{"id":3655,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:14","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3655"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:14","slug":"43-the-gunas-mind-and-works-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\/43-the-gunas-mind-and-works-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-43_The Gunas Mind and Works.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE GUNAS, MIND AND WORKS * <\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font>HE GITA
\n<\/font>has not yet completed its analysis of action in the light
\nof this fundamental idea of the three gunas and the transcendence of them by a
\nself-exceeding culmination of the highest sattwic discipline. Faith, śraddhā,<\/i> the will to believe and to be, know, live
\nand enact the Truth that we have seen is the principal factor, the
\nindispensable force behind a self-developing action, most of all behind the growth of the soul by works into its full spiritual stature.
\nBut there are also the mental powers, the instruments and the conditions which help to constitute the momentum, direction and character of the activity and are therefore of importance for a full
\nunderstanding of this psychological discipline. The Gita enters into
\na summary psychological analysis of these things before it proceeds
\nto its great finale, the culmination of all it teaches, the highest secret
\nwhich is that of a spiritual exceeding of all dharmas, a divine transcendence. And we have to follow it in its brief descriptions, summarily, expanding just enough to seize fully the main idea; for these
\nare secondary things, but yet each of great consequence in its own
\nplace and for its own purpose. It is their action cast in the type of
\nthe gunas that we have to bring out from the brief descriptions in
\nthe text; the nature of the culmination of any or each of them beyond the gunas will automatically follow from the character of the
\ngeneral transcendence. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThis part of the subject is introduced by a last question of Arjuna
\nregarding the principle of Sannyasa and the principle of Tyaga and
\ntheir difference. The frequent harping, the reiterated emphasis of
\nthe Gita on this crucial distinction has been amply justified by the
\nsubsequent history of the later Indian mind, its constant confusion
\nof these two very different things and its strong bent towards belittling any activity of the kind taught by the Gita as at best only a
\npreliminary to the supreme inaction of Sannyasa. As a matter of <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n*Gita, XVIII 1-39. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nPage-439<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nfact, when people talk of Tyaga, .of renunciation, it is always the
\nphysical renunciation of the world which they understand by the
\nword or at least on which they lay emphasis, while the Gita takes
\nabsolutely the opposite view that the real Tyaga has action and living
\nin the world as its basis and not a flight to the monastery, the cave or the hill-top. The real Tyaga is action with a renunciation of desire
\nand that too is the real Sannyasa. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe liberating activity of the sattwic self-discipline must no doubt be pervaded by a spirit of renunciation,\u2014that is an essential element: but what renunciation and in what manner of the spirit? Not the
\nrenunciation of work in the world, not any outward asceticism or
\nany ostentation of a visible giving up of enjoyment, but a renunciation, a leaving, tyāga,<\/i> of vital desire and ego, a total laying aside,
\nsannyāsa,<\/i> of the separate personal life of the desire-soul and egogoverned mind and rajasic vital nature. That is the true condition
\nfor entering into the heights of Yoga whether through the impersonal self and Brahmic oneness or through universal Vasudeva or
\ninwardly into the supreme Purushottama. More conventionally taken,
\nSannyasa in the standing terminology of the sages means the physical
\ndepositing or laying aside of desirable actions: Tyaga\u2014this is the
\nGita’s distinction\u2014is the name given by the wise to a mental and
\nSpiritual renunciation, an entire abandonment of all attached clinging
\nto the fruit of our works, to the action itself or to its personal initiation or rajasic impulse. In that sense Tyaga, not Sannyasa, is the
\nbetter way. It is not the desirable actions that must be laid aside, but
\nthe desire which gives them that character has to be put away from
\nus. The fruit of the action may come in the dispensation of the
\nMaster of works, but there is to be no egoistic demand for that as
\na reward and condition of doing works. Or the fruit may not at all
\ncome and still the work has to be performed as the thing to be done, kartavyam karma,<\/i> the thing which the Master within demands of us.
\nThe success, the failure are in his hands and he will regulate them
\naccording to his omniscient will and inscrutable purpose. Action, all
\naction has indeed to be given up in the end, not physically by abstention, by immobility, by inertia, but spiritually to the Master of
\nour being by whose power alone can any action be accomplished.
