{"id":3646,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:10","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3646"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:10","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:10","slug":"45-towards-the-supreme-secret-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\/45-towards-the-supreme-secret-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-45_Towards the Supreme Secret.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTOWARDS THE SUPREME SECRET * <\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font>HE TEACHER<\/font> has completed all else that he needed to say, he has
\nworked out all the central principles and the supporting suggestions
\nand implications of his message and elucidated the principal doubts
\nand questions that might rise around it, and now all that rests for him
\nto do is to put into decisive phrase and penetrating formula the one
\nlast word, the heart itself of the message, the very core of his gospel.
\nAnd we find that this decisive last and crowning word is not merely
\nthe essence of what has been already said on the matter, not merely a
\nconcentrated description of the needed self-discipline, the Sadhana,
\nand of that greater spiritual consciousness which is to be the result
\nof all its effort and askesis; it sweeps out, as it were, yet farther, breaks
\ndown every limit and rule, canon and formula and opens into a wide
\nand illimitable spiritual truth with an infinite potentiality of significance. And that is a sign of the profundity, the wide reach, the
\ngreatness of spirit of the Gita’s teaching. An ordinary religious teaching or philosophical doctrine is well enough satisfied to seize on certain great and vital aspects of truth and turn them into utilisable
\ndogma and instruction, method and practice for the guidance of man
\nin his inner life and the law and form of his action; it does not go
\nfarther, it does not open doors out of the circle of its own system,
\ndoes not lead us out into some widest freedom and unimprisoned
\nlargeness. This limitation is useful and indeed for a time indispensable. Man bounded by his mind and will has need of a law and rule,
\na fixed system, a definite practice selective of his thought and action; he asks for the single unmistakable hewn path hedged, fixed and
\nsecure to the tread, for the limited horizons, for the enclosed resting-places. It is only the strong and few who can move through freedom
\nto freedom. And yet in the end the free soul ought to have an issue
\nout of the forms and systems in which the mind finds its account and
\ntakes its limited pleasure. To exceed our ladder of ascent, not to stop <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n* Gita, XVIII. 49-56.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-469<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nshort even on the topmost stair but move untrammelled and at large
\nin the wideness of the spirit is a release important for our perfection; the spirit’s absolute liberty is our perfect status. And this is how the
\nGita leads us: it lays down a firm and sure but very large way of ascent, a great Dharma, and then it takes us out beyond all that is laid
\ndown, beyond all dharmas, into infinitely open spaces, divulges to us
\nthe hope, lets us into the secret of an absolute perfection founded in an absolute spiritual liberty, and that secret, gūhyatamam,<\/i> is the substance of what it calls its supreme word, that the hidden thing, the
\ninmost knowledge. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd first the Gita restates the body of its message. It summarises
\nthe whole outline and essence in the short space of fifteen verses, lines
\nof a brief and concentrated expression and significance that miss
\nnothing of the kernel of the matter, couched in phrases of the most
\nlucid precision and clearness. And they must therefore be scanned
\nwith care, must be read deeply in the light of all that has gone before,
\nbecause here it is evidently intended to extract what the Gita itself
\nconsiders to be the central sense of its own teaching. The statement
\nsets out from the original starting-point of the thought in the book,
\nthe enigma of human action, the apparently insuperable difficulty of
\nliving in the highest self and spirit while yet we continue to do the
\nworks of the world. The easiest way is to give up the problem as insoluble, life and action as an illusion or an inferior movement of
\nexistence to be abandoned as soon as we can rise out of the snare of
\nthe world into the truth of spiritual being. That is the ascetic solution,
\nif it can be called a solution; at any rate it is a decisive and effective
\nway out of the enigma, a way to which ancient Indian thought of
\nthe highest and most meditative kind, as soon as it commenced to turn
\nat a sharp incline from its first large and free synthesis, had moved
\nwith an always increasing preponderance. The Gita, like the Tantra,
\nand on certain sides the later religions, attempts to preserve the ancient balance: it maintains the substance and foundation of the original synthesis, but the form has been changed and renovated in the
\nlight of a developing spiritual experience. This teaching does not
\nevade the difficult problem of reconciling the full active life of man
\nwith the inner life in the highest self and spirit; it advances what
\nit holds to be the real solution. It does not at all deny the efficacy of
\nthe ascetic renunciation of life for its own purpose, but it sees that
\nthat cuts instead of loosening the knot of the riddle and therefore it <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-470<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\naccounts it an inferior method and holds its own for the better way.
