{"id":674,"date":"2013-07-13T01:29:38","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=674"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:29:38","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:38","slug":"11-analysis-prefatory-vol-12-the-upanishad-volume-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/12-the-upanishad-volume-12\/11-analysis-prefatory-vol-12-the-upanishad-volume-12","title":{"rendered":"-11_Analysis Prefatory.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n
\n
\nANALYSIS<\/span><\/b> \n<\/p>\n


\n
\nPREFATORY<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n


\nPlan of the
\nUpanishad<\/span><\/b> <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nT<\/span>HE<\/span><\/b>
\n<\/span>Upanishads, being vehicles of illumination and not of
\ninstruction, composed for seekers who had already a general familiarity with the
\nideas of the Vedic and Vedantic seers and even some personal experience of the
\ntruths on which they were founded, dispense in their style with expressed
\ntransitions of thought and the development of implied or subordinate notions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEvery verse in the Isha Upanishad reposes on a number of
\nideas implicit in the text but nowhere set forth explicitly; the reasoning also
\nthat supports its conclusions is suggested by the words, not expressly conveyed
\nto the intelligence. The reader, or rather the hearer, was supposed to proceed
\nfrom light to light, confirming his intuitions and verifying by his experience,
\nnot submitting the ideas to the judgment of the logical reason.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo the modern mind this method is invalid and inapplicable;
\nit is necessary to present the ideas of the Upanishad in their completeness,
\nunderline the suggestions, supply the necessary transitions and bring out the
\nsuppressed but always implicit reasoning.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe central idea of the Upanishad, which is a reconciliation
\nand harmony of fundamental opposites, is worked out sym\u00admetrically in four
\nsuccessive movements of thought.<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n
\nf<\/span>irst
\n<\/span>m<\/span>ovement<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\nIn the first, a basis is laid down by the idea of the one and
\nstable Spirit inhabiting and governing a universe of movement and of the forms
\nof movement. (Verse 1, line 1)<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\nOn this conception the rule of a divine life for man is
\nfounded, \u2014 enjoyment of all by renunciation of all through the exclusion of
\ndesire. (Verse 1, line 2)<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere is then declared the justification of works and of the<\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 71<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nphysical life on the basis of an inalienable freedom of the
\nsoul, one with the Lord, amidst all the activity of the multiple movement.
\n{Verse 2)<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\nFinally, the result of an ignorant interference with the
\nright manifestation of the One in the multiplicity is declared to be an
\ninvolution in states of blind obscurity after death. (Verse<\/i> 3)<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n
\ns<\/span>econd
\n<\/span>m<\/span>ovement<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\nIn the second movement the ideas of the first verse are
\nresumed and amplified.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe one stable Lord and the multiple movement are identified
\nas one Brahman of whom, however, the unity and stability are the higher truth
\nand who contains all as well as inhabits all. (Verses 4,5)<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe basis and fulfilment of the rule of life are found in the
\nexperience of unity by which man identifies himself with the cosmic and
\ntranscendental Self and is identified in the Self, but with an entire freedom
\nfrom grief and illusion, with all its beomings. (Verses 6,7)<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n
\nt<\/span>hird
\n<\/span>m<\/span>ovement<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\nIn the third movement there is a return to the justification
\nof life and works (the subject of Verse 2)<\/i> and an indication of their
\ndivine fulfilment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe degrees of the Lord’s self-manifestation in the universe
\nof motion and in the becomings of the one Being are set forth and the inner law
\nof all existences declared to be by His conception and determination. (Verse
\n8)<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\nVidya and Avidya, Becoming and Non-becoming are reconciled by
\ntheir mutual utility to the progressive self-realisation which proceeds from the
\nstate of mortality to the state of Immortality. (Verses 9-14)<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n
\nf<\/span>ourth
\n<\/span>m<\/span>ovement<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\nThe fourth movement returns to the idea of the worlds and
\nunder the figures of Surya and Agni the relations of the Supreme Truth and
\nImmortality (Verses 15,16),<\/i> the activities of this life (Verse 17),<\/i>
\nand the state after death (Verse 18)<\/i> are symbolically indicated.<\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 72<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\n FIRST
\nMOVEMENT
\n<\/font><\/b> 
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nTHE INHABITING GODHEAD: <\/font> <\/b><\/p>\n

\nLIFE AND ACTION <\/font> <\/b><\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nVerses 1-3*  \n<\/p>\n

\nTHE BASIS OF COSMIC EXISTENCE <\/span><\/p>\n

\nGod and the world. Spirit and formative Nature are confronted and their
\nrelations fixed. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

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

\nAll world is a movement of the Spirit in itself and is mutable and transient in
\nall its formations and appearances; its only eternity is an eternity of
\nrecurrence, its only stability a semblance caused by certain apparent fixities
\nof relation and grouping. <\/p>\n

\nEvery separate object in the universe is, in truth, itself the whole universe
\npresenting a certain front or outward appearance of its movement. The microcosm
\nis one with the macrocosm. <\/p>\n

\nYet in their relation of principle of movement and result of movement they are
\ncontinent and contained, world in world, movement in movement. The individual
\ntherefore partakes of the nature of the universal, refers back to it for its
\nsource of activity, is, as we say, subject to its laws and part of cosmic
\nNature. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

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

\nSpirit is lord of its movement, one, immutable, free, stable and eternal.  <\/p>\n

\nThe Movement with all its formed objects has been created in order to provide a
\nhabitation for the Spirit who, being <\/b>One,  <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n*1 All this is for habitation by the Lord,
\nwhatsoever is individual universe of movement in the universal motion. By that
\nrenounced  thou shouldst enjoy; lust not after any man’s possession. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n2 Doing verily works in this world one should
\nwish to live a hundred years. Thus it is in thee and not otherwise than this;
\naction cleaves not to a man. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n3 Sunless are those worlds and enveloped in
\nblind gloom whereto all they in their passing hence resort who are slayers of
\ntheir souls. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 73<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

yet
\ndwells multitudinously in the multiplicity of <\/b>His mansions.<\/p>\n

\nIt is the same Lord who dwells in the sum and the part, in the Cosmos as a whole
\nand in each being, force or object in the Cosmos. <\/p>\n

\nSince <\/b>He is one and indivisible, the Spirit in all is one and their
\nmultiplicity is a play of <\/b>His cosmic consciousness. <\/p>\n

