{"id":3648,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:11","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3648"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:11","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:11","slug":"38-above-the-gunas-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\/38-above-the-gunas-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-38_Above the Gunas.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nABOVE THE GUNAS* <\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font>HE DISTINCTIONS<\/font> between the Soul and Nature rapidly drawn in
\nthe verses of the thirteenth chapter by a few decisive epithets, a few
\nbrief but packed characterisations of their separate power and functioning, and
\nespecially the distinction between the embodied soul subjected to the action of Nature by its enjoyment of her gunas, qualities
\nor modes and the Supreme Soul which dwells enjoying the gunas,
\nbut not subject because it is itself beyond them, are the basis on which
\nthe Gita rests its whole idea of the liberated being made one in the
\nconscious law of its existence with the Divine. That liberation, that
\noneness, that putting on of the divine nature, sādharmya,<\/i> it declares
\nto be the very essence of spiritual freedom and the whole significance
\nof immortality. This supreme importance assigned to sādharmya<\/i> is a
\ncapital point in the teaching of the Gita. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nTo be immortal was never held in the ancient spiritual teaching to
\nconsist merely in a personal survival of the death of the body: all
\nbeings are immortal in that sense and it is only the forms that perish.
\nThe souls that do not arrive at liberation, live through the returning
\naeons; all exist involved or secret in the Brahman during the dissolution of the manifest worlds and are born again in the appearance of a
\nnew cycle. Pralaya, the end of a cycle of aeons, is the temporary disintegration of a universal form of existence and of all the individual
\nforms which move in its rounds, but that is only a momentary pause,
\na silent interval followed by an outburst of new creation, reintegration and reconstruction in which they reappear and recover the
\nimpetus of their progression. Our physical death is also a pralaya,\u2014the
\nGita will presently use the word in the sense of this death, pralayam
\nyāti deha-bhrt,<\/i> "the soul bearing the body comes to a pralaya," to a
\ndisintegration of that form of matter with which its ignorance identified its being and which now dissolves into the natural elements. But
\nthe soul itself persists and after an interval resumes in a new body <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* Gita, XIV. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-376<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nformed from those elements its round of births in the cycle, just
\nas after the interval of pause and cessation the universal Being resumes his endless round of the cyclic
\naeons. This immortality in the
\nrounds of Time is common to all embodied spirits. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nTo be immortal in the deeper sense is something different from this
\nsurvival of death and this constant recurrence. Immortality is that
\nsupreme status in which the Spirit knows itself to be superior to
\ndeath and birth, not conditioned by the nature of its manifestation,
\ninfinite, imperishable, immutably eternal,\u2014immortal, because never
\nbeing born it never dies. The divine Purushottama, who is the
\nsupreme Lord and supreme Brahman, possesses for ever this immortal eternity and is not affected by his taking up a body or by
\nhis continuous assumption of cosmic forms and powers because he
\nexists always in this self-knowledge. His very nature is to be unchangeably conscious of his own eternity; he is self-aware without
\nend or beginning. He is here the Inhabitant of all bodies, but as the
\nunborn in every body, not limited in his consciousness by that manifestation, not identified with the physical nature which he assumes; for that is only a minor circumstance of his universal activised play
\nof existence. Liberation, immortality is to live in this unchangeably
\nconscious eternal being of the Purushottama.1 But to arrive here at this
\ngreater spiritual immortality the embodied soul must cease to live
\naccording to the law of the lower nature; it must put on the law of the
\nDivine’s supreme way of existence which is in fact the real law of its
\nown eternal essence. In the spiritual evolution of its becoming, no
\nless than in its secret original being, it must grow into the likeness
\nof the Divine. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd this great thing, to rise from the human into the divine nature,
\nwe can only do by an effort of Godward knowledge, will and adoration. For the soul sent forth by the Supreme as his eternal portion, his immortal representative into the workings of universal Nature is <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1<\/sup> Mark that nowhere in the Gita is there any indication that dissolution of
