, beyond
\nNature though manifesting himself through Nature, beyond limitation by qualities though formulating the power of his being through
\ninfinite quality. This is the Purushottama to whom the sacrifice has
\nto be offered, not for any transient personal fruit of works, but for
\nthe soul’s possession of God and in order to live in harmony and union
\nwith the Divine. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIn other words, a man’s way to liberation and perfection lies <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-115<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nthrough an increasing impersonality. It is his ancient and constant
\nexperience that the more he opens himself to the impersonal and
\ninfinite, to that which is pure and high and one and common in all
\nthings and beings, the impersonal and infinite in Nature, the impersonal and infinite in life, the impersonal and infinite in his own
\nsubjectivity, the less he is bound by his ego and by the circle of the
\nfinite, the more he feels a sense of largeness, peace, pure happiness.
\nThe pleasure, joy, satisfaction which the finite by itself can give or
\nthe ego in its own right attain, is transitory, petty and insecure. To
\ndwell entirely in the ego-sense and its finite conceptions, powers, satisfactions is to find this world for ever full of transcience and suffering,
\nanityam asukham;<\/i> the finite life is always troubled by a certain sense
\nof vanity for this fundamental reason that the finite is not the whole
\nor the highest truth of life; life is not entirely real until it opens into
\nthe sense of the infinite. It is for this reason that the Gita opens its ¦
\ngospel of works by insisting on the Brahmic consciousness, the impersonal life, that great object of the discipline of the ancient sages.
\nFor the impersonal, the infinite, the One in which all the permanent,
\nmutable, multiple activity of the world finds above itself its base of
\npermanence, security and peace, is the immobile Self, the Akshara,
\nthe Brahman. If we see this, we shall see that to raise one’s consciousness and the poise of one’s being out of limited personality into this
\ninfinite and impersonal Brahman is the first spiritual necessity. To
\nsee all beings in this one Self is the knowledge which raises the soul
\nout of egoistic ignorance and its works and results; to live in it is to
\nacquire peace and firm spiritual foundation. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe way to bring about this great transformation follows a double
\npath; for there is the way of knowledge and there is the way of works,
\nand the Gita combines them in a firm synthesis. The way of knowledge is to turn the understanding, the intelligent will away from its
\ndownward absorption in the workings of the mind and the senses and
\nupward to the self, the Purusha or Brahman; it is to make it dwell
\nalways on the one idea of the one Self and not in the many-branching
\nconceptions of the mind and the many-streaming impulses of desire.
\nTaken by itself this path would seem to lead to the complete renunciation of works, to an immobile passivity and to the severance of the
\nsoul from Nature. But in reality such an absolute renunciation, passivity and severance are impossible. Purusha and Prakriti are twin principles of being which cannot be severed, and so long as we remain <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-116<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nin Nature, our workings in Nature must continue, even though they
\nmay take a different form or rather a different sense from those of
\nthe unenlightened soul. The real renunciation\u2014for renunciation,
\nsannyāsa,<\/i> there must be\u2014is not the fleeing from works, but the slaying of ego and desire. The way is to abandon attachment to the fruit
\nof works even while doing them, and the way is to recognise Nature
\nas the agent and leave her to do her works and to live in the soul as
\nthe witness and sustainer, watching and sustaining her, but not attached either to her actions or their fruits. The ego, the limited
\nand troubled personality is then quieted and merged in the consciousness of the one impersonal Self, while the works of Nature continue
\nto our vision to operate through all these "becomings" or existences
\nwho are now seen by us as living and acting and moving, under her
\nimpulsion entirely, in this one infinite Being; our own finite existence
\nis seen and felt to be only one of these and its workings are seen and
\nfelt to be those of Nature, not of our real self which is the silent impersonal unity. The ego claimed them as its own doings and therefore
\nwe thought them ours; but the ego is now dead and henceforth they
\nare no longer ours, but Nature’s. We have achieved by the slaying
\nof ego impersonality in our being and consciousness; we have achieved
\nby the renunciation of desire impersonality in the works of our nature. We are free not only in inaction, but in action; our liberty does
\nnot depend on a physical and temperamental immobility and vacancy,
\nnor do we fall from freedom directly we act. Even in a full current of
\nnatural action the impersonal soul in us remains calm, still and free. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe liberation given by this perfect impersonality is real, is complete, is indispensable; but is it the last word, the end of the whole
\nmatter? All life, all world-existence, we have said, is the sacrifice offered by Nature to the Purusha, the one and secret soul in Nature,
\nin whom all her workings take place; but its real sense is obscured in
\nus by ego, by desire, by our limited, active, multiple personality. We
\nhave risen out of ego and desire and limited personality and by impersonality, its great corrective, we have found the impersonal Godhead; we have identified our being with the one self and soul in whom
\nall exist. The sacrifice of works continues, conducted not by ourselves any longer, but by Nature,\u2014Nature operating through the
\nfinite part of our being, mind, senses, body\u2014but in our infinite being.
