{"id":3653,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:14","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3653"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:14","slug":"41-deva-and-asura-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\/41-deva-and-asura-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-41_Deva and Asura.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nDEVA AND ASURA* <\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font>HE PRACTICAL<\/font> difficulty of the change from the ignorant and
\nshackled normal nature of man to the dynamic freedom of a divine
\nand spiritual being will be apparent if we ask ourselves, more narrowly, how the transition can be effected from the fettered embarrassed functioning of the three qualities to the infinite action of
\nthe liberated man who is no longer subject to the gunas. The transition is indispensable; for it is clearly laid down that he must be above
\nor else without the three gunas, trigunātīta, nistraigunya.<\/i> On the
\nother hand it is no less clearly, no less emphatically laid down that in
\nevery natural existence here on earth the three gunas are there in
\ntheir inextricable working and it is even said that all action of man
\nor creature or force is merely the action of these three modes upon
\neach other, a functioning in which one or other predominates and
\nthe rest modify its operation and results, gunā gunesu vartante.<\/i> How
\nthen can there be another dynamic and kinetic nature or any other
\nkind of works? To act is to be subject to the three qualities of Nature; to be beyond these conditions of her working is to be silent in the
\nspirit. The Ishwara, the Supreme who is master of all her works and
\nfunctions and guides and determines them by his divine will, is
\nindeed above this mechanism of quality, not touched or limited by
\nher modes; but still it would seem that he acts always through them,
\nalways shapes by the power of the swabhava and through the psychological
\nmachinery of the gunas. These three are fundamental properties of Prakriti, necessary operations of the executive Nature force
\nwhich takes shape here in us and the Jiva himself is only a portion
\nof the Divine in this Prakriti. If then the liberated man still does
\nworks, still moves in the kinetic movement, it must be so that he moves
\nand acts, in Nature and by the limitation of her qualities, subject
\nto their reactions, not, in so far as the natural part of him persists, in
\nthe freedom of the Divine. But the Gita has said exactly the opposite, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* Gita, XVI. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nPage-413<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthat the liberated Yogin is delivered from the guna reactions and
\nwhatever he does, however he lives, moves and acts in God, in the
\npower of his freedom and immortality, in the law of the supreme
\neternal Infinite, sarvathā vartamāno’pi sa yogī mayi vartate.<\/i> There
\nseems here to be a contradiction, an impasse. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut this is only when we knot ourselves up in the rigid logical
\noppositions of the analytic mind, not when we look freely and
\nsubtly at the nature of spirit and at the spirit in Nature. What moves
\nthe world is not really the modes of Prakriti,\u2014these are only the
\nlower aspect, the mechanism of our normal nature. The real motive
\npower is a divine spiritual Will which uses at present these inferior
\nconditions, but is itself not limited, not dominated, not mechanised,
\nas is the human will, by the gunas. No doubt, since these modes
\nare so universal in their action, they must proceed from something
\ninherent in the power of the Spirit; there must be powers in the
\ndivine Will-force from which these aspects of Prakriti have their
\norigin. For everything in the lower normal nature is derived from the
\nhigher spiritual power of being of the Purushottama, mattah -pravartate;<\/i> it does not come into being de<\/i> now and without a spiritual
\ncause. Something in the essential power of the spirit there must be
\nfrom which the sattwic light and satisfaction, the rajasic kinesis, the
\ntamasic inertia of our nature are derivations and of which they are
\nthe imperfect or degraded forms. But once we get back to these
\nsources in their purity above this imperfection and degradation of
\nthem in which we live we shall find that these motions put on a
\nquite different aspect as soon as we begin to live in the spirit. Being
\nand action and the modes of being and action become altogether
\ndifferent things, far above their present limited appearance. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nFor what is behind this troubled kinesis of the cosmos with all
\nits clash and struggle? What is it that when it touches the mind, when
\nit puts on mental values, creates the reactions of desire, striving,
\nstraining, error of will, sorrow, sin, pain? It is a will of the spirit in
\nmovement, it is a large divine will in action which is not touched by
\nthese things; it is a power1 of the free and infinite conscious Godhead
\nwhich has no desire because it exercises universal possession and a
\nspontaneous Ananda of its movement. Wearied by no striving and