\nthe individual spiritual being into the unmanifest, indefinable or absolute
\nBrahman, avyaktam anirdeśyam,<\/i> is the true meaning or condition of immortality
\nor the true aim of Yoga. On the contrary it describes immortality later on as an
\nindwelling in the Ishwara in his supreme status, mayi nivasisyasi, param dhāma,
\n<\/i>and here as sādharmya, parām siddhim,<\/i> a supreme perfection, a becoming of
\none law of being and nature with the Supreme, persistent still in existence and
\nconscious of the universal movement but above it, as all the sages still exist,
\nmunayah. sarve,<\/i> not bound to birth in the creation, not troubled by the dissolution of the cycles. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-377<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nyet obliged by the character of those workings,
\navaśam prakrter vaśāt,
\n<\/i>to identify itself in its external consciousness with her limiting conditions, to identify itself with a life, mind and body that are oblivious
\nof their inner spiritual reality and of the innate Godhead. To get
\nback to self-knowledge and to the knowledge of the real as distinct
\nfrom the apparent relations of the soul with Nature, to know God
\nand ourselves and the world with a spiritual and no longer with a
\nphysical or externalised experience, through the deepest truth of the
\ninner soul-consciousness and not through the misleading phenomenal
\nsignificances of the sense-mind and the outward understanding, is
\nan indispensable means of this perfection. Perfection cannot come
\nwithout self-knowledge and God-knowledge and a spiritual attitude
\ntowards our natural existence, and that is why the ancient wisdom
\nlaid so much stress on salvation by knowledge,\u2014not an intellectual
\ncognizance of things, but a growing of man the mental being into
\na greater spiritual consciousness. The soul’s salvation cannot come
\nwithout the soul’s perfection, without its growing into the divine nature; the impartial Godhead will not effect it for us by an act o\u00a3
\ncaprice or an arbitrary sanad<\/i> of his favour. Divine works are effective
\nfor salvation because they lead us towards this perfection and to a
\nknowledge of self and nature and God by a growing unity with the
\ninner Master of our existence. Divine love is effective because by it
\nwe grow into the likeness of the sole and supreme object of our
\nadoration and call down the answering love of the Highest to flood
\nus with the light of his knowledge and the uplifting power and
\npurity of his eternal spririt. Therefore, says the Gita, this is the
\nsupreme knowledge and the highest of all knowings because it leads
\nto the highest perfection and spiritual status, parām siddhmi,<\/i> and
\nbrings the soul to likeness with the Divine, sādharmya.<\/i> It is the eternal wisdom, the great spiritual experience by which all the sages
\nattained to that highest perfection, grew into one law of being with
\nthe Supreme and live for ever in his eternity, not born in the creation,
\nnot troubled by the anguish of the universal dissolution. This perfection, then, this sādharmya<\/i> is the way of immortality and the
\nindispensable condition without which the soul cannot consciously live in the Eternal. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe soul of man could not grow into the likeness of the Divine,
\nif it were not in its secret essence imperishably one with the Divine
\nand part and parcel of his divinity: it could not be or become immortal <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-378<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nif it were merely a creature of mental, vital and physical
\nNature. All existence is a manifestation of the divine existence and
\nthat which is within us is spirit of the eternal Spirit. We have come
\nindeed into the lower material nature and are under its influence,
\nbut we have come there from the supreme spiritual nature: this inferior imperfect status is our apparent, but that our real being.
\nThe Eternal puts all this movement forth as his self-creation. He is
\nat once the Father and Mother of the universe; the substance of the
\ninfinite Idea, vij\u00f1āna,<\/i> the Mahat Brahman, is the womb into which
\nhe casts the seed of his self-conception. As the Over-Soul he casts the
\nseed; as the Mother, the Nature-Soul, the Energy filled with his
\nconscious power, he receives it into this infinite substance of being
\nmade pregnant with his illimitable, yet self-limiting Idea. He receives
\ninto this Vast of self-conception and develops there the divine embryo
\ninto mental and physical form of existence born from the original
\nact of conceptive creation. All we see springs from that act of creation; but that which is born here is only finite idea and form of the unborn
\nand infinite. The Spirit is eternal and superior to all its manifestation: Nature, eternal without beginning in the Spirit, proceeds for
\never with the rhythm of the cycles by unending act of creation and
\nunconcluding act of cessation; the Soul too which takes on this or
\nthat form in Nature, is no less eternal than she, anādi ubhāv api.
