{"id":3651,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:13","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3651"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:13","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:13","slug":"40-the-fullness-of-spiritual-action-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\/40-the-fullness-of-spiritual-action-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-40_The Fullness of Spiritual Action.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE FULLNESS OF SPIRITUAL ACTION <\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font>HE DEVELOPMENT<\/font> of the idea of the Gita has reached a point at
\nwhich one question alone remains for solution,\u2014the question of our nature bound
\nand defective and how it is to effect, not only in principle but in all its movements, its evolution from the lower to the
\nhigher being and from the law of its present action to the immortal
\nDharma. The difficulty is one which is implied in certain of the positions laid down in the Gita, but has to be brought out into greater
\nprominence than it gets there and to be put into a clearer shape before our intelligence. The Gita proceeded on a psychological knowledge which was familiar to the mind of the time, and in the steps of
\nits thought it was well able to abridge its transitions, to take much
\nfor granted and to leave many things unexpressed which we need
\nto have put strongly into light and made precise to us. Its teaching
\nsets out at the beginning to propose a new source and level for our
\naction in the world; that was the starting-point and that motives also
\nthe conclusion. Its initial object was not precisely to propose a way of
\nliberation, moksa,<\/i> but rather to show the compatibility of works with
\nthe soul’s effort towards liberation and of spiritual freedom itself
\nwhen once attained with continued action in the world, muktasya karma.<\/i> Incidentally, a synthetic Yoga or psychological method of
\narriving at spiritual liberation and perfection has been developed and
\ncertain metaphysical affirmations have been put forward, certain
\ntruths of our being and nature on which the validity of this Yoga
\nreposes. But the original preoccupation remains throughout, the original difficulty and problem, how Arjuna, dislodged by a strong revulsion of thought and feeling from the established natural and rational
\nfoundations and standards of action, is to find a new and satisfying
\nspiritual norm of works, or how he is to live in the truth of the Spirit
\n\u2014since he can no longer act according to the partial truths of the
\ncustomary reason and nature of man\u2014and yet to do his appointed
\nwork on the battle-field of Kurukshetra. To live inwardly calm, detached,<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-401 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nsilent in the silence of the impersonal and universal Self and
\nyet do dynamically the works of dynamic Nature, and more largely,
\nto be one with the Eternal within us and to do all the will of the
\nEternal in the world expressed through a sublimated force, a divine
\nheight of the personal nature uplifted, liberated, universalised, made
\none with God-nature,\u2014this is the Gita’s solution. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nLet us see what this comes to in the most plain and positive terms
\nand. from the standpoint of the problem which is at the root of Arjuna’s difficulty and refusal. His duty as a human being and a social
\nbeing is the discharge of the high function of the Kshatriya without
\nwhich the frame of society cannot be maintained, the ideals of the
\nrace cannot be vindicated, the harmonious order of right and justice
\ncannot be upheld against the anarchic violence of oppression, wrong
\nand injustice. And yet the appeal to duty by itself can no longer
\nsatisfy the protagonist of the struggle because in the terrible actuality
\nof Kurukshetra it presents itself in harsh, perplexed and ambiguous
\nterms. The discharge of his social duty has suddenly come to signify
\nassent to an enormous result of sin and sorrow and suffering; the customary means of maintaining social order and justice is found to
\nlead instead to a great disorder and chaos. The rule of just claim and
\ninterest, that which we call rights, will not serve him here; for the
\nkingdom he has to win for himself and his brothers and his side in
\nthe war is indeed rightly theirs and its assertion an overthrow o\u00a3
\nAsuric tyranny and a vindication of justice, but a blood-bespattered
\njustice and a kingdom possessed in sorrow and with the stain on it
\nof a great sin, a monstrous harm done to society, a veritable crime
\nagainst the race. Nor will the rule of Dharma, of ethical right, serve
\nany better; for there is here a conflict of dharmas. A new and greater
\nyet unguessed rule is needed to solve the problem, but what is that rule? <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nFor to withdraw from his work, to take refuge in a saintly inactivity and leave the imperfect world with its unsatisfying methods
\nand motives to take care of itself is one possible solution easy to
\nenvisage, easy to execute, but this is the very cutting of the knot that
\nhas been insistently forbidden by the Teacher. Action is demanded
\nof man by the Master of the world who is the master of all his works
\nand whose world is a field of action, whether done through the ego
\nand in the ignorance or partial light of the limited human reason or
\ninitiated from a higher and more largely seeing plane of vision and <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-402<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nmotive. Again, to abandon this particular action as evil would be
\nanother kind of solution, the ready resort of the short-sighted moralising mind, but to this evasion too the Teacher refuses his assent.