\nstraining, it enjoys a free mastery of its means and its objects; misled
\nby no error of the will, it holds a knowledge of self and things which <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1<\/sup> tapas, cit-śakti.<\/i> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-414<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nis the source of its mastery and its Ananda: overcome by no sorrow,
\nsin or pain, it has the joy and purity of its being and the joy and
\npurity of its power. The soul that lives in God acts by this spiritual
\nwill and not by the normal will of the unliberated mind: its kinesis
\ntakes place by this spiritual force and not by the rajasic mode of
\nNature, precisely because it no longer lives in the lower movement to
\nwhich that deformation belongs, but has got back in the divine nature
\nto the pure and perfect sense of the kinesis. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAnd again what is behind the inertia of Nature, behind this Tamas
\nwhich, when complete, makes her action like the blind driving of
\na machine, a mechanical impetus unobservant of anything except the
\ngroove in which it is set to spin and not conscious even of the law
\nof that motion,\u2014this Tamas that turns cessation of the accustomed
\naction into death and disintegration and becomes in the mind a
\npower for inaction and ignorance? This Tamas is an obscurity which
\nmistranslates, we may say, into inaction of power and inaction of knowledge the Spirit’s eternal principle of calm and repose\u2014the
\nrepose which the Divine never loses even while he acts, the eternal
\nrepose which supports his integral action of knowledge and the force
\nof his creative will both there in its own infinities and here in an
\napparent limitation of its working and self-awareness. The peace of
\nthe Godhead is not a disintegration of energy or a vacant inertia; it would keep all that Infinity has known and done gathered up and
\nconcentratedly conscious in an omnipotent silence even if the Power
\neverywhere ceased for a time actively to know and create. The Eternal does not need to sleep or rest; he does not get tired and flag; he has
\nno need of a pause to refresh and recreate his exhausted energies; <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nfor his energy is inexhaustibly the same, indefatigable and infinite.
\nThe Godhead is calm and at rest in the midst of his action; and on the
\nother hand his very cessation of action would retain in it the full
\npower and all the potentialities of his kinesis. The liberated soul
\nenters into this calm and participates in the eternal repose of the
\nspirit. This is known to every one who has had any taste at all of the
\njoy of liberation, that it contains an eternal power of calm. And that
\nprofound tranquillity can remain in the very heart of action, can
\npersevere in the most violent motion of forces. There may be an
\nimpetuous flood of thought, doing, will, movement, an overflowing
\nrush of love, the emotion of the self-existent spiritual ecstasy at its
\nstrongest intensity, and that may extend itself to a fiery and forceful <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-415<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nspiritual enjoyment of things and beings in the world and in the ways
\nof Nature, and yet this tranquillity and repose would he behind the
\nsurge and in it, always conscious of its depths, always the same. The
\ncalm of the liberated man is not an indolence, incapacity, insensibility, inertia; it is full of immortal power, capable of all action,
\nattuned to deepest delight, open to profoundest love and compassion
\nand to every manner of intensest Ananda. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAnd so too beyond the inferior light and happiness of that purest
\nquality of Nature, Sattwa, the power that makes for assimilation
\nand equivalence, right knowledge and right dealing, fine harmony,
\nfirm balance, right law of action, right possession and brings so full a
\nsatisfaction to the mind, beyond this highest thing in the normal
\nnature, admirable in itself so far as it goes and while it can be maintained, but precarious, secured by limitation, dependent on rule
\nand condition, there is at its high and distant source a greater light
\nand bliss free in the free spirit. That is not limited nor dependent on
\nlimitation or rule or condition but self-existent and unalterable, not
\nthe result of this or that harmony amid the discords of our nature
\nbut the fount of harmony and able to create whatever harmony it
\nwill. That is a luminous spiritual and in its native action a direct
\nsupramental force of knowledge, jyotih,<\/i> not our modified and derivative mental light,
\nprakāśa.<\/i> That is the light and bliss of widest self-existence, spontaneous self-knowledge, intimate universal identity,
\ndeepest self-interchange, not of acquisition, assimilation, adjustment
\nand laboured equivalence. That light is full of a luminous spiritual
\nwill and there is no gulf or disparateness between its knowledge and
\nits action. That delight is not our paler mental happiness, sukham,
\n<\/i>but a profound concentrated intense self-existent bliss extended to all
\nthat our being does, envisages, creates, a fixed divine rapture, Ananda.