\n<\/i>Even while in Nature it follows the unceasing round of the cycles, it is, in the Eternal from which it proceeds into them, for ever raised
\nabove the terms of birth and death, and even in its apparent consciousness here it can become aware of that innate and constant
\ntranscendence. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nWhat is it then that makes the difference, what is it that gets
\nthe soul into the appearance of birth and death and bondage,\u2014for
\nthis is patent that it is only an appearance? It is a subordinate act or
\nstate of consciousness, it is a self-oblivious identification with the
\nmodes of Nature in the limited workings of this lower motivity and
\nwith this self-wrapped ego-bounded knot of action of the mind, life
\nand body. To rise above the modes of Nature, to be traigunyātīta,<\/i> is
\nindispensable, if we are to get back into our fully conscious being
\naway from the obsessing power of the lower action and to put on the
\nfree nature of the spirit and its eternal immortality. That condition
\nof the sādharmya<\/i> is what the Gita next proceeds to develop. It has
\nalready alluded to it and laid it down with a brief emphasis in a previous <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-379<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nchapter; but it has now to indicate more precisely what are these
\nmodes, these gunas, how they bind the soul and keep it hack from
\nspiritual freedom and what is meant by rising above the modes or Nature. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe modes of Nature are all qualitative in their essence and are
\ncalled for that reason its gunas or qualities. In any spiritual conception of the universe this must be so, because the connecting medium
\nbetween spirit and matter must be psyche or soul-power and the
\nprimary action psychological and qualitative, not physical and quantitative; for quality is the immaterial, the more spiritual element in
\nall the action of the universal Energy, her prior dynamics. The predominance of physical Science has accustomed us to a different view
\nof Nature, because there the first thing that strikes us is the importance of the quantitative aspect of her workings and her dependence
\nfor the creation of forms on quantitative combinations and dispositions. And yet even there the discovery that matter is rather substance
\nor act of energy than energy a motive-power of self-existent material
\nsubstance or an inherent power acting in matter has led to some
\nrevival of an older reading of universal Nature. The analysis of the
\nancient Indian thinkers allowed for the quantitative action of Nature,
\nmātrā;<\/i> but that it regarded as proper to its more objective and formally executive working, while the innately ideative executive power
\nwhich disposes things according to the quality of their being and
\nenergy, guna, svabhāva,<\/i> is the primary determinant and underlies all,
\nthe outer quantitative dispositions. In the basis of the physical world
\nthis is not apparent only because there the underlying ideative spirit,
\nthe Mahat Brahman, is overlaid and hidden up by the movement of
\nmatter and material energy. But even in the physical world the
\nmiraculous varying results of different combinations and quantities
\nof elements otherwise identical with each other admits of no conceivable explanation if there is not a superior power of variative quality
\nof which these material dispositions are only the convenient mechanical devices. Or, let us say at once, there must be a secret ideative
\ncapacity of the universal energy, vij\u00f1āna,\u2014<\/i>even if we suppose that
\nenergy and its instrumental idea, buddhi, to<\/i> be themselves mechanical
\nin their nature,\u2014which fixes the mathematics and decides the resultants of these outer dispositions: it is the omnipotent Idea in the spirit
\nwhich invents and makes use of these devices. And in the vital and
\nmental existence quality at once openly appears as the primary power <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-380<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nand amount of energy is only a secondary factor. But in fact the
\nmental, the vital, the physical existence are all subject to the limitations of quality, all are governed by its determinations, even though
\nthat truth seems more and more obscured as we descend the scale
\nof existence. Only the Spirit, which by the power of its idea-being
\nand its idea-force called mahat<\/i> and vij\u00f1āna<\/i> fixes these conditions, is