\nArjuna’s abstention would work a much greater sin and evil: it would
\nmean, if it had any effect at all, the triumph of wrong and injustice
\nand the rejection of his own mission as an instrument of the divine
\nworkings. A violent crisis in the destinies of the race has been brought
\nabout not by any blind motion of forces or solely by the confused
\nclash of human ideas, interests, passions, egoisms, but by a Will
\nwhich is behind these outward appearances. This truth Arjuna must
\nbe brought to see; he must learn to act impersonally imperturbably
\nas the instrument not of his little personal desires and weak human
\nshrinkings, but of a vaster and more luminous Power, a greater all-wise divine and universal Will. He must act impersonally and universally in a high union of his soul with the inner and outer
\nGodhead, yukta,<\/i> in a calm Yoga with his own supreme Self and the
\ninforming Self of the universe. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut this truth cannot be rightly seen and this kind of action cannot be rightly undertaken, cannot become real as long as man is governed by the ego, even by the half-enlightened unillumined sattwic
\nego of the reason and the mental intelligence. For this is a truth of
\nthe spirit, this is an action from a spiritual basis. A spiritual, not an
\nintellectual knowledge is the indispensable requisite for this way of
\nworks, its sole possible light, medium, incentive. First, therefore, the
\nTeacher points out that all these ideas and feelings which trouble,
\nperplex and baffle Arjuna, joy and sorrow, desire and sin, the mind’s
\nturn towards governing action by the outward results of action, the
\nhuman shrinking from what seems terrible and formidable in the
\ndealings of the universal Spirit with the world, are things born of
\nthe subjection of our consciousness to a natural ignorance, the way
\nof working of a lower nature in which the soul is involved and sees
\nitself as a separate ego returning to the action of things upon it dual
\nreactions of pain and pleasure, virtue and vice, right and wrong, good
\nhappening and evil fortune. These reactions create a tangled web of
\nperplexity in which the soul is lost and bewildered by its own ignorance; it has to guide itself by partial and imperfect solutions that
\nserve ordinarily with a stumbling sufficiency in the normal life, but
\nfail when brought to the test of a wider seeing and a profounder
\nexperience. To understand the real sense of action and existence one <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-403<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nmust retreat behind all these appearances into the truth of the spirit; one must found self-knowledge before one can have the basis of a right world-knowledge. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe first requisite is to shake the wings of the soul free from desire
\nand passion and troubling emotion and all this perturbed and distorting atmosphere of human mind into an ether of dispassionate equality, a heaven of impersonal calm, an egoless feeling and vision of
\nthings. For only in that lucid upper air, reaches free from all storm
\nand cloud, can self-knowledge come and the law of the world and
\nthe truth of Nature be seen steadily and with an embracing eye and
\nin an undisturbed and all-comprehending and all-penetrating light.
\nBehind this little personality which is a helpless instrument, a passive
\nor vainly resistant puppet of Nature and a form figured in her creations, there is an impersonal self one in all which sees and knows all
\nthings; there is an equal, impartial, universal presence and support
\nof creation, a witnessing consciousness that suffers Nature to work
\nout the becoming of things in their own type, svabhāva,<\/i> but does not
\ninvolve and lose itself in the action she initiates. To draw back from
\nthe ego and the troubled personality into this calm, equal, eternal,
\nuniversal, impersonal Self is the first step towards a seeing action in
\nYoga done in conscious union with the divine Being and the infallible
\nWill that, however obscure now to us, manifests itself in the universe.