\nTherefore each human being is in his essence one with all others, free, eternal,
\nimmutable, lord of Nature. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nTRANSITIONAL THOUGHT
\n<\/span>AVIDYA <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\nThe object of habitation is enjoyment and possession; the object of the Spirit
\nin Cosmos is, therefore, the possession and enjoyment of the universe. Yet,
\nbeing thus in his essence one, divine and free, man seems to be limited, divided
\nfrom others, subject to Nature and even its creation and sport, enslaved to
\ndeath, ignorance and sorrow. His object in manifestation being possession and
\nenjoyment of his world, he is unable to enjoy because of his limitation. This
\ncontrary result comes about by Avidya, the Ignorance of oneness: and the knot of
\nthe Ignorance is egoism. <\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nEGO <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\nThe cause of ego is that while by Its double power of Vidya and Avidya the
\nSpirit dwells at once in the consciousness of multiplicity and relativity and in
\nthe consciousness of unity and identity and is therefore not bound by the
\nIgnorance, yet It can, in mind, identify Itself with the object in the movement,
\nabsorbingly, to the apparent exclusion of the Knowledge which remains behind,
\nveiled at the back of the mentality. The movement of Mind in Nature is thus able
\nto conceive of the object as the reality and the Inhabitant as limited and
\ndetermined by the appearances of the object. It conceives of the object, not as
\nthe universe in one of its frontal appearances, but as itself a separate
\nexistence standing out from the Cosmos and different in being from all the rest
\nof it. It conceives similarly of the Inhabitant. This is the illusion of
\nignorance which falsifies all realities. The illusion is called ahamkāra,<\/i>
\nthe separative ego-sense which  <\/i><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 74<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nmakes each being conceive of itself as an independent personality. <\/p>\n

\nThe result of the separation is the inability to enter into harmony and oneness
\nwith the universe and a consequent in-ability to possess and enjoy it. But the
\ndesire to possess and enjoy is the master impulse of the Ego which knows itself
\nobscurely  to be the Lord, although owing to the limitations of its relativity,
\nit is unable to realise its true existence. The result is discord with others
\nand oneself, mental and physical suffering, the sense of weakness and inability,
\nthe sense of obscuration, the straining of energy in passion and in desire
\ntowards self-fulfilment, the recoil of energy exhausted or disappointed towards
\ndeath and disintegration. <\/p>\n

\nDesire is the badge of subjection with its attendant discord and suffering. That
\nwhich is free, one and lord, does not desire, but inalienably contains,
\npossesses and enjoys. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE RULE OF THE DIVINE LIFE <\/span><\/p>\n

\nEnjoyment of the universe and all it contains is the object  of world-existence,
\nbut renunciation of all in desire is the condition of the free enjoyment of all.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe renunciation demanded is not a moral constraint of self-denial or a physical
\nrejection, but an entire liberation of the spirit from any craving after the
\nforms of things. <\/p>\n

\nThe terms of this liberation are freedom from egoism and, consequently, freedom
\nfrom personal desire. Practically, this renunciation implies that one should not
\nregard anything in the universe as a necessary object of possession, nor as
\npossessed by another and not by oneself, nor as an object of greed in the heart
\nor the senses.  <\/p>\n

\nThis attitude is founded on the perception of unity. For it has already been
\nsaid that all souls are one possessing Self, the Lord; and although the Lord
\ninhabits each object as if separately, yet all objects exist in that Self and
\nnot outside it. <\/p>\n

\nTherefore by transcending Ego and realising the one Self, we possess the whole
\nuniverse in the one cosmic consciousness and do not need to possess physically.\n<\/p>\n

\nHaving by oneness with the Lord the possibility of an infinite free delight in
\nall things, we do not need to desire. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 75<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nBeing one with all beings, we possess, in their enjoyment, in ours and in the
\ncosmic Being’s, delight of universal self-expression. It is only by this Ananda
\nat once transcendent and universal that man can be free in his soul and yet live
\nin the world with the full active Life of the Lord in His universe of movement.\n<\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nTHE JUSTIFICATION OF WORKS <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis freedom does not depend upon inaction, nor is this possession limited to
\nthe enjoyment of the inactive Soul that only witnesses without taking part in
\nthe movement. On the contrary, the doing of works in this material world and a
\nfull acceptance of the term of physical life are part of its completeness. For
\nthe active Brahman fulfils Itself in the world by works and man also is in the
\nbody for self-fulfilment by action. He cannot do otherwise, for even his inertia
\nacts and produces effects in the cosmic movement. Being in this body or any kind
\nof body, it is idle to think of refraining from action or escaping the physical
\nlife. The idea that this in itself can be a means of liberation, is part of the
\nIgnorance which supposes the soul to be a separate entity in the Brahman. <\/p>\n

\nAction is shunned because it is thought to be inconsistent with freedom. The man
\nwhen he acts, is supposed to be necessarily entangled in the desire behind the
\naction, in subjection to the formal energy that drives the action and in the
\nresults of the action. These things are true in appearance, not in reality. <\/p>\n

\nDesire is only a mode of the emotional mind which by ignorance seeks its delight
\nin the object of desire and not in the Brahman who expresses Himself in the
\nobject. By destroying that ignorance one can do action without entanglement in
\ndesire. <\/p>\n

\nThe Energy that drives is itself subject to the Lord, who expresses Himself in
\nit with perfect freedom. By getting behind Nature to the Lord of Nature, merging
\nthe individual in the Cosmic Will, one can act with the divine freedom. Our
\nactions are given up to the Lord and our personal responsibility ceases in His
\nliberty.  \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 76<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nThe chain of Karma only binds the movement of Nature and not the soul which, by
\nknowing itself, ceases even to appear to be bound by the result of its works.\n<\/p>\n

\nTherefore the way of freedom is not inaction, but to cease from identifying
\noneself with the movement and recover instead our true identity in the Self of
\nthings who is their Lord. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE OTHER WORLDS <\/span><\/p>\n

\nBy departing from the physical life one does not disappear out of the Movement,
\nbut only passes into some other general state of consciousness than the material
\nuniverse.  <\/p>\n

\nThese states are either obscure or illuminated, some dark or sunless. <\/p>\n

\nBy persisting in gross forms of ignorance, by coercing perversely the soul in
\nits self-fulfilment or by a wrong dissolution of its becoming in the Movement,
\none enters into states of blind darkness, not into the worlds of light and of
\nliberated and blissful being. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 77<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nSECOND
\nMOVEMENT <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n1. BRAHMAN:<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nONENESS OF GOD AND THE WORLD<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nVerses <\/b>4-5*<\/p>\n

\nBRAHMAN \u2014 THE UNITY <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe Lord and the world, even when they seem to be distinct, are not really
\ndifferent from each other; they are one Brahman. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n"ONE UNMOVING" <\/span><\/p>\n