\nnot so determined, not subject to any limitations either of quality
\nor quantity because its immeasurable and indeterminable infinity is
\nsuperior to the modes which it develops and uses for its creation. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut, again, the whole qualitative action of Nature, so infinitely
\nintricate in its detail and variety, is figured as cast into the mould of
\nthree general modes of quality everywhere present, intertwined,
\nalmost inextricable, sattva, rajas, tamas.<\/i> These modes are described in
\nthe Gita only by their psychological action in man, or incidentally in
\nthings such as food according as they produce a psychological or vital
\neffect on human beings. If we look for a more general definition, we
\nshall perhaps catch a glimpse of it in the symbolic idea of Indian
\nreligion which attributes each of these qualities respectively to one
\nmember of the cosmic Trinity, sattwa to the preserver Vishnu, rajas
\nto the creator Brahma, tamas to the destroyer Rudra. Looking behind
\nthis idea for the rationale of the triple ascription, we might define
\nthe three modes or qualities in terms of the motion of the universal
\nEnergy as Nature’s three concomitant and inseparable powers of
\nequilibrium, kinesis and inertia. But that is only their appearance in
\nterms of the external action of Force. It is otherwise if we regard
\nconsciousness and force as twin terms of the one Existence, always
\ncoexistent in the reality of being, however in the primal outward
\nphenomenon of material Nature light of consciousness may seem to
\ndisappear in a vast action of nescient unillumined energy, while at an
\nopposite pole of spiritual quiescence action of force may seem to disappear in the stillness of the observing or witness consciousness.
\nThese two conditions are the two extremes of an apparently separated
\nPurusha and Prakriti, but each at its extreme point does not abolish
\nbut at the most only conceals its eternal mate in the depths of its own
\ncharacteristic way of being. Therefore, since consciousness is always
\nthere even in an apparently inconscient Force, we must find a corresponding psychological power of these three modes which informs
\ntheir more outward executive action. On their psychological side the
\nthree qualities may be defined, tamas as Nature’s power of nescience, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-381<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nrajas as her power of active seeking ignorance enlightened by desire
\nand impulsion, sattwa as her power of possessing and harmonising knowledge. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe three qualitative modes of Nature are inextricably intertwined
\nin all cosmic existence. Tamas, the principle of inertia, is a passive
\nand inert nescience which suffers all shocks and contacts without
\nany effort of mastering response and by itself would lead to a disintegration of the whole action of the energy and a radical dispersion of
\nsubstance. But it is driven by the kinetic power of rajas and even in
\nthe nescience of Matter is met and embraced by an innate though
\nunpossessed preserving principle of harmony and balance and knowledge. Material energy appears to be tamasic in its basic action, jada,
\n<\/i>nescient, mechanic and in movement disintegrative. But it is dominated by a huge force and impulsion of mute rajasic kinesis which
\ndrives it, even in and even by its dispersion and disintegration, to
\nbuild and create and again by a sattwic ideative element in its apparently inconscient force which is always imposing a harmony and
\npreservative order on the two opposite tendencies. Rajas, the principle of creative endeavour and motion and impulsion in Prakriti,
\nkinesis, pravrtti,<\/i> so seen in Matter, appears more evidently as a conscious or half-conscious passion of seeking and desire and action in
\nthe dominant character of Life,\u2014for that passion is the nature of all
\nvital existence. And it would lead by itself, in its own nature to a
\npersistent but always mutable and unstable life and activity and
\ncreation without any settled result. But met on one side by the disintegrating power of tamas with death and decay and inertia, its
\nignorant action is on the other side of its functioning settled and
\nharmonised and sustained by the power of sattwa, subconscient in
\nthe lower forms of life, more and more conscient in the emergence
\nof mentality, most conscious in the effort of the evolved intelligence
\nfiguring as will and reason in the fully developed mental being.
