{"id":3652,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:13","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3652"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:13","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:13","slug":"18-the-divine-worker-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\/18-the-divine-worker-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-18_The Divine Worker.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\">\n<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><b><font size=\"2\">XVIII<\/font><\/b><br \/>\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><b><br \/>\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">THE DIVINE WORKER <\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><font size=\"4\">T<\/font><font size=\"2\">O<\/font><br \/>\n<font size=\"2\">ATTAIN<\/font> to the divine birth,\u2014a divinising new birth o\u00a3 the soul<br \/>\ninto a higher consciousness,\u2014and to do divine works both as a means<br \/>\ntowards that before it is attained and as an expression of it after it is<br \/>\nattained, is then all the Karmayoga of the Gita. The Gita does not try<br \/>\nto define works by any outward signs through which it can be recognisable to an external gaze, measurable by the criticism of the world; it deliberately renounces even the ordinary ethical distinctions by<br \/>\nwhich men seek to guide themselves in the light of the human reason.<br \/>\nThe signs by which it distinguishes divine works are all profoundly<br \/>\nintimate and subjective; the stamp by which they are known is invisible, spiritual, supra-ethical. <\/font><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"text-indent: 25pt;line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">They are recognisable only by the light of the soul from which<br \/>\nthey come. For, it says &quot;what is action and what is inaction, as to this<br \/>\neven the sages are perplexed and deluded,&quot; because, judging by practical, social, ethical, intellectual standards, they discriminate by accidentals and do not go to the root of the matter; &quot;I will declare to thee<br \/>\nthat action by the knowledge of which thou shalt be released from<br \/>\nall ills. One has to understand about action as well as to understand<br \/>\nabout wrong action and about inaction one has to understand; thick<br \/>\nand tangled is the way of works.&quot; Action in the world is like a deep<br \/>\nforest, <i>gahana,<\/i> through which man goes stumbling as best he can,<br \/>\nby the light of the ideas of his time, the standards of his personality,<br \/>\nhis environment, or rather of many times, many personalities, layers<br \/>\nof thought and ethics from many social stages all inextricably confused together, temporal and conventional amidst all their claim to<br \/>\nabsoluteness and immutable truth, empirical and irrational in spite<br \/>\nof their aping of right reason. And finally the sage seeking in the<br \/>\nmidst of it all a highest foundation of fixed law and an original truth<br \/>\nfinds himself obliged to raise the last supreme question, whether all<br \/>\naction and life itself are not a delusion and a snare and whether cessation from action, <i>akarma,<\/i> is not the last resort of the tired and disillusioned<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"text-indent: 25pt;line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\">Page-158<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">human soul. But, says Krishna, in this matter even the sages<br \/>\nare perplexed and deluded. For by action, by works, not by inaction<br \/>\ncomes the knowledge and the release. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"text-indent: 25pt;line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">What then is the solution? what is that type of works by which<br \/>\nwe shall be released from the ills of life, from this doubt, this error,<br \/>\nthis grief, from this mixed, impure and baffling result even of our<br \/>\npurest and best-intentioned acts, from these million forms of evil and<br \/>\nsuffering? No outward distinctions need be made, is the reply; no<br \/>\nwork the world needs, be shunned; no limit or hedge set round out<br \/>\nhuman activities; on the contrary, all actions should be done, but<br \/>\nfrom a soul in Yoga with the Divine, <i>yuktah&#61477; kr&#61477;tsna-karma-kr&#61477;t.