\nGod is the one stable and eternal Reality. He is One because there is nothing
\nelse, since all existence and non-existence are He. He is stable or unmoving,
\nbecause motion implies change in Space and change in Time, and He, being beyond
\nTime and Space, is immutable. He possesses eternally in Himself all that is, has
\nbeen or ever can be, and He therefore does not increase or diminish. <\/b>He
\nis beyond causality and relativity and therefore there is no change of relations
\nin <\/b>His being. <\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n"SWIFTER THAN MIND" <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe world is a cyclic movement (samsāra)<\/i> of the Divine Consciousness in
\nSpace and Time. Its law and, in a sense, its object is progression; it exists by
\nmovement and would be dissolved by cessation of movement. But the basis of this
\nmovement is not material; it is the energy of active consciousness which, by its
\nmotion and multiplication in different principles (different in appearance, the
\nsame in essence), creates oppositions of unity and multiplicity, divisions of
\nTime and Space, relations and groupings of circumstance and Causality. All these
\nthings are real in consciousness, but only symbolic of the Being, somewhat as
\nthe imaginations of a creative Mind are true representations. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n*4 <\/b>One unmoving that is swifter than
\nMind; That the Gods reach not, for It progresses ever in front. That, standing,
\npasses beyond others as they run. In That the Master of Life establishes the
\nWaters. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n5 That moves and That moves not; That is far and
\nthe same is near; That is within all this and That also is outside all this.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 78<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nof itself, yet not quite real in comparison with itself, or real with a
\ndifferent kind of reality. <\/p>\n

\nBut mental consciousness is not the Power that creates the universe. That is
\nsomething infinitely more puissant, swift and unfettered than the mind. It is
\nthe pure omnipotent self-awareness of the Absolute unbound by any law of the
\nrelativity. The laws of the relativity, upheld by the gods, are Its temporary
\ncreations. Their apparent eternity is only the duration, immeasurable to us, of
\nthe world which they govern. They are laws regularising motion and change, not
\nlaws binding the Lord of the movement. The gods, therefore, are described as
\ncontinually running in their course. But the Lord is free and unaffected by His
\nown movement. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n"THAT MOVES, THAT MOVES NOT" <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe motion of the world works under the government of a perpetual stability.
\nChange represents the constant shifting of apparent relations in an eternal
\nImmutability. <\/p>\n

\nIt is these truths that are expressed in the formulae of the one Unmoving that
\nis swifter than Mind, That which moves and moves not, the one Stable which
\noutstrips in the speed of its effective consciousness the others who run. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nTRANSITIONAL THOUGHT <\/span><\/p>\n

\nTHE <\/span>MANY\u00b9<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\nIf the One is pre-eminently real, "the others9′, the Many are not unreal. The
\nworld is not a figment of the Mind. <\/p>\n

\nUnity is the eternal truth of things, diversity a play of the unity. The sense
\nof unity has therefore been termed Knowledge, Vidya, the sense of diversity
\nIgnorance, Avidya. But diversity is not false except when it is divorced from
\nthe sense of its true and eternal unity. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9The series of ideas under this heading seem to
\nme to be the indispensable metaphysical basis of the Upanishad. The Isha
\nUpanishad does not teach a pure and exclusive Monism;  it declares the One
\nwithout denying the Many and its method is to see the One in the Many. It
\nasserts the simultaneous validity of Vidya and Avidya and upholds as the object
\nof action and knowledge an immortality consistent with Life and Birth in this
\nworld. It regards every object as itself, the universe and every soul as itself,
\nthe divine Purusha. The ensemble of these ideas is consistent only with a
\nsynthetic or comprehensive as opposed to an illusionist or exclusive Monism.
\n<\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 79<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nBrahman is one, not numerically, but in essence. Numerical oneness would either
\nexclude multiplicity or would be a pluralistic and divisible oneness with the
\nMany as its parts. That is not the unity of Brahman, which can neither be
\ndiminished nor increased, nor divided. <\/p>\n

\nThe Many in the universe are sometimes called parts of the universal Brahman as
\nthe waves are parts of the sea. But, in truth, these waves are each of them that
\nsea, their diversities being those of frontal or superficial appearances caused
\nby the sea’s motion. As each object in the universe is really the whole universe
\nin a different frontal appearance, so each individual soul is all Brahman
\nregarding Itself and world from a centre of cosmic consciousness. <\/p>\n

\nFor That is identical, not single. It is identical always and everywhere in Time
\nand Space, as well as identical beyond Time and Space. Numerical oneness and
\nmultiplicity are equally valid terms of its essential unity. <\/p>\n

\nThese two terms, as we see them, are like all others, representations in Chit,
\nin the free and all-creative self-awareness of the Absolute regarding itself
\nvariously, infinitely, innumerably and formulating what it regards. Chit is a
\npower not only of knowledge, but of expressive will, not only of receptive
\nvision, but of formative representation; the two are indeed one power. For Chit
\nis an action of Being, not of the Void. What it sees, that becomes. It sees
\nitself beyond Space and Time; that becomes in the conditions of Space and Time.\n<\/p>\n

\nCreation is not a making of something out of nothing or of one thing out of
\nanother, but a self-projection of Brahman into the conditions of Space and time.
\nCreation is not a making, but a becoming in terms and forms of conscious
\nexistence. <\/p>\n

\nIn the becoming each individual is Brahman variously represented and entering
\ninto various relations with Itself in the play of the divine consciousness; in
\nbeing, each individual is all Brahman. <\/p>\n

\nBrahman as the Absolute or the Universal has the power of standing back from
\nItself in the relativity. It conceives, by a subordinate movement of
\nconsciousness, the individual as other than the universal, the relative as
\ndifferent from the Absolute. Without \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 80<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nthis separative movement, the individual would always tend to lose itself in the
\nuniversal, the relative to disappear into the Absolute. Thus, It supports a
\ncorresponding reaction in the individual who regards himself as "other" than the
\ntranscendent and universal Brahman and "other" than the rest of the Many. He
\nputs identity behind him and enforces the play of Being in the separate Ego. <\/p>\n

\nThe individual may regard himself as eternally different from the One, or as
\neternally one with It, yet different, or he may go back entirely in his
\nconsciousness to the pure Identity.\u00b9  But he can never regard himself as
\nindependent of some kind of Unity, for such a view would correspond to no
\nconceivable truth in the universe or beyond it. <\/p>\n

\nThese three attitudes correspond to three truths of the Brahman which are
\nsimultaneously valid and none of them entirely true without the others as its
\ncomplements. Their co-existence, difficult of conception to the logical
\nintellect, can be experienced by identity in consciousness with Brahman. <\/p>\n

\nEven in asserting Oneness, we must remember that Brahman is beyond our mental
\ndistinctions and is a fact not of Thought  that discriminates, but of Being
\nwhich is absolute, infinite and escapes discrimination. Our consciousness is
\nrepresentative and symbolic; it cannot conceive the thing-in-itself, the
\nAbsolute, except by negation, in a sort of void, by emptying it of all that it
\nseems in the universe to contain. But the Absolute is not a void or negation. It
\nis all that is here in Time and beyond Time.  <\/p>\n

\nEven oneness is a representation and exists in relation to multiplicity. Vidya
\nand Avidya are equally eternal powers of the supreme Chit. Neither Vidya nor
\nAvidya by itself is the absolute knowledge. {Verses 9-11)<\/i> <\/p>\n