\nThe two paths both lead us out of the lower ignorant normal nature
\nof man to the pure spiritual consciousness and so far both must be
\nheld to be valid and even one in essence: but where one stops short
\nand turns back, the other advances with a firm subtlety and high
\ncourage, opens a gate on unexplored vistas, completes man in God
\nand unites and reconciles in the spirit soul and Nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAnd therefore in the first five of these verses the Gita so phrases its
\nstatement that it shall be applicable to both the way of the inner
\nand the way of the outer renunciation and yet in such a manner that
\none has only to assign to some of their common expressions a deeper
\nand more inward meaning in order to get the sense and thought of
\nthe method favoured by the Gita. The difficulty of human action is
\nthat the soul and nature of man seem fatally subjected to many kinds
\nof bondage, the prison of the ignorance, the meshes of the ego, the
\nchain of the passions, the hammering insistence of the life of the
\nmoment, an obscure and limited circle without an issue. The soul shut
\nup in this circle of action has no freedom, no leisure or light of self-knowledge to make the discovery of its self and the true value of
\nlife and meaning of existence. It has indeed such hints of its being as
\nit can get from its active personality and dynamic nature, but the
\nstandards of perfection it can erect there are much too temporal,
\nrestricted and relative to be a satisfactory key to its own riddle. How,
\nwhile absorbed and continually forced outward by the engrossing
\ncall of its active nature, is it to get back to its real self and spiritual
\nexistence? The ascetic renunciation and the way of the Gita are
\nboth agreed that it must first of all renounce this absorption, must
\ncast from it the external solicitation of outward things and separate
\nsilent self from active nature; it must identify itself with the immobile
\nspirit and life in the silence. It must arrive at an inner inactivity,
\nnaiskarmya.<\/i> It is therefore this saving inner passivity that the Gita
\nputs here as the first object of its Yoga, the first necessary perfection in it
\nor Siddhi. "An understanding without attachment in all things a soul self-conquered and
\nempty of, desire; man attains by renunciation a supreme perfection of naiskarmya"<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nThis ideal of renunciation, of a self-conquered stillness, spiritual
\npassivity and freedom from desire is common to all the ancient wisdom. The Gita gives us its psychological foundation with an unsurpassed completeness and clearness. It rests on the common experience <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-471<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nof all seekers of self-knowledge that there are two different natures
\nand as it were two selves in us. There is the lower self of the obscure
\nmental, vital and physical nature subject to ignorance and inertia in
\nthe very stuff of its consciousness and especially in its basis of material
\nsubstance, kinetic and vital indeed by the power of life but without inherent self-possession and self-knowledge in its action, attaining
\nin the mind to some knowledge and harmony, but only with difficult
\neffort and by a constant struggle with its own disabilities. And there
\nis the higher nature and self of our spiritual being, self-possessed
\nand self-luminous but in our ordinary mentality inaccessible to our
\nexperience. At times we get glimpses of this greater thing within us, but we are
\nnot consciously within it, we do not live in its light and 
\ncalm and illimitable splendour. The first of these two very different
\nthings is the Gita’s nature of the three gunas. Its seeing of itself is
\ncentred in the ego idea, its principle of action is desire born of ego,
\nand the knot of ego is attachment to the objects of the mind and
\nsense and the life’s desire. The inevitable constant result of all these
\nthings is bondage, settled subjection to a lower control, absence of self-mastery, absence of self-knowledge. The other greater power and
\npresence is discovered to be nature and being of the pure spirit
\nunconditioned by ego, that which is called in Indian philosophy self
\nand impersonal Brahman. Its principle is an infinite and an impersonal existence one and the same in all: and, since this impersonal
\nexistence is without ego, without conditioning quality, without desire,
\nneed or stimulus it is immobile and immutable; eternally the same,
\nit regards and supports but does not share or initiate the action of
\nthe universe. The soul when it throws itself out into active Nature
\nis the Gita’s Kshara, its mobile or mutable Purusha; the same soul