<br \/>\nAkarma,<\/i> cessation from action is not the way; the man who has attained to the insight of the highest reason, perceives that such inaction is itself a constant action, a state subject to the workings of Nature<br \/>\nand her qualities. The mind that takes refuge in physical inactivity,<br \/>\nis still under the delusion that it and not Nature is the doer of works; <\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"text-indent: 25pt;line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">it has mistaken inertia for liberation; it does not see that even in what<br \/>\nseems absolute inertia greater than that of the stone or clod, Nature<br \/>\nis at work, keeps unimpaired her hold. On the contrary, in the full<br \/>\nflood of action the soul is free from its works, is not the doer, not<br \/>\nbound by what is done, and he who lives in the freedom of the soul,<br \/>\nnot in the bondage of the modes of Nature, alone has release from<br \/>\nworks. This is what the Gita clearly means when it says that be who<br \/>\nin action can see inaction and can see action still continuing in<br \/>\ncessation from works, is the man of true reason and discernment<br \/>\namong men. This saying hinges upon the Sankhya distinction between Purusha and Prakriti, between the free inactive soul, eternally<br \/>\ncalm, pure and unmoved in the midst of works, and ever active<br \/>\nNature operative as much in inertia and cessation as in the overt<br \/>\nturmoil of her visible hurry of labour. This is the knowledge which<br \/>\nthe highest effort of the discriminating reason, the <i>buddhi,<\/i> gives to<br \/>\nus, and therefore whoever possesses it is the truly rational and discerning man, <i>sa<br \/>\nbuddhim&#257;n manus&#61477;yes&#61477;u,\u2014<\/i>not the perplexed thinker<br \/>\nwho judges life and works by the external, uncertain and impermanent distinctions of the lower reason. Therefore the liberated man<br \/>\nis not afraid of action, he is a large and universal doer of all works,<br \/>\n<i>kr&#61477;tsna-karma-kr&#61477;t;<\/i> not as others do them in subjection to Nature, but<br \/>\npoised in the silent calm of the soul, tranquilly in Yoga with the<br \/>\nDivine. The Divine is the lord of his works, he is only their channel <\/font><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\">Page-159<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">through the instrumentality of his nature conscious of and subject<br \/>\nto her Lord. By the flaming intensity and purity of this knowledge<br \/>\nall his works are burned up as in a fire and his mind remains without any stain or disfiguring mark from them, calm, silent, unperturbed, white and clean and pure. To do all in this liberating<br \/>\nknowledge, without the personal egoism of the doer, is the first sign of the divine worker. <\/font><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"text-indent: 25pt;line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The second sign is freedom from desire; for where there is not the<br \/>\npersonal egoism of the doer, desire becomes impossible; it is starved<br \/>\nout, sinks for want of a support, dies of inanition. Outwardly the<br \/>\nliberated man seems to undertake works of all kinds like other men,<br \/>\non a larger scale perhaps with a more powerful will and drivingforce, for the might of the divine will works in his active nature; but from all his inceptions and undertakings the inferior concept and<br \/>\nnether will of desire is entirely banished, <i>sarve sam&#257;rambh&#257;h k&#257;masamkalpavarjit&#257;h&#61477;.<\/i> He has abandoned all attachment to the fruits of<br \/>\nhis works, and where one does not work for the fruit, but solely as<br \/>\nan impersonal instrument of the Master of works, desire can find no<br \/>\nplace,\u2014not even the desire to serve successfully, for the fruit is the<br \/>\nLord&#8217;s and determined by him and not by the personal will and<br \/>\neffort, or to serve with credit and to the Master&#8217;s satisfaction, for the<br \/>\nreal doer is the Lord himself and all glory belongs to a form of his<br \/>\nShakti missioned in the nature and not to the limited human personality. The human mind and soul of the liberated man does<br \/>\nnothing, <i>no ki\u00f1cit karoti;<\/i> even though through his nature he engages<br \/>\nin action, it is the Nature, the executive Shakti, it is the conscious<br \/>\nGoddess governed by the divine Inhabitant who does the work. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"text-indent: 25pt;line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">It does not follow that the work is not to be done perfectly, with<br \/>\nsuccess, with a right adaptation of means to ends: on the contrary,<br \/>\na perfect working is easier to action done tranquilly in Yoga than to<br \/>\naction done in the blindness of hopes and tears, lamed by the judgments of the stumbling reason, running about amidst the eager trepidations of the hasty human will: Yoga, says the Gita elsewhere, is<br \/>\nthe true skill in works, <i>yogah&#61477; karmasu kau&#347;alam.<\/i> But all this is done<br \/>\nimpersonally by the action of a great universal light and power<br \/>\noperating through the individual nature. The Karmayogin knows<br \/>\nthat the power given to him will be adapted to the fruit decreed,<br \/>\nthe divine thought behind the work equated with the work he has<br \/>\nto do, the will in him\u2014which will not be wish or desire, but an impersonal <\/font><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\">Page-160<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">drive of conscious power directed towards an aim not his<br \/>\nown,\u2014subtly regulated in its energy and direction by the divine wisdom. The result may be success, as the ordinary mind understands<br \/>\nit, or it may seem to that mind to be defeat and failure; but to him<br \/>\nit is always the success intended, not by him, but by the all-wise<br \/>\nmanipulator of action and result, because he does not seek for victory,<br \/>\nbut only for the fulfilment of the divine will and wisdom which works<br \/>\nout its ends through apparent failure as well as and often with greater<br \/>\nforce than through apparent triumph. Arjuna, bidden to fight, is assured of victory; but even if certain defeat were before him, he must<br \/>\nstill fight because that is the present work assigned to him as his immediate share in the great sum of energies by which the divine will<br \/>\nis surely accomplished. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"text-indent: 25pt;line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The liberated man has no personal hopes; he does not seize on<br \/>\nthings as his personal possessions; he receives what the divine Will<br \/>\nbrings him, covets nothing, is jealous of none: what comes to him<br \/>\nhe takes without repulsion and without attachment; what goes from<br \/>\nhim he allows to depart into the whirl of things without repining<br \/>\nor grief or sense of loss. His heart and self are under perfect control; they are free from reaction and passion, they make no turbulent<br \/>\nresponse to the touches of outward things. His action is indeed a<br \/>\npurely physical action, <i>&#347;&#257;r&#299;ram kevalam karma;<\/i> for all else comes<br \/>\nfrom above, is not generated on the human plane, is only a reflection<br \/>\nof the will, knowledge, joy of the divine Purushottama. Therefore<br \/>\nhe does not by a stress on doing and its objects bring about in his<br \/>\nmind and heart any of those reactions which we call passion and<br \/>\nsin. For sin consists not at all in the outward deed, but in an impure<br \/>\nreaction of the personal will, mind and heart which accompanies it<br \/>\nor causes it; the impersonal, the spiritual is always pure, <i>ap&#257;paviddham,<\/i> and gives to all that it does its own inalienable purity. This<br \/>\nspiritual impersonality is a third sign of the divine worker. All human<br \/>\nsouls, indeed, who have attained to a certain greatness and largeness<br \/>\nare conscious of an impersonal Force or Love or Will and Knowledge working through them, but they are not free from egoistic reactions, sometimes violent enough, of their human personality. But<br \/>\nthis freedom the liberated soul has attained; for he has cast his personality into the impersonal, where it is no longer his, but is taken<br \/>\nup by the divine Person, the Purushottama, who uses all finite qualities infinitely and freely and is bound by none. He has become<br \/>\na <\/font><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\">Page-161<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">soul and ceased to be a sum of natural qualities; and such appearance<br \/>\nof personality as remains for the operations o\u00a3 Nature, is something<br \/>\nunbound, large, flexible, universal; it is a free mould for the Infinite, it is a living mask of the Purushottama. <\/font><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"text-indent: 25pt;line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">The result of this knowledge, this desirelessness and this impersonality is a perfect equality in the soul and the nature. Equality is<br \/>\nthe fourth sign of the divine worker. He has, says the Gita, passed<br \/>\nbeyond the dualities; he is <i>dvandv&#257;t&#299;ta.