\nSattwa, the principle of understanding knowledge and of according
\nassimilation, measure and equilibrium, which by itself would lead
\nonly to some lasting concord of fixed and luminous harmonies, is in
\nthe motions of this world impelled to follow the mutable strife and
\naction of the eternal kinesis and constantly overpowered or hedged
\nin by the forces of inertia and nescience. This is the appearance of
\na world governed by the interlocked and mutually limited play of
\nthe three qualitative modes of Nature. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-382<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe Gita applies this generalised analysis of the universal Energy
\nto the psychological nature of man in relation to his bondage to Prakriti and the realisation of spiritual freedom. Sattwa, it tells us, is by
\nthe purity of its quality a cause of light and illumination and by
\nvirtue of that purity it produces no disease or morbidity or suffering
\nin the nature. When into all the doors in the body there comes a
\nflooding of light, as if the doors and windows of a closed house were
\nopened to sunshine, a light of understanding, perception and knowledge,\u2014when the intelligence is alert and illumined, the senses quickened, the whole mentality satisfied and full of brightness and the
\nnervous being calmed and filled with an illumined ease and clarity, prasāda,<\/i> one should understand that there has been a great increase
\nand uprising of the sattwic guna in the nature. For knowledge and
\na harmonious ease and pleasure and happiness are the characteristic
\nresults of sattwa. The pleasure that is sattwic is not only that contentment which an inner clarity of satisfied will and intelligence
\nbrings with it, but all delight and content produced by the soul’s
\npossession of itself in light or by an accord or an adequate and truthful adjustment between the regarding soul and the surrounding Nature and her offered objects of desire and perception. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nRajas, again, the Gita tells us, has for its essence attraction of
\nliking and longing. Rajas is a child of the attachment of the soul
\nto the desire of objects; it is born from the nature’s thirst for an
\nunpossessed satisfaction. It is therefore full of unrest and fever and
\nlust and greed and excitement, a thing of seeking impulsions, and all
\nthis mounts in us when the middle guna increases. It is the force of
\ndesire which motives all ordinary personal initiative of action and
\nall that movement of stir and seeking and propulsion in our nature
\nwhich is the impetus towards action and works, pravrtti.<\/i> Rajas, then, is evidently the kinetic force in the modes of Nature. Its fruit is
\nthe lust of action, but also grief, pain, all kinds of suffering; for it has
\nno right possession of its object\u2014desire in fact implies non-possession
\n\u2014and even its pleasure of acquired possession is troubled and unstable
\nbecause it has not clear knowledge and does not know how to possess
\nnor can it find the secret of accord and right enjoyment. All the
\nignorant and passionate seeking of life belongs to the rajasic mode
\nof Nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nTamas, finally, is born of inertia and ignorance and its fruit too is inertia and ignorance. It is the darkness of tamas which obscures <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-383<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nknowledge and causes all confusion and delusion. Therefore it is the
\nopposite of sattwa, tor the essence of sattwa is enlightenment, prakāśa,
\n<\/i>and the essence of tamas is absence of light, nescience, aprakāśa.<\/i> But
\ntamas brings incapacity and negligence of action as well as the incapacity and negligence of error, inattention and misunderstanding
\nor non-understanding; indolence, languor and sleep belong to this
\nguna. Therefore it is the opposite too of rajas; for the essence of rajas
\nis movement and impulsion and kinesis, pravrtti,<\/i> but the essence of
\ntamas is inertia, apravrtti.<\/i> Tamas "is inertia of nescience and inertia
\nof inaction, a double negative. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThese three qualities of Nature are evidently
\npresent and active in all human beings and none can be said to be quite devoid of one
\nand another or free from any one of the three; none is cast in the
\nmould of one guna to the exclusion of the others. All men have in
\nthem in whatever degree the rajasic impulse of desire and activity
\nand the sattwic boon of light and happiness, some balance, some
\nadjustment of mind to itself and its surroundings and objects, and
\nall have their share of tamasic incapacity and ignorance or nescience.