\ngathered back into pure silent self and essential spirit is the Gita’s
\nAkshara, immobile or immutable Purusha. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThen evidently the straight and simplest way to get out of the
\nclose bondage of the active nature and back to spiritual freedom is
\nto cast away entirely all that belongs to the dynamics of the ignorance
\nand to convert the soul into a pure spiritual existence. That is what
\nis called becoming Brahman, brahma-bhūya.<\/i> It is to put off the lower
\nmental, vital, physical existence and to put on the pure spiritual
\nbeing. This can best be done by the intelligence and will, buddhi, <\/i>our present topmost principle. It has to turn away from the things
\nof the lower existence and first and foremost from its effective knot <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-472<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nof desire, from our attachment to the objects pursued by the mind
\nand the senses. One must become an understanding unattached in
\nall things, asakta-buddhih sarvatra.<\/i> Then all desire passes away from
\nthe soul in its silence; it is free from all longings, vigata-sprhah.
\n<\/i>That brings with it or it makes possible the subjection of our lower
\nand the possession of our higher self, a possession dependent on
\ncomplete self-mastery, secured by a radical victory and conquest over
\nour mobile nature, jitātmā.<\/i> And all this amounts to an absolute inner
\nrenunciation of the desire of things, sannyāsa.<\/i> Renunciation is the
\nway to this perfection and the man who has thus inwardly renounced
\nall is described by the Gita as the true Sannyasin. But because the
\nword usually signifies as well an outward renunciation or sometimes
\neven that alone, the Teacher uses another word, tyāga,<\/i> to distinguish the inward from the outward withdrawal and says that Tyaga
\nis better than Sannyasa. The ascetic way goes much farther in its
\nrecoil from the dynamic Nature. It is enamoured of renunciation for
\nits own sake and insists on an outward giving up of life and action,
\na complete quietism of soul and nature. That, the Gita replies, is not
\npossible entirely so long as we live in the body. As far as it is possible, it may be done, but such a rigorous diminution of works is
\nnot indispensable; it is not even really or at least ordinarily advisable.
\nThe one thing needed is a complete inner quietism and that is all
\nthe Gita’s sense of naiskarmya.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIf we ask why this reservation, why this indulgence to the dynamic
\nprinciple when our object is to become the pure self and the pure
\nself is described as inactive, akartā,<\/i> the answer is that that inactivity
\nand divorce of self from Nature are not the whole truth of our spiritual release. Self and Nature are in the end one thing; a total and perfect spirituality makes us one with all the Divine in self and in nature.
\nIn fact this becoming Brahman, this assumption into the self of
\neternal silence, brahma-bhūya,<\/i> is not all our objective, but only the
\nnecessary immense base for a still greater and more marvellous divine
\nbecoming, mad-bhāva.<\/i> And to get to that greatest spiritual perfection
\nwe have indeed to be immobile in the self, silent in all our members,
\nbut also to act in the power, Shakti, Prakriti, the true and high force
\nof the Spirit. And if we ask how a simultaneity of what seem to be
\ntwo opposites is possible, the answer is that that is the very nature of
\na complete spiritual being; always it has this double poise of the
\nInfinite. The impersonal self is silent; we too must be inwardly silent, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-473<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nimpersonal, withdrawn into the spirit. The impersonal self looks on
\nall action as done not by it but by Prakriti; it regards with a pure
\nequality all the working of her qualities, modes and forces: the
\nsoul impersonalized in the self must similarly regard all our actions
\nas done not by itself but by the qualities of Prakriti; it must be equal
\nin all things, sarvatra.<\/i> And at the same time in order that we may
\nnot stop here, in order that we may eventually go forward and find
\na spiritual rule and direction in our works and not only a law of
\ninner immobility and silence, we are asked to impose on the intelligence and will the attitude of sacrifice, all our action inwardly
\nchanged and turned into an offering to the Lord of Nature, to the
\nBeing of whom she is the self-power, svā prakrtih,<\/i> the supreme
\nSpirit. Even we have eventually to renounce all into his hands, to
\nabandon all personal initiation of action, sarvārambhāh,<\/i> to keep our
\nnatural selves only as an instrument of his works and his purpose.