\nStill, of all relations oneness is the secret base, not multiplicity. Oneness
\nconstitutes and upholds the multiplicity, multiplicity does not constitute and
\nuphold the oneness. <\/p>\n

\nTherefore we have to conceive of oneness as our self and the essential nature of
\nBeing, multiplicity as a representation of Self and a becoming. We have to
\nconceive of the Brahman as <\/b>One <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9 The positions, in inverse order, of the three
\nprincipal philosophical schools of Vedanta, Monism, Qualified Monism and
\nDualism. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 81<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nSelf of all and then return upon the Many as becomings of the One Being
\n(bhūtāni\u2026ātmānam).<\/i> But both the Self and the be-comings are Brahman; we
\ncannot regard the one as Brahman and the others as unreal and not Brahman. Both
\nare real, the one with a constituent and comprehensive, the others with a
\nderivative or dependent reality. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nTHE RUNNING OF THE GODS <\/span><\/p>\n

\nBrahman representing Itself in the universe as the Stable., by Its immutable
\nexistence (Sat), is Purusha, God, Spirit; representing Itself as the Motional,
\nby Its power of active Consciousness (Chit), is Nature, Force or World-Principle
\n(Prakriti, Shakti, Maya).\u00b9 The play of these two principles is the Life of the
\nuniverse. <\/p>\n

\nThe Gods are Brahman representing Itself in cosmic Personalities expressive of
\nthe one Godhead who, in their impersonal action, appear as the various play of
\nthe principles of Nature. <\/p>\n

\nThe "others" are sarvāṇ<\/span>i bhūtāni<\/i> of a later
\nverse, all becomings Brahman representing itself in the separative consciousness
\nof the Many. <\/p>\n

\nEverything in the universe, even the Gods, seems to itself to be moving in the
\ngeneral movement towards a goal outside itself or other than its immediate idea
\nof itself. Brahman is the goal; for it is both the beginning and the end, the
\ncause and the result of all movement. <\/p>\n

\nBut the idea of a final goal in the movement of Nature itself is illusory. For
\nBrahman is Absolute and Infinite. The Gods, labouring to reach him, find, at
\nevery goal that they realise, Brahman still moving forward in front to a farther
\nrealisation.
\nNothing in the appearances of the universe can be entirely That to the relative
\nconsciousness; all is only a symbolic representation  <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9 Prakriti, executive Nature as opposed to
\nPurusha, which is the Soul governing, taking cognisance of and enjoying the
\nworks of Prakriti. Shakti, the self-existent, self-cognitive, self-effective
\nPower of the Lord (Ishwara, Deva or Purusha), which expresses itself in the
\nworkings of Prakriti. Maya, signifying originally in the Veda comprehensive and
\ncreative knowledge. Wisdom that is from of old; afterwards taken in its second
\nand derivative sense, cunning, magic. Illusion. In this second significance it
\ncan really be appropriate only to the workings of the lower Nature, aparā 
\nprakr<\/i><\/span>̣<\/span>ti
\n<\/span><\/i> which has put behind it the Divine
\nWisdom and is absorbed in the experiences of the separative Ego. It is in the
\nmore ancient sense that the word Maya is used in the Upanishads, where, indeed,
\nit occurs but rarely. <\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 82<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nof the Unknowable. <\/p>\n

\nAll things are already realised in Brahman. The running of the Others in the
\ncourse of Nature is only a working out  (Prakriti), by Causality, in Time and
\nSpace, of something that Brahman already possesses. <\/p>\n

\nEven in Its universal being Brahman exceeds the Movement. Exceeding Time, It
\ncontains in Itself past, present and future simultaneously and has not to run to
\nthe end of conceivable Time. Exceeding Space, It contains all formations in
\nItself coincidently and has not to run to the end of conceivable Space.
\nExceeding Causality, It contains freely in Itself all eventualities as well as
\nall potentialities without being bound by the apparent chain of causality by
\nwhich they are linked in the universe. Everything is already realised by It as
\nthe Lord before it can be accomplished by the separated Personalities in the
\nmovement. <\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nTHE PRINCIPLE OF LIFE <\/span><\/p>\n

\nMATARISHWAN AND THE <\/span>WATERS
\n<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\nWhat then is Its intention in the movement? <\/p>\n

\nThe movement is a rhythm, a harmony which That, as the Universal Life, works out
\nby figures of Itself in the terms of conscious Being. It is a formula
\nsymbolically expressive of the Unknowable, \u2014- so arranged that every level of
\nconsciousness really represents something beyond itself, depth of depth,
\ncontinent of continent. It is a play\u00b9 of the divine Consciousness existing for
\nits own satisfaction and adding nothing to That, which is already complete. It
\nis a fact of conscious being, justified by its own existence, with no purpose
\nulterior to itself. The idea of purpose, of a goal is born of the progressive
\nself-unfolding by the world of its own true nature to the individual Souls
\ninhabiting its forms; for the Being is gradually self-revealed within its own
\nbecomings, real Unity emerges out of the Multiplicity and changes entirely the
\nvalues of the latter to our consciousness. <\/p>\n

\nThis self-unfolding is governed by conditions determined by the complexity of
\nconsciousness in its cosmic action.  <\/p>\n

\nFor consciousness is not simple or homogeneous, it is septuple.<\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9This is the Vaishnava image of the Lila applied
\nusually to the play of the Personal Deity in the world, but equally applicable
\nto the active impersonal Brahman. <\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 83<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nThat is to say, it constitutes itself into seven forms or grades of conscious
\nactivity descending from pure Being to physical being. Their interplay creates
\nthe worlds, determines all activities, constitutes all becomings. <\/p>\n

\nBrahman is always the continent of this play or this working. Brahman
\nself-extended in Space and Time is the universe. <\/p>\n

\nIn this extension Brahman represents Itself as formative Nature, the universal
\nMother of things, who appears to us, first, as Matter, called pṛ<\/span>thivī,<\/i>
\nthe Earth-Principle. <\/p>\n

\nBrahman in Matter or physical being represents Itself as the universal
\nLife-Power, Matarishwan, which moves there as a dynamic energy, prāṇ<\/span>a,<\/i>
\nand presides effectively over all arrangement and formation. <\/p>\n

\nUniversal Life establishes, involved in Matter, the septuple consciousness; and
\nthe action of prāṇa,<\/i> the dynamic energy, on the Matrix of things evolves
\nout of it its different forms and serves as a basis for all their evolutions.\n<\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nTRANSITIONAL THOUGHT<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTHE <\/span>WATERS
\n<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\nThere are, then, seven constituents of Chit active in the universe. <\/p>\n