\nThere has to be a renunciation of the false idea of ourselves as the
\ndoer; for in reality it is the universal Shakti that works through our
\npersonality and our ego. The spiritual transference of all our works <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-440<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nto the Master and his Shakti is the real Sannyasa in the teaching of
\nthe Gita. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe question still arises what works are to be done? Those even
\nwho stand for a final physical renunciation are not at one in this
\ndifficult matter. Some would have it that all works must be excised
\nfrom our life, as if that were possible. But it is not possible so long
\nas we are in the body and alive; nor can salvation consist in reducing
\nour active selves by trance to the lifeless immobility of the clod and
\nthe pebble. The silence of Samadhi does not abrogate the difficulty,
\nfor as soon as the breath comes again into the body, we are once
\nmore in action and have toppled down from the heights of this salvation by spiritual slumber. But the true salvation, the release by an
\ninner renunciation of the ego and union with the Purushottama remains steady in whatever state, persists in this world or out of it or in
\nwhatever world or out of all world, is self-existent, sarvathā vartamāno’pi,<\/i> and does not depend upon inaction or action. What then
\nare the actions to be done? The thoroughgoing ascetic answer, not
\nnoted by the Gita\u2014it was perhaps not altogether current at the time-might be that solely begging, eating and meditation are to be permitted among voluntary activities and otherwise only the necessary
\nactions of the body. But the more liberal and comprehensive solution
\nwas evidently to continue the three most sattwic activities, sacrifice,
\ngiving and askesis. And these certainly are to be done, says the Gita,
\nfor they purify the wise. But more generally, and understanding these
\nthree things in their widest sense, it is the rightly regulated action,
\nniyatam karma,<\/i> that has to be done, action regulated by the Shastra,
\nthe science and art of right knowledge, right works, right living, or
\nregulated by the essential nature, svabhāva-niyatam karma,<\/i> or, finally
\nand best of all, regulated by the will of the Divine within and above
\nus. The last is the true and only action of the liberated man, muktasya
\nkarma.<\/i> To renounce these works is not a right movement\u2014the Gita
\nlays that down plainly and trenchantly in the end, niyatasya tu
\nsannyāsah karmano nopapadyate.<\/i> To renounce them for an ignorant confidence in the sufficiency of that withdrawal for the true liberation is a tamasic renunciation. The gunas follow us, we see, into
\nthe renunciation of works as well as into works. A renunciation with
\nattachment to inaction, sango akarmani,<\/i> would be equally a tamasic
\nwithdrawal. And to give them up because they bring sorrow or are
\na trouble to the flesh and a weariness to the mind or in the feeling <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-441<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthat all is vanity and vexation of spirit, is a rajasic renunciation and
\ndoes not bring the high spiritual fruit; that too is not the true Tyaga. It is a result of intellectual pessimism or vital weariness, it has its roots
\nin ego. No freedom can come from a renunciation governed by this
\nSelf-regarding principle. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe sattwic principle of renunciation is to withdraw not from
\naction, but from the personal demand, the ego factor behind it. It is
\nto do works not dictated by desire but by the law of right living or
\nby the essential nature, its knowledge, its ideal, its faith in itself and
\nthe Truth it sees, its śraddhā.<\/i> Or else, on a higher spiritual plane,
\nthey are dictated by the will of the Master and done with the mind
\nin Yoga, without any personal attachment either to the action or to
\nthe fruit of the action. There must be a complete renunciation of all
\ndesire and of all self-regarding egoistic choice and impulse and finally
\nof that much subtler egoism of the will which either says, "The work
\nis mine, I am the doer," or even "The work is God’s, but I am the
\ndoer." There must be no attachment to pleasant, desirable, lucrative or
\nsuccessful work and no doing of it because it has that nature; but
\nthat kind of work too has to be done,\u2014done totally, selflessly, with
\nthe assent of the spirit,\u2014when it is the action demanded from above
\nand from within us, kartavyam karma.<\/i> There must be no aversion to
\nunpleasant, undesirable or ungratifying action or work that brings or is
\nlikely to bring with it suffering, danger, harsh conditions, inauspicious
\nconsequences; for that too has to be accepted totally, selflessly, with a
\ndeep understanding of its need and meaning, when it is the work