\nWhen we live tranquilly poised in this self of impersonal wideness,
\nthen because that is vast, calm, quiescent, impersonal, our other little
\nfalse self, our ego of action disappears into its largeness and we see
\nthat it is Nature that acts and not we, that all action is the action of
\nNature and can be nothing else. And this thing we call Nature is a
\nuniversal executive Power of eternal being in motion which takes
\ndifferent shapes and forms in this or that class of its creatures and in
\neach individual of the species according to its type of natural existence
\nand the resultant function and law of its works. According to its
\nnature each creature must act and it cannot act by anything else. Ego
\nand personal will and desire are nothing more than vividly conscious
\nforms and limited natural workings of a universal Force that is itself
\nformless and infinite and far exceeds them; reason and intelligence
\nand mind and sense and life and body, all that we vaunt or take for
\nour own, are Nature’s instruments and creations. But the impersonal
\nSelf does not act and is not part of Nature: it observes the action
\nfrom behind and above and remains lord of itself and a free and <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-404 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nimpassive knower and witness. The soul that lives in this impersonality is not affected by the actions of which our nature is an instrument; it does not reply to them or their effects by grief and joy, desire and
\nshrinking, attraction and repulsion or any of the hundred dualities
\nthat draw and shake and afflict us. It regards all men and all things
\nand all happenings with equal eyes, watches the modes or qualities of
\nNature acting on the modes or qualities, sees the whole secret of the
\nmechanism, but is itself beyond these modes and qualities, a pure
\nabsolute essential being, impassive, free, at peace. Nature works out
\nher action and the soul impersonal and universal supports her but is
\nnot involved, is not attached, is not entangled, is not troubled, is not
\nbewildered. If we can live in this equal self, we too are at peace; our
\nworks continue so long as Nature’s impulsion prolongs itself in our
\ninstruments, but there is a spiritual freedom and quiescence. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThis duality of Self and Nature, quiescent Purusha, active Prakriti,
\nis not, however, the whole of our being; these are not really the two
\nlast words in the matter. If it were so, either all works would be quite
\nindifferent to the soul and this or that action or refraining from action
\nwould take place by some ungoverned turn of the mobile variations
\nof the gunas,\u2014Arjuna would be moved to battle by rajasic impulse
\nin the instruments or withheld from it by tamasic inertia or sattwic
\nindifference,\u2014or else, if it so is that he must act and act only in this
\nway, it would be by some mechanical determinism of Nature. Moreover, since the soul in its retreat would come to live in the impersonal
\nquiescent Self and cease to live at all in active Nature, the final result would be quiescence, inaction, cessation, inertia, not the action
\nimposed by the Gita. And, finally, this duality gives no real explanation why the soul is at all called to involve itself in Nature and her
\nworks; for it cannot be that the one ever uninvolved self-conscient
\nspirit gets itself involved and loses its self-knowledge and has to return to that knowledge. This pure Self, this Atman is on the contrary
\nalways there, always the same, always the one self-conscient impersonal aloof Witness or impartial supporter of the action. It is this
\nlacuna, this impossible vacuum that compels us to suppose two Purushas or two poses of the one Purusha, one secret in the Self that
\nobserves all from its self-existence\u2014or perhaps observes nothing, another self-projected into Nature that lends itself to her action and
\nidentifies itself with her creations. But even this dualism of Self and
\nPrakriti or Maya corrected by the dualism of the two Purushas is <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-405<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nnot the whole philosophic creed of the Gita. It goes beyond them to the supreme all-embracing oneness of a higher Purusha, Purushottama.
\nThe Gita affirms that there is a supreme Mystery, a highest Reality <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nthat upholds and reconciles the truth or these two different manifestations. There is an utmost supreme Self, Lord and Brahman, one
\nwho is both the impersonal and the personal, but other and greater
\nthan either of them and other and greater than both of them together.
\nHe is Purusha, Self and soul of our being, but he is also Prakriti; for
\nPrakriti is the power of the All-Soul, the power of the Eternal and
\nInfinite self-moved to action and creation. The supreme Ineffable,
\nthe universal Person, he becomes by his Prakriti all these creatures.