\nWe are habitually aware of three elements in our being, Mind, Life and Body.
\nThese constitute for us a divided and mutable existence which is in a condition
\nof unstable harmony and works by a strife of positive and negative forces
\nbetween the two poles of Birth and Death. For all life is a constant birth or
\nbecoming (sambhava, sambhūti<\/i> of Verses 12-14).<\/i> All birth entails a
\nconstant death or dissolution of that which becomes, in order that it may change
\ninto a new becoming. Therefore this state of existence is called mṛ<\/span>tyu.<\/i>
\nDeath, and described as a stage which has to be passed through and transcended.
\n(Verses 11-14)<\/i><\/p>\n

\nFor this is not the whole of our being and, therefore, not our pure being. We
\nhave, behind, a superconscious existence which has also three constituents,
\nsat, cit-tapas<\/i> and ānanda.<\/i>  <\/p>\n

\nSat is essence of our being, pure infinite and undivided, as opposed to this
\ndivisible being which founds itself on the constant changeableness of physical
\nsubstance. Sat is the divine counterpart  \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 84<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nof physical substance. <\/p>\n

\nChit-Tapas is pure energy of Consciousness, free in its rest or its action,
\nsovereign in its will, as opposed to the hampered dynamic energies of Prana
\nwhich, feeding upon physical substances,  are dependent on and limited by their
\nsustenance.\u00b9  Tapas is the divine counterpart of this lower nervous or vital
\nenergy. <\/p>\n

\nAnanda is Beatitude, the bliss of pure conscious existence and energy, as
\nopposed to the life of the sensations and emotions which are at the mercy of the
\noutward touches of Life and Matter and their positive and negative reactions,
\njoy and grief, pleasure and pain. Ananda is the divine counterpart of the lower
\nemotional and sensational being. <\/p>\n

\nThis higher existence, proper to the divine Sachchidananda, is unified,
\nself-existent, not confused by the figures of Birth and Death. It is called,
\ntherefore, amṛ<\/span>tam.<\/i> Immortality, and offered to us
\nas the goal to be aimed at and the felicity to be enjoyed when we have
\ntranscended the state of death. (Verses 11, 14, 17,18)<\/i> <\/p>\n

\nThe higher divine is linked to the lower mortal existence by the causal Idea\u00b2 or
\nsupramental Knowledge-Will, vij\u00f1āna. <\/i>It is the causal Idea which, by
\nsupporting and secretly guiding the confused activities of the Mind, Life and
\nBody, ensures and compels the right arrangement of the universe. It is called in
\nthe Veda the Truth because it represents by direct vision the truth of things
\nboth inclusive and independent of their appearances ; the Right or Law because,
\ncontaining in itself the effective power of Chit, it works out all things
\naccording to their nature with a perfect knowledge and prevision; the Vast,
\nbecause it is of the nature of an infinite cosmic Intelligence comprehensive of
\nall particular activities. <\/p>\n

\nVijnana, as the Truth, leads the divided consciousness back to the One. It also
\nsees the truth of things in the multiplicity. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Therefore physical substance is called in the
\nUpanishads annam.<\/i> Food. In its origin, however, the word meant simply
\nbeing or substance. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00b2Not the abstract mental idea, but the
\nsupramental Real-Idea, the Consciousness, Force and Delight of the Being
\nprecipitated into a comprehensive and discriminative awareness of all the truths
\nand powers of its own existence, carrying in its self-knowledge the will of
\nself-manifestation, the power of all its potentialities and the power of all its
\nforms. It is power that acts and effectuates, as well as knowledge master of its
\nown action. <\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 85<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nVijnana is the divine counterpart of the lower divided intelligence. <\/p>\n

\nThese seven powers of Chit are spoken of by the Vedic Rishis as the Waters, they
\nare imaged as currents flowing into or rising out of the general sea of
\nConsciousness in the human being.\u00b9<\/p>\n

\nThey are all co-existent in the universe eternally and inseparably, but capable
\nof being involved and remanifested in each other. They are actually involved in
\nphysical Nature and must necessarily evolve out of it. They can be withdrawn
\ninto pure infinite Being and can again be manifested out of it. <\/p>\n

\nThe infolding and unfolding of the One in the Many and the Many in the <\/b>
\nOne is therefore the law of the eternally recurrent cosmic Cycles. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE VISION OF THE BRAHMAN <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe Upanishad teaches us how to perceive Brahman in the universe and in our
\nself-existence. <\/p>\n

\nWe have to perceive Brahman comprehensively as both the Stable and the Moving.
\nWe must see It in eternal and immutable Spirit and in all the changing
\nmanifestations of universe and relativity. <\/p>\n

\nWe have to perceive all things in Space and Time, the far and the near, the
\nimmemorial Past, the immediate Present, the infinite Future with all their
\ncontents and happenings as the One Brahman. <\/p>\n

\nWe have to perceive Brahman as that which exceeds, contains and supports all
\nindividual things as well as all universe, transcendentally of Time and Space
\nand Causality. We have to perceive It also as that which lives in and possesses
\nthe universe and all it contains. <\/p>\n

\nThis is the transcendental, universal and individual Brahman, Lord, Continent
\nand Indwelling Spirit, which is the object of all knowledge. Its realisation  is
\nthe condition of perfection and the way of Immortality. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\n\u00b9 Hrdya samudra,<\/i> Ocean of the Heart. Rv.
\nIV. 58. 5. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 86<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nSECOND
\nMOVEMENT<\/font><\/b> 
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n2. SELF-REALISATION<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nVerses 6-7* <\/span><\/p>\n

\nSELF-REALISATION <\/span><\/p>\n

\nBrahman is, subjectively, Atman, the Self or immutable existence of all that is
\nin the universe. Everything that changes in
\nus, mind, life body, character, temperament, action, is not our real and
\nunchanging self, but becomings of the Self in the movement, jagati.<\/i> <\/p>\n

\nIn Nature, therefore, all things that exist, animate or inanimate, are becomings
\nof the one Self of all. All these different creatures are one indivisible
\nexistence. This is the truth each being has to realise. <\/p>\n

\nWhen this unity has been realised by the individual in every part of hi3 being,
\nhe becomes perfect, pure, liberated from ego and the dualities, possessed of the
\nentire divine felicity. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

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

\nAtman, our true self, is Brahman; it is pure indivisible Being, self-luminous,
\nself-concentrated in consciousness, self-concentrated in force, self-delighted.
\nIts existence is light and bliss. It is timeless, spaceless and free. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE THREEFOLD PURUSHA<\/span>\u00b9<\/b><\/p>\n