\nthat should be done, kartavyam karma.<\/i> The wise man puts away the
\nshrinkings and hesitations of the desire-soul and the doubts of the
\nordinary human intelligence, that measurer by little personal, conventional or otherwise limited standards. He follows in the light of
\nthe full sattwic mind and with the power of an inner renunciation
\nlifting the soul to impersonality, towards God, towards the universal
\nand eternal, the highest ideal law of his nature or the will of the
\nMaster of works in his secret spirit. He will not do action for the sake
\nof any personal result or for any reward in this life or with any
\nattachment to success, profit or consequence: neither will his works
\nbe undertaken for the sake of a fruit in the invisible hereafter or
\nask for a reward in other births or in worlds beyond us, the prizes
\nfor which the half-baked religious mind hungers. The three kinds
\nof result, pleasant, unpleasant and mixed, in this or other worlds, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-442<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nin this or another life are for the slaves of desire and ego; these things
\ndo not cling to the free spirit. The liberated worker who has given
\nup his works by the inner sannyasa to a greater Power is free from
\nKarma. Action he will do, for some kind of action, less or more, small
\nor great, is inevitable, natural, right for the embodied soul,\u2014action is part of the divine law of living, it is the high dynamics of
\nthe Spirit. The essence of renunciation, the true Tyaga, the true
\nSannyasa, is not any rule of thumb of inaction but a disinterested
\nsoul, a selfless mind, the transition from ego to the free impersonal
\nand spiritual nature. The spirit of this inner renunciation is the first
\nmental condition of the highest culminating sattwic discipline. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe Gita then speaks of the five causes or indispensable requisites
\nfor the accomplishment of works as laid down by the Sankhya.
\nThe spirit of this inner renunciation is the first mental condition of
\nthe highest culminating sattwic discipline. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe Gita then speaks of the five causes or indispensable requisites
\nfor the accomplishment of works as laid down by the Sankhya. These
\nfive are, first, the frame of body, life and mind which are the basis
\nor standing-ground of the soul in Nature, adhisthāna,<\/i> next, the doer,
\nkartā,<\/i> third, the various instrumentation of Nature, karana,<\/i> fourth,
\nthe many kinds of effort which make up the force of action, cestāh,
\n<\/i>and last, Fate, daivam,<\/i> that is to say, the influence of the Power or
\npowers other than the human factors, other than the visible mechanism of Nature, that stand behind these and modify the work and
\ndispose its fruits in the steps of act and consequence. These five elements make up among them all the efficient causes, karana,<\/i> that determine the shaping and outcome of whatever work man undertakes with
\nmind and speech and body. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe doer is ordinarily supposed to be our surface personal ego, but
\nthat is the false idea of the understanding that has not arrived at
\nknowledge. The ego is the ostensible doer, but the ego and its will are
\ncreations and instruments of Nature with which the ignorant understanding wrongly identifies our self and they are not the only determinants even of human action, much less of its turn and consequence.
\nWhen we are liberated from ego, our real self behind comes forward,
\nimpersonal and universal, and it sees in its self-vision of unity with the
\nuniversal Spirit universal Nature as the doer of the work and the
\nDivine Will behind as the master of universal Nature. Only so long
\nas we have not this knowledge, are we bound by the character of the <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-443<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nego and its will as the doer and do good and evil and have the satisfaction of our tamasic, rajasic or sattwic nature. But once we live in
\nthis greater knowledge, the character and consequences of the work
\ncan make no difference to the freedom of the spirit. The work may
\nbe outwardly a terrible action like this great battle and slaughter of
\nKurukshetra; but although the liberated man takes his part in the
\nstruggle and though he slay all these peoples, he slays no man and he
\nis not bound by his work, because the work is that of the Master of the
\nWorlds and it is he who has already slain in his hidden omnipotent
\nwill all these armies. This work of destruction was needed that humanity might move forward to another creation and a new purpose,
\nmight get rid as in a fire of its past karma of unrighteousness and
\noppression and injustice and move towards a kingdom of the Dharma.