\nThese things have been already explained fully and the Gita does
\nnot here insist, but uses simply without farther qualification the
\ncommon terms, sannyāsa<\/i> and naiskarmya.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nA<\/i> completes! inner quietism once admitted as our necessary means
\ntowards living in the pure impersonal self, the question how practically it brings about that result is the next issue that arises. "How
\nhaving attained this perfection, one thus attains to the Brahman, hear
\nfrom Me, 0 son of Kunti,\u2014that which is the supreme concentrated
\ndirection of the knowledge." The knowledge meant here is the Yoga
\nof the Sankhyas,\u2014the Yoga of pure knowledge accepted by the Gita,
\nj\u00f1ānayogena sānkhyānām,<\/i> so far as it is one with its own Yoga which
\nincludes also the way of works of the Yogins, karma–yogena yoginām.
\n<\/i>But all mention of works is kept back for the moment. For by
\nBrahman here is meant at first the silent, the impersonal, the immutable. The Brahman indeed is both for the Upanishads and the
\nGita all that is and lives and moves; it is not solely an impersonal
\nInfinite or an unthinkable and incommunicable Absolute, acintyam
\navyavahāryam.<\/i> All this is Brahman, says the Upanishad, all this is
\nVasudeva, says the Gita,\u2014the supreme Brahman is all that moves or
\nis stable and his hands and feet and eyes and heads and faces are on
\nevery side of us. But still there are two aspects of this All,\u2014his immutable eternal self that supports existence and his self of active
\npower that moves abroad in the world movement. It is only when we
\nlose our limited ego personality in the impersonality of the self that <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-474<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nwe arrive at the calm and free oneness by which we can possess a
\ntrue unity with the universal power of the Divine in his world movement. Impersonality is a denial of limitation and division, and the
\ncult of impersonality is a natural condition of true being, an indispensable preliminary of true knowledge and therefore a first requisite
\nof true action. It is very clear that we cannot become one self with
\nall or one with the universal Spirit and his vast self-knowledge, his
\ncomplex will and his wide-spread world-purpose by insisting on our
\nlimited personality of ego; for that divides us from others and it makes
\nus bound and self-centred in our view and in our will to action.
\nImprisoned in personality we can only get at a limited union by
\nsympathy or by some relative accommodation of ourselves to the viewpoint and feeling and will of others. To be one with all and with the
\nDivine and his will in the cosmos we must become at first impersonal
\nand free from our ego and its claims and from the ego’s way of seeing
\nourselves and the world and others. And we cannot do this if there is
\nnot something in our being other than the personality, other than the
\nego, an impersonal self one with all existences. To lose ego and be
\nthis impersonal self, to become this impersonal Brahman in our consciousness is therefore the first movement of this Yoga. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nHow then is this to be done? First, says the Gita, through a union
\nof our purified intelligence with the pure spiritual substance in us
\nby the yoga of the buddhi, buddhyā viśuddhayā yuktah.<\/i> This spiritual
\nturning of the buddhi from the outward and downward to the inward and upward look is the essence of the Yoga of knowledge. The
\npurified understanding has to control the whole being, ātmānam
\nniyamya;<\/i> it must draw us away from attachment to the outward-going
\ndesires of the lower nature by a firm and a steady will, dhrtyā,<\/i> which
\nin its concentration faces entirely towards the impersonality of the
\npure spirit. The senses must abandon their objects, the mind must
\ncast away the liking and disliking which these objects excite in
\nit,\u2014for the impersonal self has no desires and repulsions; these are
\nvital reactions of our personality to the touches of things, and the
\ncorresponding response of the mind and senses to the touches is their
\nsupport and their basis. An entire control has to be acquired over
\nthe mind, speech and body, over even the vital and physical reactions,
\nhunger and cold and heat and physical pleasure and pain; the whole
\nof our being must become indifferent, unaffected by these things,
\nequal to all outward touches and to their inward reactions and responses<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-475<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nThis is the most direct and powerful method, the straight