\nAtman represents itself to the consciousness of the creature in three states,
\ndependent on the relations between puruṣ<\/span>a<\/i> and
\nprakṛ<\/span>ti,<\/i> the Soul and Nature. These three states are
\nakṣ<\/span>ara, <\/i>unmoving or immutable; kṣ<\/span>ara,<\/i>
\nmoving or mutable; and para<\/i> or uttama.<\/i> Supreme or Highest. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n*6 But he who sees everywhere the Self in all
\nexistences and all existences in the Self,  shrinks not thereafter from aught.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n7 He in whom it is the Self-Being that has
\nbecome all existences that are Becomings, for he has the perfect knowledge, how
\nshall he be deluded, whence shall he have grief who sees everywhere oneness?
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n1 Gita XV. 16, 17. See also XIII passim.<\/i>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 87<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nKshara Purusha is the Self reflecting the changes and movements of Nature,
\nparticipating in them, immersed in the consciousness of the movement and seeming
\nin it to be born and die, increase and diminish, progress and change. Atman, as
\nthe Kshara, enjoys change and division and duality; controls secretly its own
\nchanges but seems to be controlled by them; enjoys the oppositions of pleasure
\nand pain, good and bad, but appears to be their victim; possesses and upholds
\nthe action of Nature, by which it seems to be created. For, always and
\ninalienably, the Self is Ishwara, the Lord.<\/p>\n

\nAkshara Purusha is the Self, standing back from the changes and movements of
\nNature, calm, pure, impartial, indifferent, watching them and not participating,
\nabove them as on a summit, not immersed in these Waters. This calm Self is the
\nsky that never moves and changes looking down upon the waters that are never at
\nrest. The Akshara is the hidden freedom of the Kshara. <\/p>\n

\nPara Purusha or Purushottama is the Self containing and enjoying both the
\nstillness and the movement, but conditioned and limited by neither of them. It
\nis the Lord, Brahman, the All, the Indefinable and Unknowable. <\/p>\n

\nIt is this supreme Self that has to be realised in both the unmoving and the
\nmutable. <\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPURUSHA IN PRAKRITI<\/span>\u00b9<\/b><\/p>\n

\nAtman, the Self, represents itself differently in the sevenfold movement of
\nNature according to the dominant principle of the consciousness in the
\nindividual being. <\/p>\n

\nIn the physical consciousness Atman becomes the material being, annamaya
\npuruṣ<\/span>a.<\/i> <\/p>\n

\nIn the vital or nervous consciousness Atman becomes the vital or dynamic being,
\nprāṇamaya puruṣ<\/span>a.<\/i> <\/p>\n

\nIn the mental consciousness Atman becomes the mental being, manomaya puruṣ<\/span>a.<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\nIn the supra-intellectual consciousness, dominated by the Truth or causal Idea
\n(called in Veda satyam ṛ<\/span>tam bṛ<\/span>hat,<\/i>
\nthe
\nTrue, the Right, the Vast), Atman becomes the ideal being or <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n1 Taittiriya Upanishad<\/i> <\/b>II. 1-6.
\n<\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 88<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\ngreat Soul, vij\u00f1ānamaya puruṣa<\/i> or mahat ātman<\/i>\u00b9 <\/p>\n

\nIn the consciousness proper to the universal Beatitude, Atman becomes the
\nall-blissful being or all-enjoying and all-productive Soul, ānandamaya
\npuruṣa.<\/i> <\/p>\n

\nIn the consciousness proper to the infinite divine self-awareness which is also
\nthe infinite all-effective Will (cit-tapas), <\/i>Atman is the all-conscious
\nSoul that is source and lord of the universe, caitanya puruṣa.<\/i> <\/p>\n

\nIn the consciousness proper to the state of pure divine existence, Atman is
\nsat puruṣa,<\/i> the pure divine Self. <\/p>\n

\nMan, being one in his true Self with the Lord who inhabits all forms, can live
\nin any of these states of the Self in the world and partake of its experiences.
\n<\/b>He can be anything he wills from the material to the all-blissful being.
\nThrough the Anandamaya he can enter into the Chaitanya and Sat Purusha. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

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

\nSachchidananda is the manifestation of the higher Purusha; its nature of
\ninfinite being, consciousness, power and bliss is the higher Nature, parā
\nprakṛ<\/span>ti.<\/i> Mind, life and body are the lower nature,
\naparā prakṛ<\/span>ti.<\/i> <\/p>\n

\nThe state of Sachchidananda is the higher half of universal existence,
\nparārdha,<\/i> the nature of which is Immortality, amṛ<\/span>tam.
\n<\/i>The state of mortal existence in Matter is the lower half, aparārdha,<\/i>
\nthe nature of which is death, mṛ<\/span>tyu.<\/i> <\/p>\n

\nMind and life in the body are in the state of Death because by Ignorance they
\nfail to realise Sachchidananda. Realising perfectly Sachchidananda, they can
\nconvert themselves. Mind into the nature of the Truth, vij\u00f1āna.<\/i> Life into
\nthe nature of caitanya,<\/i> Body into the nature of sat,<\/i> that is, into
\nthe pure essence. <\/p>\n

\nWhen this cannot be done perfectly in the body, the soul realises its true state
\nin other forms of existence or worlds, the
\n"sunlit" worlds and states of felicity, and returns upon material existence to
\ncomplete its evolution in the body. <\/p>\n

\nA progressively perfect realisation in the body is the aim of human evolution.\n<\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9The mahat ātman<\/i> or Vast Self is
\nfrequently referred to in the Upanishads. It is also called bhūmā,<\/i> the
\nLarge. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 89<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nIt is also possible for the soul to withdraw for an indefinable period into the
\npure state of Sachchidananda. <\/p>\n

\nThe realisation of the Self as Sachchidananda is the aim of human existence. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE CONDITION OF SELF-REALISATION<\/span>\u00b9<\/b><\/p>\n

\nSachchidananda is always the pure state of Atman; it may either remain
\nself-contained as if apart from the universe or overlook, embrace and possess it
\nas the Lord. <\/p>\n

\nIn fact, it does both simultaneously. (Verse 8)<\/i> <\/p>\n

\nThe Lord pervades the universe as the Virat Purusha, the Cosmic Soul (paribhūḥ<\/span><\/i>
\nof the eighth verse, the One who becomes everywhere); He enters into each object
\nin the movement, to the Knowledge as Brahman supporting individual consciousness
\nand individual form, to the Ignorance as an individualised and limited being. He
\nmanifests as the Jivatman or individual self in the living creature. <\/p>\n

\nFrom the standpoint of our lower state in the kingdom of death and limitation
\nAtman is Sachchidananda, supra-mental, but reflected in the mind. If the mind is
\npure, bright and still, there is the right reflection; if it is unpurified,
\ntroubled and obscured, the reflection is distorted and subjected to the crooked
\naction of the Ignorance. <\/p>\n