\nBut to whom then is this sacrifice offered and with what object? For the impersonal has no activity and no desires, no object to be <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-117<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ngained, no dependence for any thing on all this world of creatures; it exists for itself, in its own self-delight, in its own immutable eternal
\nbeing. We may have to do works without desire as a means in order
\nto reach this impersonal self-existence and self-delight, but, that movement once executed, the object of works is finished; the sacrifice is no
\nlonger needed. Works may even then continue because Nature continues and her activities; but there is no longer any further object in
\nthese works. The sole reason for our continuing to act after liberation
\nis purely negative; it is the compulsion of Nature on our finite parts
\nof mind and body. But if that be all, then, first, works may well be
\nwhittled down and reduced to a minimum, may be confined to what
\nNature’s compulsion absolutely will have from our bodies; and secondly, even if there is no reduction to a minimum,\u2014since action does
\nnot matter and inaction also is no object\u2014then the nature of the
\nworks also does not matter. Arjuna, once having attained knowledge,
\nmay continue to fight out the battle of Kurukshetra, following his
\nold Kshatriya nature, or he may leave it and live the life of the Sannyasin, following his new quietistic impulse. Which of these things
\nhe does, becomes quite indifferent; or rather the second is the better
\nway, since it will discourage more quickly the impulses of Nature
\nwhich still have a hold on his mind owing to past created tendency
\nand, when his body has fallen from him, he will securely depart into
\nthe Infinite and Impersonal with no necessity of returning again t the trouble
\nand madness of life in this transient and sorrowful world,
\nanityam asukham imam lokam.<\/i> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIf this were so, the Gita would lose all its meaning; for its first and
\ncentral object would be defeated. But the Gita insists that the nature
\nof the action does matter and that there is a positive sanction for continuance in works, not only that one quite negative and mechanics
\nreason, the objectless compulsion of Nature. There is still, after the
\nego has been conquered, a divine Lord and enjoyer of the sacrifice bhoktāram yaj\u00f1atapasam,<\/i> and there is still an object in the sacrifice
\nThe impersonal Brahman is not the very last word, not the utterly highest secret
\nof our being; for impersonal and personal, finite and
\ninfinite turn out to be only two opposite, yet concomitant aspects of a divine Being unlimited by these distinctions who is both these thing
\nat once. God is an ever unmanifest Infinite ever self-impelled to manifest himself in the finite; he is the great impersonal Person of whom
\nall personalities are partial appearances; he is the Divine who reveals <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-118<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nhimself in the human being, the Lord seated in the heart of man.
\nKnowledge teaches us to see all beings in the one impersonal self, for
\nso we are liberated from the separative ego-sense, and then through
\nthis delivering impersonality to see them in this God, ātmani atho
\nmayi,<\/i> "in the Self and then in Me." Our ego, our limiting personalities
\nstand in the way of our recognising the Divine who is in all and in
\nwhom all have their being; for, subject to personality, we see only
\nsuch fragmentary aspects of Him as the finite appearances of things
\nsuffer us to seize. We have to arrive at him not through our lower
\npersonality, but through the high, infinite and impersonal part of our
\nbeing, and that we find by becoming this self one in all in whose
\nexistence the whole world is comprised. This infinite containing, not
\nexcluding all finite appearances, this impersonal admitting, not rejecting all individualities and personalities, this immobile sustaining,
\npervading, containing, not standing apart from all the movement of
\nNature, is the clear mirror in which the Divine will reveal His being.
\nTherefore it is to the Impersonal that we have first to attain; through
\nthe cosmic deities, through the aspects of the finite alone the perfect
\nknowledge of God cannot be totally obtained. But neither is the silent
\nimmobility of the impersonal Self, conceived as shut into itself and
\ndivorced from all that it sustains, contains and pervades, the whole
\nall-revealing all-satisfying truth of the Divine. To see that we have to
\nlook through its silence to the Purushottama, and he in his divine
\ngreatness possesses both the Akshara and the Kshara; he is seated in
\nthe immobility, but he manifests himself in the movement and in all
\nthe action of cosmic Nature; to him even after liberation the sacrifice
\nof works in Nature continues to be offered. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe real goal of the Yoga is then a living and self-completing union
\nwith the divine Purushottama and is not merely a self-extinguishing
\nimmergence in the impersonal Being. To raise our whole existence to
\nthe Divine Being, to dwell in him (mayyeva mvasisyasi),<\/i> to be at one
\nwith him, unify our consciousness with his, to make our fragmentary
\nnature a reflection of his perfect nature, to be inspired in our thought
\nand sense wholly by the divine knowledge, to be moved in will and
\naction utterly and faultlessly by the divine will, to lose desire in his
\nlove and delight, is man’s perfection; it is that which the Gita describes
\nas the highest secret. It is the true goal and the last sense of human
\nliving and the highest step in our progressive sacrifice of works. For
\nhe remains to the end the master of works and the soul of sacrifice. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-119<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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