\nand sharp way of Yoga. There has to he a complete cessation of desire
\nand attachment, vairāgya;<\/i> a strong resort to impersonal solitude, a
\nconstant union with the inmost self by meditation is demanded of
\nthe seeker. And yet the object of this austere discipline is not to be
\nself-centred in some supreme egoistic seclusion and tranquillity of the
\nsage and thinker averse to the trouble of participation in the world 
\naction; the object is to get rid of all ego. One must put away utterly
\nfirst the rajasic kind of egoism, egoistic strength and violence, arrogance, desire, wrath, the sense and instinct of possession, the urge
\nof the passions, the strong lusts of life. But afterwards must be discarded egoism of all kinds, even of the most sattwic type; for the aim
\nis to make soul and mind and life free in the end from all imprisoning
\nI-ness and my-ness, nirmama.<\/i> The extinction of ego and its demands
\nof all sorts is the method put before us. For the pure impersonal self
\nwhich, unshaken, supports the universe has no egoism and makes no
\ndemand on thing or person; it is calm and luminously impassive and
\nsilently regards all things and persons with an equal and impartial
\neye of self-knowledge and world-knowledge. Then clearly it is by
\nliving inwardly in a similar or identical impersonality that the soul
\nwithin, released from the siege of things, can best become capable of
\noneness with this immutable Brahman which regards and knows but
\nis not affected by the forms and mutations of the universe. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis first pursuit of impersonality as enjoined by the Gita brings
\nwith it evidently a certain completes! inner quietism and is identical
\nin its inmost parts and principles of practice with the method of
\nSannyasa. And yet there is a point at which its tendency of withdrawal from the claims of dynamic Nature and the external world
\nis checked and a limit imposed to prevent the inner quietism from
\ndeepening into refusal of action and a physical withdrawal. The renunciation of their objects by the senses,
\nvisayāms tyaktvā,<\/i> is to be of
\nthe nature of Tyaga; it must be a giving up of all sensuous attachment, rasa,<\/i> not a refusal of the intrinsic necessary activity of the
\nsenses. One must move among surrounding things and act on the
\nobjects of the sense-field with a pure, true and intense, a simple and
\nabsolute operation of the senses for their utility to the spirit in divine
\naction, kevelair indriyaiś caran,<\/i> and not at all for the fulfilment
\nof desire. There is to be vairāgya,<\/i> not in the common significance of
\ndisgust of life or distaste for the world action, but renunciation of <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-476<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nrāga,<\/i> as also of its opposite, dvesa.<\/i> There must be a withdrawal from
\nall mental and vital liking as from all mental and vital disliking
\nwhatsoever. And this is asked not for extinction, but in order that
\nthere may be a perfect enabling equality in which the spirit can
\ngive an unhampered and unlimited assent to the integral and comprehensive divine vision of things and to the integral divine action
\nin Nature. A continual resort to meditation, dhyāna-yoga-paro nityam,
\nis<\/i> the firm means by which the soul of man can realise its self of
\nPower and its self of silence. And yet there must be no abandonment of the active life for a life of pure meditation; action must always
\nbe done as a sacrifice to the supreme Spirit. This movement of recoil
\nin the path of Sannyasa prepares an absorbed disappearance of the
\nindividual in the Eternal, and renunciation of action and life in the
\nworld is an indispensable step in the process. But in the Gita’s path of
\nTyaga it is a preparation rather for the turning of our whole life and
\nexistence and of all action into an integral oneness with the serene
\nand immeasurable being, consciousness and will of the Divine, and
\nit preludes and makes possible a vast and total passing upward of the
\nsoul out of the lower ego to the inexpressible perfection of the supreme spiritual nature,
\nparā prakrti.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis decisive departure of the Gita’s thought is indicated in the
\nnext two verses, of which the first runs with a significant sequence,
\n"When one has become the Brahman, when one neither grieves nor
\ndesires, when one is equal to all beings, then one gets the supreme