\nThe supreme Atman and Brahman, he manifests by his Maya of self-knowledge and his Maya of ignorance the double truth of the cosmic
\nriddle. The supreme Lord, master of his Force, his Shakti, he creates,
\nimpels and governs all this Nature and all the personality, power and
\nworks of these innumerable existences. Each soul is a partial being of
\nthis self-existent One, an eternal soul of this All-Soul, a partial manifestation of this supreme Lord and his universal Nature. All here is
\nthis Divine, this Godhead, Vasudeva; for by Nature and the soul in
\nNature he becomes all that is and everything proceeds from him and
\nlives in or by him, though he himself is greater than any widest manifestation, any deepest spirit, any cosmic figure. This is the complete
\ntruth of existence and this all the secret of the universal action that
\nwe have seen disengaging itself from the later chapters of the Gita. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut how does this greater truth modify or how affect the principle
\nof spiritual action? It modifies it to begin with in this fundamental
\nmatter that the whole meaning of the relation of Self and soul and
\nNature gets changed, opens out to a new vision, fills in the blanks
\nthat were left, acquires a greater amplitude, assumes a true and spiritually positive, a flawlessly integral significance. The world is no longer
\na purely mechanical qualitative action and determination of Nature
\nset over against the quiescence of an impersonal self-existence which
\nhas no quality or power of self-determination, no ability or impulse
\nto create. The chasm left by this unsatisfactory dualism is bridged and
\nan uplifting unity revealed between knowledge and works, the soul
\nand Nature. The quiescent impersonal Self is a truth,\u2014it is the truth
\nof the calm of the Godhead, the silence of the Eternal, the freedom
\nof the Lord of all birth and becoming and action and creation, his <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-406<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\ncalm infinite freedom of self-existence not bound, troubled or affected by his creation, not touched by the action and reaction of his
\nNature. Nature itself is now no.inexplicable illusion, no separated and
\nopposite phenomenon, but a movement of the Eternal, all her stir
\nand activity and multiplicity founded and supported on the detached
\nand observing tranquillity of an immutable self and spirit. The Lord
\nof Nature remains that immutable self even while he is at the same
\ntime the one and multiple soul of the universe and becomes in a
\npartial manifestation all these forces, powers, consciousnesses, gods,
\nanimals, things, men. Nature of the gunas is a lower self-limited
\naction of his power; it is nature of imperfectly conscious manifestation
\nand therefore of a certain ignorance. The truth of the self, even as
\nthe truth of the Divine, is held back from her surface force absorbed
\nhere in its outer action\u2014much as man’s deeper being is held back
\nfrom the knowledge of his surface consciousness\u2014until the soul in
\nher turns to find out this hidden thing, gets inside itself and discovers
\nits own real verities, its heights and its depths. That is why it has
\nto draw back from its little personal and egoistic to its large and impersonal, immutable and universal Self in order to become capable
\nof self-knowledge. But the Lord is there, not only in that Self, but
\nin Nature. He is in the heart of every creature and guides by his
\npresence the turnings of this great natural mechanism. He is present
\nin all, all lives in him, all is himself because all is a becoming of his
\nbeing, a portion or a figure of his existence. But all proceeds here in
\na lower partial working that has come out of a secret, a higher and
\ngreater and completer nature of Divinity, the eternal infinite nature
\nor absolute self-power of the Godhead, devātmaśakti.<\/i> The perfect
\nintegrally conscious soul hidden in man, an eternal portion of Deity,
\na spiritual being of the eternal Divine Being, can open in us and
\ncan too open us to him if we live constantly in this true truth of his
\naction and our existence. The seeker of Godhead has to get back to
\nthe reality of his immutable and eternal impersonal self and at the
\nsame time he has to see everywhere the Divine from whom he proceeds, to see him as all, to see him in the whole of this mutable Nature and in every part and result of her and in all her workings and
\nthere too to make himself one with God, there too to live in him, to
\nenter there too into the divine oneness. He unites in that integrality
\nthe divine calm and freedom of his deep essential existence with a supreme power of instrumental action in his divinised self of Nature. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-407<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nBut how is this to be done? It can be done first by a right spirit in
\nour will of works. The seeker has to regard all his action as a sacrifice
\nto the Lord of works who is the eternal and universal Being and his
\nown highest Self and the Self of all others and the supreme all-inhabiting, all-containing, all-governing Godhead in the universe.
\nThe whole action of Nature is such a sacrifice,\u2014offered at first indeed
\nto the divine Powers that move her and move in her, but these powers
\nare only limited forms and names of the One and illimitable. Man
\nordinarily offers his sacrifice openly or under a disguise to his own
\nego; his oblation is the false action of his own self-will and ignorance.