\nBut these qualities are not constant in any man in the quantitative
\naction of their force or in the combination of their elements; for they
\nare variable and in a continual state of mutual impact, displacement
\nand interaction. Now one leads, now another increases and predominates, and each subjects us to its characteristic action and consequences. Only by a general and ordinary predominance of one or
\nother of the qualities can a man be said to be either sattwic or rajasic
\nor tamasic in his nature; but this can only be a general and not an exclusive or
\nabsolute description. The three qualities are a triple
\npower which by their interaction determine the character and disposition and through that and its various motions the actions of the
\nnatural man. But this triple power is at the same time a triple cord
\nof bondage. "The three gunas born of Prakriti," says the Gita, "bind
\nin the body the imperishable dweller in the body." In a certain sense
\nwe can see at once that there must be this bondage in following
\nthe action of the gunas; for they are all limited by their finite of quality
\nand operation and cause limitation. Tamas is on both its sides an
\nincapacity and therefore very obviously binds to limitation, Rajasic
\ndesire as an initiator of action is a more positive power, but still we
\ncan see well enough that desire with its limiting and engrossing hold
\non man must always be a bondage. But how does sattwa, the power <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-384<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nof knowledge and happiness, become a chain? It so becomes because it is a principle of mental nature, a principle of limited and limiting
\nknowledge and of a happiness which depends upon right following
\nor attainment of this or that object or else on particular states of the
\nmentality, on a light of mind which can be only a more or less clear
\ntwilight. Its pleasure can only be a passing intensity or a qualified
\nease. Other is the infinite spiritual knowledge and the free self-existent delight of our spiritual being. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut then there is the question, how does our infinite and imperishable spirit, even involved in Nature, come thus to confine
\nitself to the lower action of Prakriti and undergo this bondage and
\nhow is it not, like the supreme spirit of which it is a portion, free
\nin its infinity even while enjoying the self-limitations of its active
\nevolution? The reason, says the Gita, is our attachment to the gunas
\nand to the result of their workings. Sattwa, it says, attaches to happiness, rajas attaches to action, tamas covers up the knowledge and
\nattaches to negligence of error and inaction. Or again, "sattwa binds
\nby attachment to knowledge and attachment to happiness, rajas binds
\nthe embodied spirit by attachment to works, tamas binds by negligence and indolence and sleep." In other words, the soul by attachment to the enjoyment of the gunas and their results concentrates
\nits consciousness on the lower and outward action of life, mind and
\nbody in Nature, imprisons itself in the form of these things and becomes oblivious of its own greater consciousness behind in the spirit,
\nunaware of the free power and scope of the liberating Purusha. Evidently, in order to be liberated and perfect we must get back from
\nthese things, away from the gunas and above them and return to
\nthe power of that free spiritual consciousness above Nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut this would seem to imply a cessation of all doing, since all
\nnatural action is done by the gunas, by Nature through her modes.
\nThe soul cannot act by itself, it can only act through Nature and her
\nmodes. And yet the Gita, while it demands freedom from the modes,
\ninsists upon the necessity of action. Here comes in the importance of
\nits insistence on the abandonment of the fruits; for it is the desire of
\nthe fruits which is the most potent cause of the soul’s bondage and
\nby abandoning it the soul can be free in action. Ignorance is the result of tamasic action, pain the consequence of rajasic works, pain
\nof reaction, disappointment, dissatisfaction or transcience, and therefore in attachment to the fruits of this kind of activity attended as <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-385<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nthey are with these undesirable accompaniments there is no profit.
\nBut of works rightly done the fruit is pure and sattwic, the inner
\nresult is knowledge and happiness. Yet attachment even to these
\npleasurable things must be entirely abandoned, first, because in the
\nmind they are limited and limiting forms and, secondly, because,
\nsince sattwa is constantly entangled with and besieged by rajas
\nand tamas which may at any moment overcome it, there is a perpetual
\ninsecurity in their tenure. But, even if one is free from any clinging
\nto the fruit, there may be an attachment to the work itself, either for
\nits own sake, the essential rajasic bond, or owing to a lax subjection to
\nthe drive of Nature, the tamasic, or for the sake of the attracting
\nlightness of the thing done, which is the sattwic attaching cause
\npowerful on the virtuous man or the man of knowledge. And here
\nevidently the resource is in that other injunction of the Gita, to give
\nup the action itself to the Lord of works and be only a desireless and
\nequal-minded instrument of his will. To see that the modes of Nature
\nare the whole agency and cause of our works and to know and turn
\nto that which is supreme above the gunas, is the way to rise above
\nthe lower nature. Only so can we attain to the movement and status
\nof the Divine, mad-bhāva,<\/i> by which free from subjection to birth
\nand death and their concomitants, decay, old age and suffering, the
\nliberated soul shall enjoy in the end immortality and all that is eternal. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut what, asks Arjuna, are the signs of such a man, what his
\naction and how is he said even in action to be above the three gunas?