\nAccording to the state of the reflecting mind we may have either purity of
\nself-knowledge or an obscuration and distortion of knowledge in the dualities of
\ntruth and error; a pure activity of unegoistic Will or an obscuration and
\ndeflection of Will in the dualities of right and wrong action, sin and virtue; a
\npure state  and unmixed play of beatitude or an obscuration and perversion of it
\nin the dualities of right and wrong enjoyment, pleasure and pain, joy and grief.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt is the mental ego-sense that creates this distortion by division and
\nlimitation of the Self. The limitation is brought about through the Kshara
\nPurusha identifying itself with the changeable <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9I have collected under this and the preceding
\nheadings the principal ideas of the Upanishads with regard to the Self, although
\nnot expressly mentioned or alluded to in our text, because they are
\nindispensable to an understanding of the complete philosophy of these Scriptures
\nand to the relations of the thought which is developed in the Isha. <\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 90<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nformations of Nature in the separate body, the individual life and the egoistic
\nmind, to the exclusion of the sense of unity with all
\nexistence and with all existences. <\/p>\n

\nThis exclusion is a fixed habit of the understanding due to our past evolution
\nin the movement, not an ineffugable law of human consciousness. Its diminution
\nand final disappearance are the condition of self-realisation.  <\/p>\n

\nThe beginning of wisdom, perfection and beatitude is the vision of the One. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE STAGES OF SELF-REALISATION <\/span><\/p>\n

\nTHE <\/span>VISION
\nOF THE <\/span>ALL <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\nThe first movement of self-realisation is the sense of unity with other
\nexistences in the universe. Its early or crude form is the attempt to understand
\nor sympathise with others, the tendency of a widening love or compassion or
\nfellow-feeling for others, the impulsion of work for the sake of others. <\/p>\n

\nThe oneness so realised is a pluralistic unity, the drawing together of similar
\nunits resulting in a collectivity or solidarity rather than in real oneness. The
\nMany remain to the consciousness as the real existences; the One is only their
\nresult.  <\/p>\n

\nReal knowledge begins with the perception of essential oneness,\u2014one Matter, one
\nLife, one Mind, one Soul playing in
\nmany forms. <\/p>\n

\nWhen this Soul of things is seen to be Sachchidananda, then knowledge is
\nperfected. For we see Matter to be only a play of Life, Life a play of Mind
\nenergising itself in substance, Mind a play of Truth or causal Idea representing
\ntruth of being variously in all possible mental forms. Truth a play of
\nSachchidananda, Sachchidananda the self-manifestation of a supreme Unknowable,
\nPara-Brahman or Para-Purusha. <\/p>\n

\nWe perceive the soul in all bodies to be this one Self or Sachchidananda
\nmultiplying itself in individual consciousness.
\nWe see also all minds, lives, bodies to be active formations of the same
\nexistence in the extended being of the Self. <\/p>\n

\nThis is the vision of all existences in the Self and of the Self in all
\nexistences which is the foundation of perfect internal liberty and perfect joy
\nand peace.  <\/i><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 91<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nFor by this vision, in proportion as it increases in intensity and completeness,
\nthere disappears from the individual mentality all jugupsā,<\/i> that is to
\nsay, all repulsion, shrinking, dislike, fear, hatred and other perversions of
\nfeeling which arise from division and personal opposition to other beings or to
\nthe objectivities that surround us. Perfect equality1 of soul is established.\n<\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nTHE VISION OF THE SELF IN ITS BECOMINGS <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nVision is not sufficient; one must become what inwardly one sees. The whole
\ninner life must be changed so as to represent perfectly in all parts of the
\nbeing what is understood by the intellect and seen by the inner perception. <\/p>\n

\nIn the individual soul extending itself to the All by the vision of unity
\n(ekatvam anupaśyataḥ<\/span>,<\/i> seeing everywhere oneness)
\narranging its thoughts, emotions and sensations according to the perfect
\nknowledge of the right relation of things which comes by the realisation of the
\nTruth (vijānataḥ<\/span>,<\/i> having the perfect knowledge),
\nthere must be repeated the divine act of consciousness by which the one Being,
\neternally self-existent, manifests in itself the multiplicity of the world
\n(sarvāṇi  bhūtāni ātmaiva abhūt,<\/i> the Self-Being became all Becomings). <\/p>\n

\nThat is to say, the human or egoistic view is that of a world of innumerable
\nseparate creatures each self-existent and different from the others, each trying
\nto get its utmost possible profit out of the others and the world, but the
\ndivine view, the way in which God sees the world, is Himself, as the sole Being,
\nliving in innumerable existences that are Himself, supporting all, helping all
\nimpartially, working out to a divine fulfilment and under terms fixed from the
\nbeginning, from years sempiternal, a great progressive harmony of Becoming whose
\nlast term is Sachchidananda or Immortality. This is the viewpoint of the Self as
\nLord inhabiting the whole movement. The individual soul has to change the human
\nor egoistic for the divine, supreme and universal view and live in that
\nrealisation. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9The state described in the Gita as samatva.
\nJugupsā<\/i> is the feeling of repulsion caused by the sense of a want of harmony
\nbetween one’s own limited self-formation and the contacts of the external with a
\nconsequent recoil of grief, fear, hatred, discomfort, suffering. It is the
\nopposite of attraction which is the source of desire and attachment. Repulsion
\nand attraction removed, we have samatva.<\/i> <\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 92<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nIt is necessary, therefore, to have the knowledge of the transcendent Self, the
\nsole unity, in the equation so’ham, <\/i>I am He, and in that knowledge to
\nextend one’s conscious existence so as to embrace the whole Multiplicity. <\/p>\n

\nThis is the double or synthetic ideal of the Isha Upanishad; to embrace
\nsimultaneously Vidya and Avidya, the <\/b>One and the Many; to exist in the
\nworld, but change the terms of the Death into the terms of the Immortality; to
\nhave the freedom and peace of the Non-Birth simultaneously with the activity of
\nthe Birth. (Verses 9-14).<\/i> <\/p>\n

\nAll parts of the lower being must consent to this realisation; to perceive with
\nthe intellect is not enough. The heart must consent in a universal love and
\ndelight, the sense-mind in a sensation of God and self everywhere, the life in
\nthe comprehension of all aims and energies in the world as part of its own
\nbeing. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nTHE ACTIVE BEATITUDE <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis realisation is the perfect and complete Beatitude, embracing action, but
\ndelivered from sorrow and self-delusion. <\/p>\n

\nThere is no possibility of self-delusion (moha);<\/i> for the soul, having
\nattained to the perception of the Unknowable behind all existence, is no longer
\nattached to the Becoming and no longer attributes an absolute value to any
\nparticularity in the universe, as if that were an object in itself and desirable
\nin itself. All is enjoyable and has a value as the manifestation of the Self and
\nfor the sake of the Self which is manifested in it, but none for its own.\u00b9 
\nDesire and illusion are removed; illusion is replaced by knowledge, desire by
\nthe active beatitude of universal possession.  <\/p>\n