\nThe liberated man does his appointed work as the living instrument
\none in spirit with the universal Spirit. And knowing that all this must
\nbe and looking beyond the outward appearance he acts not for self
\nbut for God and man and the human and cosmic order,1 not in fact
\nhimself acting, but conscious of the presence and power of the divine
\nForce in his deeds and their issue. He knows that the supreme Shakti
\nis doing in his mental, vital and physical body, adhisthāna,<\/i> as the sole
\ndoer the thing appointed by a Fate which is in truth not Fate, not a
\nmechanical dispensation, but the wise and all-seeing Will that is at
\nwork behind human Karma. This "terrible work" on which the whole
\nteaching of the Gita turns, is an extreme example of action inauspicious in appearance, akuśalam,<\/i> though a great good lies beyond the
\nappearance. Impersonally has it to be done by the divinely appointed
\nman for the holding together of the world purpose, loka-samgrahārtham,<\/i> without personal aim or desire, because it is the appointed service. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIt is clear then that the work is not the sole thing that matters; the
\nknowledge in which we do works makes an immense spiritual difference. There are three things, says the Gita, which go to constitute the
\nmental impulsion to works, and they are the knowledge in our will,
\nthe object of knowledge and the knower; and into the knowledge
\nthere comes always the working of the three gunas. It is this element
\nof the gunas that makes all the difference to our view of the thing <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1<\/sup> The cosmic order comes into question, because the triumph of the Asura
\nin humanity means to that extent the triumph of the Asura in the balance of
\nthe world-forces. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-444<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nknown and to the spirit in which the knower does his work. The
\ntamasic ignorant knowledge is a small and narrow, a lazy or dully
\nobstinate way of looking at things which has no eye for the real
\nnature of the world or of the thing done or its field or the act or its
\nconditions. The tamasic mind does not look for real cause and effect,
\nbut absorbs itself in one movement or one routine with an obstinate
\nattachment to it, can see nothing but the little section of personal
\nactivity before its eyes and does not know in fact what it is doing but
\nblindly lets natural impulsion work out through its deed results of
\nwhich it has no conception, foresight or comprehending intelligence.
\nThe rajasic knowledge is that which sees the multiplicity of things
\nonly in their separateness and variety of operation in all these existences and is unable to discover a true principle of unity or rightly coordinate its will and action, but follows the bent of ego and desire,
\nthe activity of its many-branching egoistic will and various and mixed
\nmotive in response to the solicitation of internal and environing impulsions and forces. This knowing is a jumble of sections of knowledge, often inconsistent knowledge, put forcefully together by the
\nmind in order to make some kind of pathway through the confusion
\nof our half-knowledge and half-ignorance. Or else it is a restless
\nkinetic multiple action with no firm governing higher ideal and selfpossessed law of true light and power within it. The sattwic knowledge, on the contrary, sees existence as one indivisible whole in all
\nthese divisions, one imperishable being in all becomings; it masters the
\nprinciple of its action and the relation of the particular action to
\nthe total purpose of existence; it puts in the right place each step of the
\ncomplete process. At the highest top of knowledge this seeing becomes
\nthe knowledge of the one spirit in the world, one in all these many
\nexistences, of the one Master of all works, of the forces of cosmos as
\nexpressions of the Godhead and of the work itself as the operation of
\nhis supreme will and wisdom in man and his life and essential nature. The personal will has come to be entirely conscious, illumined,
\nspiritually awake, and it lives and works in the One, obeys more and
\nmore perfectly his supreme mandate and grows more and more a
\nfaultless instrument of his light and power in the human person. The
\nsupreme liberated action arrives through this culmination of the sattwic knowledge. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThere are again three things, the doer, the instrument and the work
\ndone, that hold the action together and make it possible. And here <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-445<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nagain it is the difference of the gunas that determines the character
\nof each of these elements. The sattwic mind that seeks always for a
\nright harmony and right knowledge is the governing instrument of
\nthe sattwic man and moves all the rest of the machine. An egoistic
\nwill of desire supported by the desire-soul is the dominant instrument