\nThe liberated soul participates more and more profoundly in this light
\nand bliss and grows the more perfectly into it, the more integrally it
\nunites itself with the Divine. And while among the gunas of the lower
\nNature there is a necessary disequilibrium, a shifting inconstancy of
\nmeasures and a perpetual struggle for domination, the greater light
\nand bliss, calm, will of kinesis of the Spirit do not exclude each
\nother, are not at war, are not even merely in equilibrium, but each
\nan aspect of the two others and in their fullness all are inseparable
\nand one. Our mind when it approaches the Divine may seem to enter
\ninto one to the exclusion of another, may appear for instance to <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-416<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nachieve calm to the exclusion of kinesis of action, but that is because
\nwe approach him first through the selecting spirit in the mind. Afterwards when we are able to rise above even the spiritual mind, we can
\nsee that each divine power contains all the rest and can get rid of
\nthis initial error.2 <\/sup><\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nWe see, then, that action is possible without the subjection of the
\nsoul to the normal degraded functioning of the modes of Nature.
\nThat functioning depends on the mental, vital and physical limitation into which we are cast; it is a deformation, an incapacity, a
\nwrong or depressed value imposed on us by the mind and life in
\nmatter. When we grow into the spirit, this dharma or inferior law of
\nNature is replaced by the immortal dharma of the spirit; there is the
\nexperience of a free immortal action, a divine illimitable knowledge,
\na transcendent power, an unfathomable repose. But still there remains the question of the transition; for there must be a transition,
\na proceeding by steps, since nothing in God’s workings in this world
\nis done by an abrupt action without procedure or basis. We have
\nthe thing we seek in us, but we have in practice to evolve it out of
\nthe inferior forms of our nature.3 Therefore in the action of the
\nmodes itself there must be some means, some leverage, some point
\nd’ appui,<\/i> by which we can effect this transformation. The Gita finds it
\nin the full development of the sattwic guna till that in its potent
\nexpansion reaches a point at which it can go beyond itself and disappear into its source. The reason is evident, because sattwa is a
\npower of light and happiness, a force that makes for calm and knowledge, and at its highest point it can arrive at a certain reflection,
\nalmost a mental identity with the spiritual light and bliss from which
\nit derives. The other two gunas cannot get this transformation, rajas <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n2<\/sup> The account given here of the supreme spiritual and supramental forms
\nof highest Nature action corresponding to the gunas is not derived from the
\nGita, hut introduced from spiritual experience. The Gita does not describe in any detail the action of the highest Nature,
\nrahasyam uttamam; <\/i> it leaves that
\nfor the seeker to discover by his own spiritual experience. It only points out
\nthe nature of the high sattwic temperament and action through which this
\nsupreme mystery has to he reached and insists at the same time on the overpassing of Sattwa and transcendence of the three gunas.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n3<\/sup> This is from the point of the view of our nature ascending upwards by
\nself-conquest, effort and discipline. There must also intervene more and more
\na descent of the divine Light, Presence and Power into the being to transform
\nit; otherwise the change at the point of culmination and beyond it cannot take
\nplace. That is why there comes in as the last movement the necessity of an
\nabsolute self-surrender. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-417<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ninto the divine kinetic will or tamas into the divine repose and calm,
\nwithout the intervention of the sattwic power in Nature. The principle of inertia will always remain an inert inaction of power or an
\nincapacity of knowledge until its ignorance disappears in illumination
\nand its torpid incapacity is lost in the light and force of the omnipotent divine will of repose. Then only can we have the supreme calm.