\nlove and devotion to Me." But in the narrow path of knowledge
\nbhakti, devotion to the personal Godhead, can be only an inferior and
\npreliminary movement; the end, the climax is the disappearance of
\npersonality in a featureless oneness with the impersonal Brahman in
\nwhich there can be no place for bhakti: for there is none to be
\nadored and none to adore; all else is lost in the silent immobile
\nidentity of the Jiva with the Atman. Here there is given to us something yet higher than the Impersonal,\u2014here there is the supreme
\nSelf who is the supreme Ishwara, here there is the supreme Soul
\nand its supreme nature, here there is the Purushottama who is beyond the personal and impersonal and reconciles them on his eternal
\nheights. The ego personality still disappears in the silence of the Impersonal, but at the same time, there remains even with this silence
\nat the back the action of a supreme Self, one greater than the Impersonal. There is no longer the lower blind and limping action of the <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-477<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nego and the three gunas, but instead the vast self-determining movement of an infinite spiritual Force, a free immeasurable Shakti. All
\nNature becomes the power of the one Divine and all action his
\naction through the individual as channel and instrument. In place of
\nthe ego there comes forward conscious and manifest the true spiritual
\nindividual in the freedom of his real nature, in the power of his
\nsupernal status, in the majesty and splendour of his eternal kinship
\nto the Divine, an imperishable portion of the supreme Godhead, an
\nindestructible power of the supreme Prakriti, mamaivāmśah sanātanah, parā prakrtir
\njīva-bhūtā.<\/i> The soul of man then feels itself to
\nbe one in a supreme spiritual impersonality with the Purushottama
\nand in its universalised personality a manifest power of the Godhead.
\nIts knowledge is a light of his knowledge; its will is a force of his
\nwill; its unity with all in the universe is a play of his eternal oneness.
\nIt is in this double realisation, it is in this union of two sides of an
\nineffable Truth of existence by either and both of which man can
\napproach and enter into his own infinite being, that the liberated
\nman has to live and act and feel and determine or rather have determined for him by a greatest power of his supreme self his relations
\nwith all and the inner and outer workings of his spirit. And in that
\nunifying realisation adoration, love and devotion are not only still
\npossible, but are a large, an inevitable and a crowning portion of the
\nhighest experience. The One who eternally becomes the Many, the
\nMany who in their apparent division are still eternally one, the Highest who displays in us this secret and mystery of existence, not dispersed by his multiplicity, not limited by his oneness,\u2014this is the
\nintegral knowledge, this is the reconciling experience which makes
\none capable of liberated action, muktasya karma.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis knowledge comes, says the Gita, by a highest bhakti. It is
\nattained when the mind exceeds itself by a supramental and high
\nspiritual seeing of things and when the heart too rises in unison
\nbeyond our more ignorant mental forms of love and devotion to a
\nlove that is calm and deep and luminous with widest knowledge,
\nto a supreme delight in God and an illimitable adoration, the unperturbed ecstasy, the spiritual Ananda. When the soul has lost its
\nseparative personality, when it has become the Brahman, it is then
\nthat it can live in the true Person and can attain to the supreme
\nrevealing bhakti for the Purushottama and can come to know him
\nutterly by the power of its profound bhakti, its heart’s knowledge, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-478<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nbhaktyā mām abhijānāti.<\/i> That is the integral knowledge, when the
\nheart’s fathomless vision completes the mind’s absolute experience,\u2014
\nsamagram mām j\u00f1ātvā.<\/i> "He comes to know Me" says the Gita "who
\nand how much I am and in all the reality and principles of my being,"
\nyāvān yaścāsmi tattvatah.<\/i> This integral knowledge is the knowledge
\nof the Divine present in the individual; it is the entire experience of
\nthe Lord secret in the heart of man, revealed now as the supreme
\nSelf of his existence, the Sun of all his illumined consciousness, the
\nMaster and Power of all his works, the divine Fountain of all -his
\nsoul’s love and delight, the Lover and Beloved of his worship and