\nof the rajasic worker. An ignorant instinct or the unenlightened impulsion of the physical mind and the crude vital nature is the chief
\ninstrumental force of the tamasic doer of action. The instrument of
\nthe liberated man is a greater spiritual light and power, far higher
\nthan the highest sattwic intelligence, and it works in him by an
\nenveloping descent from a supraphysical centre and uses as a clear
\nchannel of its force a purified and receptive mind, life and body. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nTamasic action is that done with a confused, deluded, ignorant
\nmind, in mechanical obedience to the instincts, impulsions and unseeing ideas, without regarding the strength or capacity or the waste and
\nloss of blind misapplied effort or the antecedent and consequence and
\nright conditions of the impulse, effort or labour. Rajasic action is that
\nwhich a man undertakes under the dominion of desire, with his eyes
\nfixed on the work and its hoped-for fruit and nothing else, or with an
\negoistic sense of his own personality in the action, and it is done with
\ninordinate effort, with a passionate labour, with a great heaving and
\nstraining of the personal will to get at the object of its desire. Sattwic
\naction is that which a man does calmly in the clear light of reason
\nand knowledge and with an impersonal sense of right or duty or the
\ndemand of an ideal, as the thing that ought to be done whatever may
\nbe the result to himself in this world or another, a work performed
\nwithout attachment, without liking or disliking for its spur or its drag,
\nfor the sole satisfaction of his reason and sense of right, of the lucid
\nintelligence and the enlightened will and the pure disinterested mind
\nand the high contented spirit. At the line of culmination of sattwa
\nit will be transformed and become a highest impersonal action dictated
\nby the spirit within us and no longer by the intelligence, an action
\nmoved by the highest law of the nature, free from the lower ego and
\nits light or heavy baggage and from limitation even by best opinion,
\nnoblest desire, purest personal will or loftiest mental ideal. There will
\nbe none of these impedimenta; in their place there will stand a clear
\nspiritual self-knowledge and illumination and an imperative intimate
\nsense of an infallible power that acts and of the work to be done for
\nthe world and for the world’s Master. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-446<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe tamasic doer of action is one who does not put himself really
\ninto the work, but acts with a mechanical mind, or obeys the most
\nvulgar thought of the herd, follows the common routine or is wedded
\nto a blind error and prejudice. He is obstinate in stupidity, stubborn
\nin error and takes a foolish pride in his ignorant doing; a narrow
\nand evasive cunning replaces true intelligence; he has a stupid and
\ninsolent contempt for those with whom he has to deal, especially for
\nwiser men and his betters. A dull laziness, slowness, procrastination,
\nlooseness, want of vigour or of sincerity mark his action. The tamasic
\nman is ordinarily slow to act, dilatory in his steps, easily depressed,
\nready soon to give up his task if it taxes his strength, his diligence
\nor his patience. The rajasic doer of action on the contrary is one
\neagerly attached to the work, bent on its rapid completion, passionately desirous of fruit and reward and consequence, greedy of heart,
\nimpure of mind, often violent and cruel and brutal in the means he
\nuses; he cares little whom he injures or how much he injures others
\nso long as he gets what he wants, satisfies his passions and will,
\nvindicates the claims of his ego. He is full of an incontinent joy
\nin success and bitterly grieved and stricken by failure. The sattwic
\ndoer is free from all this attachment, this egoism, this violent strength
\nor passionate weakness; his is a mind and will unrelated by success, undepressed by failure, full of a fixed impersonal resolution, a calm rectitude of zeal or a high and pure and selfless enthusiasm in the work
\nthat has to be done. At and beyond the culmination of sattwa this resolution, zeal, enthusiasm become the spontaneous working of the spiritual Tapas and at last a highest soul-force, the direct God-Power, the
\nmighty and steadfast movement of a divine energy in the human
\ninstrument, the self-assured steps of the seer-will, the gnostic intelligence and with it the wide delight of the free spirit in the works or
\nthe liberated nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe reason armed with the intelligent will works in man in whatever manner or measure he may possess these human gifts and it is
\naccordingly right or perverted, clouded or luminous, narrow and small
\nor large and wide like the mind of its possessor. It is the understanding
\npower of his nature, buddhi,<\/i> that chooses the work for him or, more
\noften, approves and sets its sanction on one or other among the many
\nsuggestions of his complex instincts, impulsions, ideas and desires.