\nTherefore tamas must be dominated by sattwa. The principle of rajas
\nfor the same reason must remain always a restless, troubled, feverish
\nor unhappy working because it has not right knowledge; its native
\nmovement is a wrong and perverse action, perverse through ignorance.
\nOur will must purify itself by knowledge; it must get more and more
\nto a right and luminously informed action before it can be converted
\ninto the divine kinetic will. That again means the necessity of the
\nintervention of sattwa. The sattwic quality is a first mediator between
\nthe higher and the lower nature. It must indeed at a certain point
\ntransform or escape from itself and break up and dissolve into its
\nsource; its conditioned derivative seeking light and carefully constructed action must change into the free direct dynamics and spontaneous light of the spirit. But meanwhile a high increase of sattwic
\npower delivers us largely from the tamasic and the rajasic disqualification; and its own disqualification, once we are not pulled too much
\ndownward by rajas and tamas, can be surmounted with a greater ease.
\nTo develop sattwa till it becomes full of spiritual light and calm and
\nhappiness is the first condition of this preparatory discipline of the nature. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThat, we shall find, is the whole intention of the remaining chapters
\nof the Gita. But first it prefaces the consideration of this enlightening
\nmovement by a distinction between two kinds of being, the Deva
\nand the Asura; for the Deva is capable of a high self-transforming
\nsattwic action, the Asura incapable. We must see what is the object
\nof this preface and the precise bearing of this distinction. The general
\nnature of all human beings is the same, it is a mixture of the three
\ngunas; it would seem then that in all there must be the capacity to
\ndevelop and strengthen the sattwic element and turn it upward
\ntowards the heights of the divine transformation. That our ordinary
\nturn is actually towards making our reason and will be servants of our
\nrajasic or tamasic egoism, the ministers of our restless and ill-balanced
\nkinetic desire or our self-indulgent indolence and static inertia, can
\nonly be, one would imagine, a temporary characteristic of our un<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-418<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\ndeveloped spiritual being, a rawness of its imperfect evolution and
\nmust disappear when our consciousness rises in the spiritual scale.
\nBut we actually see that men, at least men above a certain level, fall
\nvery largely into two classes, those who have a dominant force of
\nsattwic nature turned towards knowledge, self-control, beneficence,
\nperfection and those who have a dominant force of rajasic nature
\nturned towards egoistic greatness, satisfaction of desire, the indulgence of their own strong will and personality which they seek
\nto impose on the world, not for the service of man or God, but for
\ntheir own pride, glory and pleasure. These are the human representatives of the Devas and Danavas or Asuras, the Gods and the Titans.
\nThis distinction is a very ancient one in Indian religious symbolism.
\nThe fundamental idea of the Rig Veda is a struggle between the Gods
\nand their dark opponents, between the Masters of Light, sons of
\nInfinity, and the children of Division and Night, a battle in which
\nman takes part and which is reflected in all his inner life and action.
\nThis was also a fundamental principle of the religion of Zoroaster.
\nThe same idea is prominent in later literature. The Ramayana is in
\nits ethical intention the parable of an enormous conflict between
\nthe Deva in human form and the incarnate Rakshasa, between the
\nrepresentative of a high culture and Dharma and a huge unbridled
\nforce and gigantic civilisation of the exaggerated Ego. The Mahabharata, of which the Gita is a section, takes for its subject a life-long
\ndash between human Devas and Asuras, the men of power, sons of
\nthe Gods, who are governed by the light of a high ethical Dharma
\nand others who are embodied Titans, the men of power who are out
\ntor the service of their intellectual, vital and physical ego. The ancient
\nmind, more open than ours to the truth of things behind the physical
\nveil, saw behind the life of man great cosmic Powers or beings representative of certain turns or grades of the universal Shakti, divine,.