\nOr he offers his knowledge, action, aspiration, works of energy and
\neffort to the gods for partial, temporal and personal aims. The man
\nof knowledge, the liberated soul offers on the contrary all his activities
\nto the one eternal Godhead without any attachment to their fruit or
\nto the satisfaction of his lower personal desires. He works for God,
\nnot for himself, for the universal welfare, for the Soul of the world
\nand not for any particular object which is of his own personal creation or for any construction of his mental will or object of his vital
\nlongings, as a divine agent, not as a principal and separate profiteer
\nin the world-commerce. And this, it must be noted, is a thing that
\ncannot be really done except in proportion as the mind arrives at
\nequality, universality, wide impersonality and a clear freedom from
\nevery disguise of the insistent ego: for without these things the claim
\nto be thus acting is a pretension or an illusion. The whole action of
\nthe world is the business of the Lord of the universe, the concern of
\nthe self-existent Spirit of whom it is the unceasing creation, the progressive becoming, the significant manifestation and living symbol in
\nNature. The fruits are his, the results are those determined by him
\nand our personal action is only a minor contribution ruled or overruled, so far as its motive is an egoistic claim, by this Self and Spirit
\nin us who is the Self and Spirit in all and governs things for the universal end and good and not tor the sake of our ego. To work impersonally, desirelessly and without attachment to the fruits of our work,
\nfor the sake of God and the world and the greater Self and the fulfilment of the universal will,\u2014this is the first step towards liberation and perfection. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut beyond this step there lies that other greater motion, the inner
\nsurrender of all our actions to the Divinity within us. For it is infinite
\nNature that impels our works and a divine Will in and above her that <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-408 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\ndemands action of us; the choice and turn our ego gives to it is a
\ncontribution of our tamasic, rajasic, sattwic quality, a deformation in
\nthe lower Nature. The deformation comes by the ego thinking of
\nitself as the doer; the character of the act takes the form of the limited
\npersonal nature and the soul is bound up with that and its narrow
\nfigures and does not allow the act to proceed freely and purely from
\nthe infinite power within it. And the ego is chained to the act and
\nits outcome; it must suffer the personal consequence and reaction
\neven as it claims the responsible origination and personal will of the
\ndoing. The free perfect working comes first by referring and finally
\nby surrendering altogether the action and its origination to the divine
\nMaster of our existence; for we feel it progressively taken up by a
\nsupreme Presence within us, the soul drawn into deep intimacy and
\nclose unity with an inner Power and Godhead and the work originated directly from the greater Self, from the all-wise, infinite, universal force of an eternal being and not from the ignorance of the
\nlittle personal ego. The action is chosen and shaped according to
\nthe nature, but entirely by the divine Will in the nature, and it is
\ntherefore free and perfect within, whatever its outward appearance; it comes stamped with the inward spiritual seal of the Infinite as the
\nthing to be done, the movement and the step of the movement decreed in the ways of the omniscient Master of action, kartavyam
\nkarma.<\/i> The soul of the liberated man is free in its impersonality, even
\nwhile he contributes to the action as its means and its occasion his
\ninstrumental personal self-creation and the special will and power in
\nhis nature. That will and power is now not separately, egoistically his
\nown, but a force of the suprapersonal Divine who acts in this becoming of his own self, this one of his myriad personalities by means of
\nthe characteristic form of the natural being, the swabhava. This is
\nthe high secret and mystery, uttamam rahasyam,<\/i> of the action of the
\nliberated man. It is the result of a growing of the human soul into
\na divine Light and of the union of its nature with a highest universal
\nnature. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThis change cannot come about except by knowledge. There is
\nnecessary a right knowledge of self and God and world and a living
\nand growing into the greater consciousness to which that knowledge
\nadmits us. We know now what the knowledge is. It is sufficient to
\nremember that it reposes on another and wider vision than the human mental, a changed vision and experience by which one is first <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-409<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nof all liberated from the limitations of the ego-sense and its contacts
\nand feels and sees the one self in all, all in God, all beings as Vasudeva, all as vessels of the Godhead and one’s self too as a significant
\nbeing and soul-power of that one Godhead; it treats in a spiritual
\nuniting consciousness all the happenings of the lives of others as if
\nthey were happenings of one’s own life; it allows no wall of separation
\nand lives in a universal sympathy with all existences, while amidst
\nthe world-movement one still does the work that has to be done
\nfor the good of all, sarva-bhūta-hite,<\/i> according to the way appointed by
\nthe Divine and in the measure imposed by the command of the Spirit
\nwho is Master of Time. Thus living and acting in this knowledge
\nthe soul of man becomes united with the Eternal in personality and
\nin impersonality, lives in the Eternal though acting in Time, even as
\nthe Eternal acts, and is free, perfect and blissful whatever may be the
\nform and determination of the work done in Nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe liberated man has the complete and total knowledge, krtsnavid,
\n<\/i>and does all works without any of the restrictions made by the mind,
\nkrtsnakrt,<\/i> according to the force and freedom and infinite power of
\nthe divine will within him. And since he is united with the Eternal,
\nhe has too the pure spiritual and illimitable joy of his eternal existence. He turns with adoration to the Self of whom he is a portion,
\nthe Master of his works and divine Lover of his soul and nature.