\nIt is that which determines for him what is right or wrong, to be done
\nor not to be done, Dharma or Adharma. And the persistence of <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-447<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthe will2<\/sup> is that continuous force of mental Nature which sustains the
\nwork and gives it consistence and persistence. Here again there is the
\nincidence of the gunas. The tamasic reason is a false, ignorant and
\ndarkened instrument which chains us to see all things in a dull
\nand wrong light, a cloud of misconceptions, a stupid ignoring of the
\nvalues of things and people. This reason calls light darkness and
\ndarkness light, takes what is not the true law and upholds it as
\nthe law, persists in the thing which ought not to he done and holds it
\nup to us as the one right thing to he done. Its ignorance is invincible
\nand its persistence of will is a persistence in the satisfaction and dull
\npride of its ignorance. That is on its side of blind action; but it is
\npursued also by a heavy stress of inertia and impotence, a persistence
\nin dullness and sleep, an aversion to mental change and progress, a
\ndwelling on the fears and pains and depressions of mind which deter
\nus in our path or keep us to base, weak and cowardly ways. Timidity,
\nshirking, evasion, indolence, the justification by the mind of its fears
\nand false doubts and cautions and refusals of duty and its lapses and
\nturnings from die call of our higher nature, a safe following of the line
\nof least resistance so that there may be the least trouble and effort and
\nperil in the winning of the fruit of our labour\u2014rather no fruit or poor
\nresult, it says, than a great and noble toil or a perilous and exacting
\nendeavour and adventure,\u2014these are characteristics of the tamasic
\nwill and intelligence. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe rajasic understanding, when it does not knowingly choose
\nerror and evil for the sake of the error and evil, can make distinctions
\nbetween right and wrong, between what should or should not be
\ndone, but not rightly, rather with a pulling awry of their true measures
\nand a constant distortion of values. And this is because its reason and
\nwill are a reason of the ego and a will of desire, and these powers misrepresent and distort the truth and the right to serve their own egoistic purpose. It is only when we are free from ego and desire and
\nlook steadily with a calm, pure, disinterested mind concerned only
\nwith the truth and its sequences that we can hope to see things
\nrightly and in their just values. But the rajasic will fixes its persistent attention on the satisfaction of its own attached clingings and
\ndesires in its pursuit of interest and pleasure and of what it thinks or
\nchooses to think right and justice, Dharma. Always it is apt to put
\non these things the construction which will most flatter and justify <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n2<\/sup> dhrti.<\/i>
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-448<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nits desires and to uphold as right or legitimate the means which will
\nbest help it to get the coveted fruits of its work and endeavour. That
\nis the cause of three-fourths of the falsehood and misconduct of
\nthe human reason and will. Rajas with its vehement hold on the vital
\nego is the great sinner and positive misleader. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe sattwic understanding sees in its right place, right form, right
\nmeasure the movement of the world, the law of action and the law
\nof abstention from action, the thing that is to be done and the thing
\nthat is not to be done, what is safe for the soul and what is dangerous,
\nwhat is to be feared and shunned and what is to be embraced by the
\nwill, what binds the spirit of man and what sets it free. These are the
\nthings that it follows or avoids by the persistence of its conscious will
\naccording to the degree of its light and the stage of evolution it has
\nreached in its upward ascent to the highest self and Spirit. The culmination of this sattwic intelligence is found by a high persistence
\nof the aspiring buddhi when it is settled on what is beyond the
\nordinary reason and mental will, pointed to the summits, turned to
\na steady control of the senses and the life and a union by Yoga with.