\ntitanic, gigantic, demoniac, and men who strongly represented in
\nthemselves these types of nature were themselves considered as Devas,
\nAsuras, Rakshasas, Pisachas. The Gita for its own purposes takes up
\nthis distinction and develops the difference between these two kinds
\nof beings, dvau bhūta-sargau.<\/i> It has spoken previously of the nature
\nwhich is Asuric and Rakshasic and obstructs God-knowledge, salvation and perfection: it now contrasts it with the Daivic nature which
\nis turned to these things. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nArjuna, says the Teacher, is of the Deva nature. He needs not <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-419<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ngrieve with the thought that by acceptance of battle and slaughter
\nhe will be yielding to the impulses of the Asura. The action on which
\nall turns, the battle which Arjuna has to fight with the incarnate
\nGodhead as his charioteer at the bidding of the Master of the world
\nin the form of the Time-Spirit, is a struggle to establish the kingdom
\nof the Dharma, the empire of Truth, Right and Justice. He himself
\nis born in the Deva kind; he has developed in himself the sattwic
\nbeing, until he has now come to a point at which he is capable of a
\nhigh transformation and liberation from the traigunya<\/i> and therefore
\neven from the sattwic nature. The distinction between the Deva and
\nthe Asura is not comprehensive of all humanity, not rigidly applicable
\nto all its individuals, neither is it sharp and definite in all stages
\nof the moral or spiritual history of the race or in all phases of the
\nindividual evolution. The tamasic man who makes so large a part
\nof the whole, falls into neither category as it is here described,
\nthough he may have both elements in him in a low degree and for
\nthe most part serves tepidly the lower qualities. The normal man is
\nordinarily a mixture; but one or the other tendency is more pronounced, tends to make him predominantly rajaso-tamasic or sattworajasic and can be said to be preparing him for either culmination,
\nfor the divine clarity or the titanic turbulence. For here what is in
\nquestion is a certain culmination in the evolution of the qualitative
\nnature, as will be evident from the descriptions given in the text. On
\none side there can be a sublimation of the sattwic quality, the culmination or manifestation of the unborn Deva, on the other a sublimation of the rajasic turn of the soul in nature, the entire birth of the
\nAsura. The one leads towards that movement of liberation on which
\nthe Gita is about to lay stress; it makes possible a high self-exceeding
\nof the sattwa quality and a transformation into the likeness of the
\ndivine being, vimoksāya.<\/i> The other leads away from that universal
\npotentiality and precipitates towards an exaggeration of our bondage
\nto the ego. This is the point of the distinction. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe Deva nature is distinguished by an acme of the sattwic habits
\nand qualities; self-control, sacrifice, the religious habit, cleanness and
\npurity, candour and straightforwardness, truth, calm and self-denial,
\ncompassion to all beings, modesty, gentleness, forgivingness, patience,
\nsteadfastness, a deep sweet and serious freedom from all restlessness,
\nlevity and inconstancy are its native attributes. The Asuric qualities,
\nwrath, greed, cunning, treachery, wilful doing of injury to others, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-420<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\npride and arrogance and excessive self-esteem have no place in its
\ncomposition. But its gentleness and self-denial and self-control are
\nfree too from all weakness: it has energy and soul-force, strong resolution, the fearlessness of the soul that lives in the right and according to the truth as well as its harmlessness, tejah, abhayam, dhrtih,
\nahimsā, satyam.<\/i> The whole being, the whole temperament is integrally pure; there is a seeking for knowledge and a calm and fixed
\nabiding in knowledge. This is the wealth, the plenitude of the man
\nborn into the Deva nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe Asuric nature has too its wealth, its plenitude of force, but it is
\nof a very different, a powerful and evil kind. Asuric men have no
\ntrue knowledge of the way of action or the way of abstention, the
\nfulfilling or the holding in of the nature. Truth is not in them, nor
\nclean doing, nor faithful observance. They see naturally in the world
\nnothing but a huge play of the satisfaction of self; theirs is a world
\nwith Desire for its cause and seed and governing force and law, a
\nworld of Chance, a world devoid of just relation and linked Karma,
\na world without God, not true, not founded in Truth. Whatever
\nbetter intellectual or higher religious dogma they may possess, this
\nalone is the true creed of their mind and will in action; they follow
\nalways the cult of Desire and Ego. On that way of seeing life they
\nlean in reality and by its falsehood they ruin their souls and their
\nreason. The Asuric man becomes the centre or instrument of a fierce,
\nTitanic, violent action, a power of destruction in the world, a fount
\nof injury and evil. Arrogant, full of self-esteem and the drunkenness
\nof their pride, these misguided souls delude themselves, persist in
\nfalse and obstinate aims and pursue the fixed impure resolution of
\ntheir longings. They imagine that desire and enjoyment are all the
\naim of life and in their inordinate and insatiable pursuit of it they
\nare the prey of a devouring, a measurelessly unceasing care and
\nthought and endeavour and anxiety till the moment of their death.