<\/i> We have seen that he regards with equal eyes, without any disturbance of feeling, failure<br \/>\nand success, victory and defeat; but not only these, all dualities are<br \/>\nin him surpassed and reconciled. The outward distinctions by which<br \/>\nmen determine their psychological attitude towards the happenings<br \/>\nof the world have for him only a subordinate and instrumental<br \/>\nmeaning. He does not ignore them, but he is above them. Good<br \/>\nhappening and evil happening, so all-important to the human soul<br \/>\nsubject to desire, are to the desireless divine soul equally welcome<br \/>\nsince by their mingled strand are worked out the developing forms<br \/>\nof the eternal good. He cannot be defeated, since all for him is moving<br \/>\ntowards the divine victory in the Kurukshetra of Nature, <i>dharmaks&#61477;etre kuruks&#61477;etre,<\/i> the field of doing which is the field of the evolving<br \/>\nDharma, and every turn of the conflict has been designed and mapped<br \/>\nby the foreseeing eye of the Master of the battle, the Lord of works and<br \/>\nGuide of the dharma. Honour and dishonour from men cannot move<br \/>\nhim, nor their praise nor their blame: for he has a greater clearseeing judge and another standard for his action, and his motive<br \/>\nadmits no dependence upon worldly reward. Arjuna the Kshatriya<br \/>\nprizes naturally honour and reputation and is right in shunning disgrace and the name of coward as worse than death;<br \/>\nfor to maintain<br \/>\nthe point of honour and the standard of courage in the world is part<br \/>\nof his dharma: but Arjuna the liberated soul need care for none o\u00a3<br \/>\nthese things, he has only to know the <i>kartavyam karma,<\/i> the work<br \/>\nwhich the supreme Self demands from him, and to do that and leave<br \/>\nthe result to the Lord of his actions. He has passed even beyond that<br \/>\ndistinction of sin and virtue which is so all-important to the human<br \/>\nsoul while it is struggling to minimise the hold of its egoism and<br \/>\nlighten the heavy and violent yoke of its passions,\u2014the liberated has<br \/>\nrisen above these struggles and is seated firmly in the purity of the<br \/>\nwitnessing and enlightened soul. Sin has fallen away from him, and<br \/>\nnot a virtue acquired and increased by good action and impaired or <\/font><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\">Page-162<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">lost<b> <\/b> by evil action, but the inalienable and unalterable purity of a<br \/>\ndivine and selfless nature is the peak to which he has climbed and<br \/>\nthe seat upon which he is founded. There the sense of sin and the<br \/>\nsense of virtue have no starting-point or applicability. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"text-indent: 25pt;line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Arjuna, still in the ignorance, may feel in his heart the call of<br \/>\nright and justice and may argue in his mind that abstention from<br \/>\nbattle would be a sin entailing responsibility for all the suffering that<br \/>\ninjustice and oppression and the evil karma of the triumph of wrong<br \/>\nbring upon men and nations, or he may feel in his heart the recoil<br \/>\nfrom violence and slaughter and argue in his mind that all shedding<br \/>\nof blood is a sin which nothing can justify. Both of these attitudes<br \/>\nwould appeal with equal right to virtue and reason and it would depend upon the man, the circumstances and the time which of these<br \/>\nmight prevail in his mind or before the eyes of the world. Or he<br \/>\nmight simply feel constrained by his heart and his honour to support<br \/>\nhis friends against his enemies, the cause of the good and just against<br \/>\nthe cause of the evil and oppressive. The