\nman’s highest Self, the universal Divine, the transcendent Spirit. It is
\nthere that arriving through the sattwic guna one can pass beyond the
\ngunas, can climb beyond the limitations of the mind and its will and
\nintelligence and sattwa itself disappear into that which is above the
\ngunas and beyond this instrumental nature. There the soul is enshrined in light and enthroned in firm union with the Self and Spirit
\nand Godhead. Arrived upon that summit we can leave the Highest
\nto guide Nature in our members in the free spontaneity of a divine
\naction: for there is no wrong or confused working, no element
\nof error or impotence to obscure or distort the luminous perfection
\nand power of the Spirit. All these lower conditions, laws, dharmas
\ncease to have any hold on us; the Infinite acts in the liberated man
\nand there is no law but the immortal truth and right of the free spirit,
\nno Karma, no kind of bondage. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nHarmony and order are the characteristic qualities of the sattwic
\nmind and temperament, quiet happiness, a clear and calm content
\nand an inner ease and peace. Happiness is indeed the one thing
\nwhich is openly of indirectly the universal pursuit of our human
\nnature,\u2014happiness or its suggestion or some counterfeit of it, some
\npleasure, some enjoyment, some satisfaction of the mind, the will,
\nthe passions or the body. Pain is an experience our nature has to <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-449<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\naccept when it must, involuntarily as a necessity, an unavoidable incident of universal Nature, or voluntarily as a means to what we seek
\nafter, but not a thing desired for its own sake,\u2014except when it is so
\nsought in perversity or with an ardour of enthusiasm in suffering for
\nsome touch of fierce pleasure it brings or the intense strength it
\nengenders. But there are various kinds of happiness or pleasure
\naccording to the guna which dominates in our nature. Thus the tamasic mind can remain well-pleased in its indolence and inertia, its
\nstupor and sleep, its blindness and its error. Nature has armed it with
\nthe privilege of a smug satisfaction in its stupidity and ignorance,
\nits dim lights of the cave, its inert contentment, its petty or base joys
\nand its vulgar pleasures. Delusion is the beginning of this satisfaction
\nand delusion is its consequence; hut still there is given a dull, a by
\nno means admirable but a sufficient pleasure in his delusions to the
\ndweller in the cave. There is a tamasic happiness founded in inertia
\nand ignorance. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe mind of the rajasic man drinks of a more fiery and intoxicating cup; the keen, mobile, active pleasure of the senses and the body
\nand the sense-entangled or fierily kinetic will and intelligence are to
\nhim all the joy of life and the very significance of living. This joy is
\nnectar to the lips at the first touch, but there is a secret poison in the
\nbottom of the cup and after it the bitterness of disappointment, satiety,
\nfatigue, revolt, disgust, sin, suffering, loss, transience. And it must be
\nso because these pleasures in their external figure are not the things
\nwhich the spirit in us truly demands from life; there is something behind and beyond the transience of the form, something that is lasting, satisfying, self-sufficient. What the sattwic nature seeks, therefore, is the satisfaction of the higher mind and the spirit and
\nwhen it once gets this large object of its quest, there comes in a clear,
\npure happiness of the soul, a state of fullness, an abiding ease and
\npeace. This happiness does not depend on outward things, but on
\nourselves alone and on the flowering of what is best and most inward
\nwithin us. But it is not at first our normal possession; it has to be conquered by self-discipline, a labour of the soul, a high and arduous
\nendeavour. At first this means much loss of habitual pleasure, much
\nsuffering and struggle, a poison born of the churning of our nature,
\na painful conflict of forces, much revolt and opposition to the change
\ndue to the ill-will of the members or the insistence of vital movements,
\nbut in the end the nectar of immortality rises in the place of this <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-450<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nbitterness and as we climb to the higher spiritual nature we come to
\nthe end of sorrow, the euthanasia of grief and pain. That is the surpassing happiness which descends upon us at the point or line of
\nculmination of the sattwic discipline. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe self-exceeding of the sattwic nature comes when we get beyond
\nthe great but still inferior sattwic pleasure, beyond the pleasures of
\nmental knowledge and virtue and peace to the eternal calm of the self
\nand the spiritual ecstasy of the divine oneness. That spiritual joy is
\nno longer the sattwic happiness, sukham,<\/i> but the absolute Ananda.
\nAnanda is the secret delight from which all things are born, by which
\nall is sustained in existence and to which all can rise in the spiritual
\nculmination. Only then can it be possessed when the liberated man,
\nfree from ego and its desires, lives at last one with his highest self,
\none with all beings and one with God in an absolute bliss of the spirit. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-451<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XIX   THE GUNAS, MIND AND WORKS *   THE GITA has not yet completed its analysis of action in the light of this fundamental…<\/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-3655","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\/3655","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=3655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3655\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}