\nBound by a hundred bonds, devoured by wrath and lust, unweariedly
\noccupied in amassing unjust gains which may serve their enjoyment
\nand the satisfaction of their craving, always they think, "Today I have
\ngained this object of desire, tomorrow I shall have that other; today I
\nhave so much wealth, more I will get tomorrow. I have killed this
\nmy enemy, the rest too I will kill. I am a lord and king of men, I am
\nperfect, accomplished, strong, happy, fortunate, a privileged enjoyer
\nof the world; I am wealthy, I am of high birth; who is there like <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-421<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nunto me? I will sacrifice, I will give, I will enjoy." Thus occupied
\nby many egoistic ideas, deluded, doing works, but doing them
\nwrongly, acting mightily, but for themselves, for desire, for enjoyment, not for God in themselves and God in man, they fall into the _
\nunclean hell of their own evil. They sacrifice and give, but from a
\nself-regarding ostentation, from vanity and with a stiff and foolish
\npride. In the egoism of their strength and power, in the violence o\u00a3
\ntheir wrath and arrogance they hate, despise and belittle the God
\nhidden in themselves and the God in man. And because they have
\nthis proud hatred and contempt of good and of God, because they
\nare cruel and evil, the Divine casts them down continually into more
\nand more Asuric births. Not seeking him, they find him not, and at
\nlast, losing the way to him altogether, sink down into the lowest
\nstatus of soul-nature, adhamām gatim.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis graphic description, even giving its entire value to the distinction it implies, must not be pressed to carry more in it than it means.
\nWhen it is said that there are two creations of beings in this material
\nworld, Deva and Asura,4 it is not meant that human souls are so
\ncreated by God from the beginning each with its own inevitable
\ncareer in nature, nor is it meant that there is a rigid spiritual predestination and those rejected from the beginning by the Divine are
\nblinded by him so that they may be thrust down to eternal perdition
\nand the impurity of Hell. All souls are eternal portions of the Divine,
\nthe Asura as well as the Deva, all can come to salvation: even the
\ngreatest sinner can turn to the Divine. But the evolution of the soul
\nin Nature is an adventure of which Swabhava and the Karma governed by the swabhava are ever the chief powers; and if an excess in
\nthe manifestation of the swabhava, the self-becoming of the soul, a
\ndisorder in its play turns the law of being to the perverse side, if the
\nrajasic qualities are given the upper hand, cultured to the diminution
\nof sattwa, then the trend of Karma and its results necessarily culminate not in the sattwic height which is capable of the movement
\nof liberation, but in the highest exaggeration of the perversities of<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n4<\/sup> The distinction between the two creations has its full truth in supraphysical
\nplanes where the law of spiritual evolution does not govern the movement.