\nHe is not an impassive calm spectator only; he lifts not only his
\nknowledge and will to the Eternal, but his heart also of love and
\nadoration and passion. For without that uplifting of the heart his
\nwhole nature is not fulfilled and united with God; the ecstasy of the
\nspirit’s calm needs to be transformed by the ecstasy of the soul’s
\nAnanda. Beyond the personal Jiva and the impersonal Brahman or
\nAtman he reaches the supracosmic Purushottama who is immutable
\nin impersonality and fulfils himself in personality and draws us to
\nhim through these two different attractions. The liberated seeker
\nrises personally to that highest Numen by his soul’s love and joy in
\nGod and the adoration of the will in him for the Master of its works; the peace and largeness of his impersonal universal knowledge is
\nperfected by delight in the self-existent integral close and intimate
\nreality of this surpassing and universal Godhead. This delight glorifies
\nhis knowledge and unites it with the eternal delight of the Spirit in
\nits self and its manifestation; this perfects too his personality in the
\nsuperperson of the divine Purusha and makes his natural being and <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-410 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\naction one with eternal beauty, eternal harmony, eternal love and
\nAnanda. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut all this change means a total passing from the lower human to the higher divine nature. It is a lifting of our whole being or at
\nleast of the whole mental being that wills, knows and feels beyond
\nwhat we are into some highest spiritual consciousness, some satisfying
\nfullest power of existence, some deepest widest delight of the spirit.
\nAnd this may well be possible by a transcendence of our present
\nnatural life, it may well be possible in some celestial state beyond the
\nearthly existence or still beyond in a supracosmic superconscience; it may happen by transition to an absolute and infinite power and
\nstatus of the Spirit. But while we are here in the body, here in life,
\nhere in action, what, in this change, becomes of the lower nature? For
\nat present all our activities are determined in their trend and shape
\nby the nature, and this Nature here is the nature of the three gunas,
\nand in all natural being and in all natural activities there is the triple
\nguna, tamas with its ignorance and inertia, rajas with its kinesis and
\naction, its passion and grief and perversion, sattwa with its light and
\nhappiness, and the bondage of these things. And granted that the
\nsoul becomes superior in the self to the three gunas, how does it
\nescape in its instrumental nature from their working and result and
\nbondage? For even the man of knowledge, says the Gita, must act
\naccording to his nature. To feel and bear the reactions of the gunas
\nin the outer manifestation, but to be free from them and superior
\nin the observing conscious self behind is not sufficient; for it leaves
\nstill a dualism of freedom and subjection, a contradiction between
\nwhat we are within and what we are without, between our self and
\nour power, what we know ourselves to be and what we will and do.
\nWhere is the release here, where the full elevation and transformation
\nto the higher spiritual nature, the immortal Dharma, the law proper
\nto the infinite purity and power of a divine being? If this change
\ncannot be effected while in the body, then so it must be said, that the
\nwhole nature cannot be transformed and there must remain an unreconciled duality until the mortal type of existence drops off like
\na discarded shell from the spirit. But in that case the gospel of works
\ncannot well be the right or at least cannot be the ultimate gospel: a
\nperfect quiescence or at least as perfect a quiescence as possible, a
\nprogressive Sannyasa and renunciation of works would seem still to
\nbe the true counsel of perfection,\u2014as indeed the Mayavadin contends, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-411 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nwho says that the Gita’s way is no doubt the right way so long as
\nwe remain in action, but still all works are an illusion and quiescence
\nthe highest path. To act in this spirit is well, but only as a transition
\nto a renunciation of all works, to cessation, to an absolute quiescence. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis is the difficulty which the Gita has still to meet in order to
\njustify works to the seeker after the Spirit. Otherwise it must say to
\nArjuna, "Act temporarily in this fashion, but afterwards seek the
\nhigher way of renunciation of works." But, on the contrary, it has
\nsaid that not the cessation of works, but renunciation of desire is the
\nbetter way; it has spoken of the action of the liberated man, muktasya
\nkarma.<\/i> It has even insisted on doing all actions, sarvāni karmāni,
\nkrtsnakrt;<\/i> it has said that in whatever way the perfected Yogin lives
\nand acts, he lives and acts in God. This can only be, if the nature,
\nalso in its dynamics and workings becomes divine, a power imperturbable, intangible, inviolate, pure and untroubled by the reactions
\nof the inferior Prakriti. How and by what steps is this most difficult
\ntransformation to be effected? What is this last secret of the soul’s
\nperfection? what the principle or the process of this transmutation of our human and earthly nature? <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-412<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XVI   THE FULLNESS OF SPIRITUAL ACTION   THE DEVELOPMENT of the idea of the Gita has reached a point at which one question alone…<\/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-3651","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\/3651","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=3651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}