\nThe sign, says Krishna, is that equality of which I have so constantly
\nspoken; the sign is that inwardly he regards happiness and suffering
\nalike, gold and mud and stone as of equal value and that to him the
\npleasant and the unpleasant, praise and blame, honour and insult,
\nthe faction of his friends and the faction of his enemies are equal
\nthings. He is steadfast in a wise imperturbable and immutable inner
\ncalm and quietude. He initiates no action, but leaves all works to be
\ndone by the gunas of Nature. Sattwa, rajas or tamas may rise or
\ncease in his outer mentality and his physical movements with their
\nresults of enlightenment, of impulsion to works or of inaction and
\nthe clouding over of the mental and nervous being, but he does not
\nrejoice when this comes or that ceases, nor on the other hand does
\nhe abhor or shrink from the operation or the cessation of these things.
\nHe has seated himself in the conscious light of another principle than
\nthe nature of the gunas and that greater consciousness remains stead<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-386<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nfast in him, above these powers and unshaken by their motions like
\nthe sun above clouds to one who has risen into a higher atmosphere.
\nHe from that height sees that it is the gunas that are in process of
\naction and that their storm and calm are not himself but only a
\nmovement of Prakriti; his self is immovable above and his spirit does
\nnot participate in that shifting mutability of things unstable. This
\nis the impersonality of the Brahmic status; for that higher principle,
\nthat greater wide high-seated consciousness, kūtastha,<\/i> is the immutable Brahman. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut still there is evidently here a double status, there is a scission
\no\u00a3 the being between two opposites; a liberated spirit in the immutable
\nSelf or Brahman watches the action of an unliberated mutable Nature,\u2014Akshara and Kshara. Is there no greater status, no principle
\nof more absolute perfection, or is this division the highest consciousness possible in the body, and is the end of Yoga to drop the mutable
\nnature and the gunas born of the embodiment in Nature and disappear into the impersonality and everlasting peace of the Brahman?
\nIs that lay a<\/i> or dissolution of the individual Purusha the greatest
\nliberation? There is, it would seem, something else; for the Gita says
\nat the close, always returning to this one final note, "He also who
\nloves and strives after Me with an undeviating love and adoration,
\npasses beyond the three gunas and he too is prepared for becoming
\nthe Brahman." This "I" is the Purushottama who is the foundation
\nof the silent Brahman and of immortality and imperishable spiritual
\nexistence and of the eternal dharma and of an utter bliss of happiness. There is a status then which is greater than the peace of the
\nAkshara as it watches unmoved the strife of the gunas. There is a
\nhighest spiritual experience and foundation above the immutability
\nof the Brahman, there is an eternal dharma greater than the rajasic
\nimpulsion to works, pravrtti,<\/i> there is an absolute delight which is untouched by rajasic suffering and beyond the sattwic happiness, and
\nthese things are found and possessed by dwelling in the being and
\npower of the Purushottama. But since it is acquired by bhakti, its
\nstatus must be that divine delight, Ananda, in which is experienced
\nthe union of utter love2<\/sup> and possessing oneness, the crown of bhakti.
\nAnd to rise into that Ananda, into that inexpressible oneness must be the completion of spiritual perfection and the fulfilment or the
\neternal immortalising dharma. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n2<\/sup> niratiśayapremāspadatvam
\nānandatattvam.<\/i> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-387<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XIV   ABOVE THE GUNAS*   THE DISTINCTIONS between the Soul and Nature rapidly drawn in the verses of the thirteenth chapter by a few…<\/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-3648","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\/3648","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=3648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}