\nThere are worlds of the Devas, worlds of the Asuras, and there are in these
\nworlds behind us constant types of beings which support the complete divine
\nplay of creation indispensable to the march of the universe and cast their influence also on the earth and on the life and nature of man in this physical
\nplane of existence. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-422<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\ndie lower nature. The man, if he does not stop short and abandon
\nhis way of error, has eventually the Asura full-born in him, and once
\nhe has taken that enormous turn away from the Light and Truth, he
\ncan no more reverse the fatal speed of his course because of the very
\nimmensity of the misused divine power in him until he has plumbed
\nthe depths to which it falls, found bottom and seen where the way has
\nled him, the power exhausted and misspent, himself down in the
\nlowest state of the soul nature, which is Hell. Only when he understands and turns to the Light, does that other truth of the Gita
\ncome in, that even the greatest sinner, the most impure and violent
\nevil-doer is saved the moment he turns to adore and follow after the
\nGodhead within him. Then, simply by that turn, he gets very soon
\ninto the sattwic way which leads to perfection and freedom. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe Asuric Prakriti is the rajasic at its height; it leads to the slavery
\nof the soul in Nature, to desire, wrath and greed, the three powers
\nof the rajasic ego, and these are the threefold doors of Hell, the Hell
\ninto which the natural being falls when it indulges the impurity and
\nevil and error of its lower or perverted instincts. These three are again
\nthe doors of a great darkness, they fold back into tamas, the characteristic power of the original Ignorance; for the unbridled force of the
\nrajasic nature, when exhausted, falls back into the weakness, collapse,
\ndarkness, incapacity of the worst tamasic soul-status. To escape from
\nthis downfall one must get rid of these three evil forces and turn to
\nthe light of the sattwic quality, live by the right, in the true relations,
\naccording to the Truth and the Law; then one follows one’s own
\nhigher good and arrives at the highest soul-status. To follow the law
\nof desire is not the true rule of our nature; there is a higher and juster
\nstandard of its works. But where is it embodied or how is it to be
\nfound? In the first place, the human race has always been seeking
\nfor this just and high Law and whatever it has discovered is embodied
\nin its Shastra, its rule of science and knowledge, rule of ethics, rule
\nof religion, rule of best social living, rule of one’s right relations with
\nman and God and Nature. Shastra does not mean a mass of customs,
\nsome good, some bad, unintelligently followed by the customary
\nroutine mind of the tamasic man. Shastra is the knowledge and
\nteaching laid down by intuition, experience and wisdom, the science
\nand art and ethic of life, the best standards available to the race.
\nThe half-awakened man who leaves the observance of its rule to
\nfollow the guidance of his instincts and desires, can get pleasure <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-423<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nbut not happiness, for the inner happiness can only come by right
\nliving. He cannot move to perfection, cannot acquire the highest
\nspiritual status. The law of instinct and desire seems to come first in
\nthe animal world, hut the manhood of man grows by the pursuit of
\ntruth and religion and knowledge and a right life. The Shastra, the
\nrecognised Right that he has set up to govern his lower members by
\nhis reason and intelligent will, must therefore first be observed and
\nmade the authority for conduct _and works and for what should or
\nshould not be done, till the instinctive desire nature is schooled
\nand abated and put down by the habit of self-control and man is
\nready first for a freer intelligent self-guidance and then for the highest
\nsupreme law and supreme liberty of the spiritual nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nFor the Shastra in its ordinary aspect is not that spiritual law,
\nalthough at its loftiest point, when it becomes a science and art of
\nspiritual living, Adhyatma-shastra.\u2014the Gita itself describes its own
\nteaching as the highest and most secret Shastra,\u2014it formulates a rule
\nof the self-transcendence of the sattwic nature and develops the
\ndiscipline which leads to spiritual transmutation. Yet all Shastra is
\nbuilt on a number of preparatory conditions, dharmas; it is a means,
\nnot an end. The supreme end is the freedom of the spirit when
\nabandoning all dharmas the soul turns to God for its sole law of
\naction, acts straight from the divine will and lives in the freedom
\nof the divine nature, not in the Law, but in the Spirit. This is the
\ndevelopment of the teaching which is prepared by the next question
\nof Arjuna. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-424<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XVII   DEVA AND ASURA*   THE PRACTICAL difficulty of the change from the ignorant and shackled normal nature of man to the dynamic freedom…<\/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-3653","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\/3653","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=3653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}