liberated soul looks beyond these conflicting standards; he sees simply what the supreme<br \/>\nSelf demands from him as needful for the maintenance or for the<br \/>\nbringing forward of the evolving Dharma. He has no personal ends<br \/>\nto serve, no personal loves and hatreds to satisfy, no rigidly fixed<br \/>\nstandard of action which opposes its rock-line to the flexible advancing<br \/>\nmarch of the progress of the human race or stands up defiant against<br \/>\nthe call of the Infinite. He has no personal enemies to be conquered<br \/>\nor slain, but sees only men who have been brought up against him<br \/>\nby circumstances and the will in things to help by their opposition the<br \/>\nmarch of destiny. Against them he can have no wrath or hatred; for<br \/>\nwrath and hatred are foreign to the divine nature. The Asura&#8217;s desire to break and slay what opposes him, the Rakshasa&#8217;s grim lust of<br \/>\nslaughter are impossible to his calm and peace and his all-embracing<br \/>\nsympathy and understanding. He has no wish to injure, but, on the<br \/>\ncontrary, a universal friendliness and compassion, <i>maitrah&#61477;. karun&#61477;a<br \/>\neva ca:<\/i> but this compassion is that of a divine soul overlooking men,<br \/>\nembracing all other souls in himself, not the shrinking of the heart<br \/>\nand the nerves and the flesh which is the ordinary human form of<br \/>\npity: nor does he attach a supreme importance to the life of the body,<br \/>\nbut looks beyond to the life of the soul and attaches to the other<br \/>\nonly an instrumental value. He will not hasten to slaughter and strife,<br \/>\nbut if war comes in the wave of the Dharma, he will accept it with <\/font><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\">Page-163<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">a large equality and a perfect understanding and sympathy for those<br \/>\nwhose power and pleasure of domination he has to break and whose<br \/>\njoy of triumphant life he has to destroy. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"text-indent: 25pt;line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">For in all he sees two things, the Divine inhabiting every being<br \/>\nequally, the varying manifestation unequal only in its temporary<br \/>\ncircumstances. In the animal and man, in the dog, the unclean outcast and the learned and virtuous Brahmin, in the saint and the<br \/>\nsinner, in the indifferent and the friendly and the hostile, in those<br \/>\nwho love him and benefit and those who hate him and afflict, he sees<br \/>\nhimself, he sees God and has at heart for all the same equal kindliness, the same divine affection. Circumstances may determine the<br \/>\noutward clasp or the outward conflict, but can never affect his equal<br \/>\neye, his open heart, his inner embrace of all. And in all his actions<br \/>\nthere will be the same principle of soul, a perfect equality, and the<br \/>\nsame principle of work, the will of the Divine in him active for the<br \/>\nneed of the race in its gradually developing advance towards the Godhead. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"text-indent: 25pt;line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">Again, the sign of the divine worker is that which is central to<br \/>\nthe divine consciousness itself, a perfect inner joy and peace which<br \/>\ndepends upon nothing in the world for its source or its continuance; it is innate, it is the very stuff of the soul&#8217;s consciousness, it is the<br \/>\nvery nature of divine being. The ordinary man depends upon outward things for his happiness; therefore he has desire; therefore he<br \/>\nhas anger and passion, pleasure and pain, joy and grief; therefore<br \/>\nhe measures all things in the balance of good fortune and evil fortune. None of these things can affect the divine soul; it is ever satisfied<br \/>\nwithout any kind of dependence, <i>nitya-tr&#61477;pto nir&#257;&#347;rayah&#61477;;<\/i> for its delight, its divine ease, its happiness, its glad light are eternal within,<br \/>\ningrained in itself, <i>&#257;tma-ratih&#61477;, antah&#61477;-sukho &#8216;ntar&#257;r&#257;mas tath&#257;ntarjyotir eva ca.