\nadoration. It is the knowledge too of the Divine extended in the
\nuniverse, of the Eternal from whom all proceeds and in whom all
\nlives and has its being, of the Self and Spirit of the Cosmos, of
\nVasudeva who has become all this that is, of the Lord of cosmic
\nexistence who reigns over the works of Nature. It is the knowledge
\nof the divine Purusha luminous in his transcendent eternity, the form
\nof whose being escapes from the thought of the mind but not from
\nits silence; it is the entire living experience of him as absolute Self,
\nsupreme Brahman, supreme Soul, supreme Godhead: for that seemingly incommunicable Absolute is at the same time and even in that
\nhighest status the originating Spirit of the cosmic action and Lord of
\nall these existences. The soul of the liberated man thus enters by a
\nreconciling knowledge, penetrates by a perfect simultaneous delight
\nof the transcendent Divine, of the Divine in the individual and of the
\nDivine in the universe into the Purushottama, mām viśte tadanantaram.<\/i> He becomes one with him in his self-knowledge and self-experience, one with him in his being and consciousness and will and
\nworld-knowledge and world-impulse, one with him in the universe
\nand in his unity with all creatures in the universe and one with him
\nbeyond world and individual in the transcendence of the eternal
\nInfinite, śāśvatam padam avyayam.<\/i> This is the culmination of the
\nsupreme bhakti that is at the core of the supreme knowledge. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAnd then it becomes evident how action continual and unceasing
\nand of all kinds without diminution or abandonment of any part of
\nthe activities of life can be not only quite consistent with a supreme
\nspiritual experience, but as forceful a means of reaching this highest
\nspiritual condition as bhakti or knowledge. Nothing can be more
\npositive than the Gita’s statement in this matter. "And by doing also
\nall actions always lodged in Me he attains by my grace the eternal <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-479<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nand imperishable status." This liberating action is of the character
\nof works done in a profound union of the will and all the dynamic
\nparts of our nature with the Divine in ourself and the cosmos. It is
\ndone first as a sacrifice with the idea still of our self as the doer.
\nIt is done next without that idea and with a perception of the Prakriti
\nas the sole doer. It is done last with the knowledge of that Prakriti
\nas the supreme power of the Divine and a renunciation, a surrender
\nof all our actions to him with the individual as a channel only and
\nan instrument. Our works then proceed straight from the Self and
\nDivine within us, are a part of the indivisible universal action, are
\ninitiated and performed not by us but by a vast transcendent Shakti.
\nAll that we do is done for the sake of the Lord seated in the heart
\nof all, for the Godhead in the individual and for the fulfilment of his
\nwill in us, for the sake of the Divine in the world, for the good of all
\nbeings, for the fulfilment of the world action and the world purpose,
\nor in one word for the sake of the Purushottama and done really by
\nhim through his universal Shakti. These divine works, whatever their
\nform or outward character, cannot bind, but are rather a potent means
\nfor rising out of this lower Prakriti of the three gunas to the perfection of the supreme, divine and spiritual nature. Disengaged from
\nthese mixed and limited dharmas, we escape into the immortal
\nDharma which comes upon us when we make ourselves one in all
\nour consciousness and action with the Purushottama. That oneness
\nhere brings with it the power to rise there into the immortality beyond Time. There we shall exist in his eternal transcendence. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThus these eight verses carefully read in the light of the knowledge
\nalready given by the Teacher are a brief, but still a comprehensive
\nindication of the whole essential idea, the entire central method, all
\nthe kernel of the complete Yoga of the Gita. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-480<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XXI   TOWARDS THE SUPREME SECRET *   THE TEACHER has completed all else that he needed to say, he has worked out all the…<\/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-3646","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\/3646","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=3646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}