<\/i> What joy it takes in outward things is not for their<br \/>\nsake, not for things which it seeks in them and can miss, but for the<br \/>\nself in them, for their expression of the Divine, for that which is<br \/>\neternal in them and which it cannot miss. It is without attachment<br \/>\nto their outward touches, but finds everywhere the same joy that it<br \/>\n. finds in itself, because its self is theirs, has become one self with the<br \/>\nself of all beings, because it is united with the one and equal Brahman<br \/>\nin them through all their differences, <i>brahmayoga-yukt&#257;tm&#257; sarvabh&#363;t&#257;tma-bh&#363;t&#257;tm&#257;.<\/i> It does not rejoice in the touches of the pleasant<br \/>\nor feel anguish in the touches of the unpleasant; neither the wounds <\/font><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\">Page-164<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">of things, nor the wounds of friends, nor the wounds of enemies can<br \/>\ndisturb the firmness of its outgazing mind or bewilder its receiving<br \/>\nheart; this soul is in its nature, as the Upanishad puts it, <i>avran&#61477;am,<br \/>\n<\/i>without wound or scar. In all things it has the same imperishable<br \/>\nAnanda, <i>sukham aks&#61477;ayam a&#347;nute.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"text-indent: 25pt;line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">That equality, impersonality, peace, joy, freedom do not depend<br \/>\non so outward a thing as doing or not doing works. The Gita insists<br \/>\nrepeatedly on the difference between the inward and the outward renunciation, <i>ty&#257;ga<\/i> and <i>sanny&#257;sa.<\/i> The latter, it says, is valueless without the former, hardly possible even to attain without it, and unnecessary when there is the inward freedom. In fact <i>ty&#257;ga<\/i> itself is<br \/>\nthe real and sufficient Sannyasa. &quot;He should be known as the eternal<br \/>\nSannyasin who neither hates or desires; free from the dualities he<br \/>\nis happily and easily released from all bondage.&quot; The painful process<br \/>\nof outward Sannyasa, <i>duh&#61477;kham &#257;ptum,<\/i> is an unnecessary process.<br \/>\nIt is perfectly true that all actions, as well as the fruit of action, have<br \/>\nto be given up, to be renounced, but inwardly, not outwardly, not<br \/>\ninto the inertia of Nature, but to the Lord in sacrifice, into the calm<br \/>\nand joy of the Impersonal from whom all action proceeds without<br \/>\ndisturbing his peace. The true Sannyasa of action is the reposing of<br \/>\nall works on the Brahman. &quot;He who, having abandoned attachment,<br \/>\nacts reposing (or founding) his works on the Brahman, <i>brahman&#61477;y&#257;dh&#257;ya karm&#257;n&#61477;i,<\/i> is not stained by sin even as water clings not to<br \/>\nthe lotus-leaf.&quot; Therefore the Yogins first &quot;do works with the body,<br \/>\nmind, understanding, or even merely with the organs of action, abandoning attachment, for self-purification, <i>sangam tyaktvatma&#347;uddhaye.<br \/>\n<\/i>By abandoning attachment to the fruits of works the soul in union<br \/>\nwith Brahman attains to peace of rapt foundation in Brahman, but<br \/>\nthe soul not in union is attached to the fruit and bound by the action<br \/>\nof desire.&quot; The foundation, the purity, the peace once attained, the<br \/>\nembodied soul perfectly controlling its nature, having renounced all<br \/>\nits actions by the mind, inwardly, not outwardly, &quot;sits in its ninegated city neither doing nor causing to be done.&quot; For this soul is the<br \/>\none impersonal Soul in all, the all-pervading Lord, <i>prabhu, vibhu,<br \/>\n<\/i>who, as the impersonal, neither creates the works of the world, nor<br \/>\nthe mind&#8217;s idea of being the doer, <i>na kartr&#61477;tvam na karm&#257;n&#61477;i,<\/i> nor the<br \/>\ncoupling of works to their fruits, the chain of cause and effect. All<br \/>\nthat is worked out by the Nature in the man, <i>svabh&#257;va,<\/i> his principle<br \/>\nof self-becoming, as the word literally means. The all-pervading Impersonal <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"text-indent: 25pt;line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\">Page-165<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">accepts neither the sin nor the virtue or any: these are<br \/>\nthings created by the ignorance in the creature, by his egoism of the<br \/>\ndoer, by his ignorance of his highest self, by his involution in the<br \/>\noperations of Nature, and when the self-knowledge within him is<br \/>\nreleased from this dark envelope, that knowledge lights up like a sun<br \/>\nthe real self within him; he knows himself then to be the soul supreme<br \/>\nabove the instruments of Nature. Pure, infinite, inviolable, immutable, he is no longer affected; no longer does he imagine himself to<br \/>\nbe modified by her workings. By complete identification with the<br \/>\nImpersonal he can, too, release himself from the necessity of returning by birth into her movement. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"text-indent: 25pt;line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">And yet this liberation does not at all prevent him from acting.<br \/>\nOnly, he knows that it is not he who is active, but the modes, the<br \/>\nqualities of Nature, her triple <i>gunas.<\/i> &quot;The man who knows the<br \/>\nprinciples of things thinks, his mind in Yoga (with the inactive<br \/>\nImpersonal), &#8216;I am doing nothing&#8217;; when he sees, hears, tastes, smells,<br \/>\neats, moves, sleeps, breathes, speaks, takes, ejects, opens his eyes or<br \/>\ncloses them, he holds that it is only the senses acting upon the objects<br \/>\nof the senses.&quot; He himself, safe in the immutable unmodified soul,<br \/>\nis beyond the grip of the three gunas, <i>trigun&#61477;&#257;t&#299;ta;<\/i> he is neither<br \/>\nsattwic, rajasic nor tamasic; he sees with a clear untroubled spirit the<br \/>\nalternations of the natural modes and qualities in his action, their<br \/>\nrhythmic play of light and happiness, activity and force, rest and<br \/>\ninertia. This superiority of the calm soul observing its action but not<br \/>\ninvolved in it, this <i>traigun&#61477;&#257;t&#299;tya,<\/i> is also a high sign of the divine<br \/>\nworker. By itself the idea might lead to a doctrine of the mechanical<br \/>\ndeterminism of Nature and the perfect aloofness and irresponsibility<br \/>\nof the soul; but the Gita effectively avoids this fault of an insufficient<br \/>\nthought by its illumining supertheistic idea of the Purushottama. It<br \/>\nmakes it clear that it is not in the end Nature which mechanically<br \/>\ndetermines its own action; it is the will of the Supreme which inspires her; he who has already slain the Dhritarashtrians, he of whom<br \/>\nArjuna is only the human instrument, a universal Soul, a transcendent<br \/>\nGodhead is the master of her labour. The reposing of works in the<br \/>\nImpersonal is a means of getting rid of the personal egoism of the<br \/>\ndoer, but the end is to give up all our actions to that great Lord of<br \/>\nall, <i>sarva-bh&#363;ta-mahe&#347;vara.<\/i> &quot;With a consciousness identified with the &#8216;Self, renouncing all thy actions into Me, <i>mayi sarv&#257;n&#61477;i karm&#257;n&#61477;i<br \/>\nSamnyasy&#257;-dhy&#257;tmacetas&#257;,<\/i> freed from personal hopes and desires, <\/font><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\">Page-166<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\">from the thought of &#8216;I&#8217; and &#8216;mine,&#8217; delivered from the fever of the<br \/>\nsoul, fight,&quot; work, do My will in the world. The Divine motives,<br \/>\ninspires, determines the entire action; the human soul impersonal in<br \/>\nthe Brahman is the pure and silent channel of his power; that power<br \/>\nin the Nature executes the divine movement. Such only are the works<br \/>\nof the liberated soul, <i>muktasya karma,<\/i> for in nothing does he act<br \/>\nfrom a personal inception; such are the actions of the accomplished<br \/>\nKarmayogin. They rise from a free spirit and disappear without<br \/>\nmodifying it, like waves that rise and disappear on the surface of<br \/>\nconscious immutable depths. <i>Gata-sangasya muktasya j\u00f1&#257;n&#257;vastitacetasah&#61477;, yaj\u00f1&#257;y&#257;caratah&#61477; karma samagram pravil&#299;yate.<\/i> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<span lang=\"en-gb\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"2\">Page-167<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>XVIII &nbsp; THE DIVINE WORKER &nbsp; TO ATTAIN to the divine birth,\u2014a divinising new birth o\u00a3 the soul into a higher consciousness,\u2014and to do divine&#8230;<\/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-3652","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\/3652","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=3652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}