\nThere is no possibility of sorrow; for all is seen as Sachchidananda and
\ntherefore in the terms of the infinite conscious existence, the infinite will,
\nthe infinite felicity. Even pain and grief are seen to be perverse terms of
\nAnanda, and that Ananda which they veil here and for which they prepare the
\nlower existence (for all suffering in the evolution is a preparation of strength
\nand bliss) is already seized, known and enjoyed by the soul thus liberated and
\nperfected. For it possesses the eternal Reality of which they are the
\nappearances. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\n\u00b9 Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.<\/i> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 93<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nThus it is possible, by the realisation of the unity of God and the world (īś<\/i>
\nand jagat)<\/i> in the complete knowledge of the Brahman, to renounce desire
\nand illusion through the ascent to the pure Self and the Non-Becoming and yet to
\nenjoy by means of all things in the manifestation God in the universe through a
\nfree and illuminated self-identification with Sachchidananda in all existences.\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

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

\nWe have, therefore, in the second movement the explanation of the first verse of
\nthe Upanishad. The first line, asserting that all souls are the one Lord
\ninhabiting every object in the universe and that every object is universe in
\nuniverse, movement in the general movement, has been explained in the terms of
\ncomplete oneness by the Brahman, transcendental and universal even in the
\nindividual. One in the Many, Many in the One, Stable and Motional, exceeding and
\nreconciling all opposites. The second line, fixing as the rule of divine life
\nuniversal renunciation of desire as the condition of universal enjoyment in the
\nspirit, has been explained by the state of self-realisation, the realisation of
\nthe free and transcendent Self as one’s own true being, of that Self as
\nSachchidananda and of the universe seen as the Becoming of Sachchidananda and
\npossessed in the terms of the right Knowledge and no longer in the terms of the
\nIgnorance which is the cause of all attraction and repulsion, self-delusion and
\nsorrow.  <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 94<\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\nTHIRD MOVEMENT<\/font><\/b>  <\/font><\/p>\n


\nI. THE LORD<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Verse 8 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n"HE" <\/span><\/p>\n

In its third movement the Upanishad takes up the
\njustification of works already stated in general terms in its second verse and
\nfounds it more precisely upon the conception of Brahman or the Self as the Lord,
\n\u2014 īś, īśvara, para puruṣ<\/span>a, saḥ<\/span><\/i>
\n(He) \u2014 who is the cause of personality and governs by His law of works the
\nrhythm of the Movement and the process of the worlds that He conceives and
\nrealises throughout eternal Time in His own  self-existence. <\/p>\n

It is an error to conceive that the Upanishads teach the
\ntrue existence only of an impersonal and actionless Brahman, an impersonal God
\nwithout power or qualities. They declare rather an Unknowable that manifests
\nitself to us in a double aspect of Personality and Impersonality. When they wish
\nto speak of this Unknowable in the most comprehensive and general way, they use
\nthe neuter and call it tat.<\/i> That; but this neuter does not exclude the
\naspect of universal and transcendent Personality acting and governing the world
\n(cf. Kena Upanishad<\/i> III). Still, when they intend to make prominent the
\nlatter idea they more often prefer to use the masculine sah.<\/i> He, or else
\nthey employ the term Deva, God or the Divine, or Purusha, the conscious Soul, of
\nwhom Prakriti or Maya is the executive Puissance, the Shakti. <\/p>\n

The Isha Upanishad, having declared the Brahman as the sole
\nreality manifesting itself in many aspects and forms, having presented this
\nBrahman subjectively as the Self, the one Being of whom all existences are
\nBecomings, and as that which we have <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n*8 It is He that has gone abroad \u2014 That which is
\nbright, bodiless, without scar of imperfection, without sinews, pure, unpierced
\nby evil. The Seer, the Thinker, the <\/b>One who becomes everywhere, the
\nSelf-existent has ordered objects perfectly according to their nature from years
\nsempiternal. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 95<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nto realise in ourselves and in all things and beyond all things, now proceeds to
\nassert the same Brahman more objectively as the Lord, the Purusha who both
\ncontains and inhabits the universe. <\/p>\n

It is He that went abroad. This Brahman, this Self is
\nidentical with the Lord, the Ish, with whose name the Upanishad opens, the
\nInhabitant of all forms: and, as we shall find, identical with the universal
\nPurusha of the 16th verse,\u2014"The Purusha there and there. He am I." It is He who
\nhas become all things and beings, \u2014 a conscious Being, the sole Existent and
\nSelf-existent, who is Master and Enjoyer of all He becomes. And the Upanishad
\nproceeds to formulate the nature and manner, the general law of that becoming of
\nGod which we call the world. For on this conception depends the Vedic idea of
\nthe two poles of death and immortality, the reason for the existence of Avidya,
\nthe Ignorance, and the justification of works in the world. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nTRANSITIONAL THOUGHT<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTHE <\/span>DIVINE
\n<\/span>PERSONALITY <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

The-Vedantic idea of God, <\/b>"He", Deva or Ishwara, must
\nnot be confused with the ordinary notions attached to the conception of a
\nPersonal God. Personality is generally conceived as identical with individuality
\nand the vulgar idea of a Personal God is a magnified individual like man in His
\nnature but yet different, greater, more vast and all-overpowering. Vedanta
\nadmits the human manifestation of Brahman in man and to man, but does not admit
\nthat this is the real nature of the Ishwara. <\/p>\n

God is Sachchidananda. <\/b>He manifests Himself as
\ninfinite existence of which the essentiality is consciousness, of which again
\nthe essentiality is bliss, is self-delight. Delight cognising variety of itself,
\nseeking its own variety, as it were, becomes the universe. But these are
\nabstract terms; abstract ideas in themselves cannot produce concrete realities.
\nThey are impersonal states; impersonal states cannot in themselves produce
\npersonal activities. <\/p>\n

This becomes still clearer if we consider the manifestation
\nof Sachchidananda. In that manifestation Delight translates itself into Love;
\nConsciousness translates itself into double terms, conceptive Knowledge,
\nexecutive Force; Existence translates  \n\t\t<\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 96<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nitself into Being, that is to say, into Person and Substance. But Love is
\nincomplete without a Lover and an object of Love, Knowledge without a Knower and
\nan object of Knowledge, Force without a Worker and a Work, Substance without a
\nPerson cognising and constituting it. <\/p>\n

This is because the original terms also are not really
\nimpersonal abstractions. In delight of Brahman there is an Enjoyer of delight in
\nconsciousness of Brahman a Conscient, in existence of Brahman an Existent; but
\nthe object of Brahman’s delight and consciousness and the term and stuff of Its
\nexistence are Itself. In the divine Being Knowledge, the Knower and the Known
\nand, therefore, necessarily also Delight, the Enjoyer and the Enjoyed are one.\n<\/p>\n

This Self-Awareness and Self-Delight of Brahman has two
\nmodes of its Force of consciousness, its Prakriti or Maya, intensive in
\nself-absorption, diffusive in self-extension. The intensive mode is proper to
\nthe pure and silent Brahman; the diffusive to the active Brahman. It is the
\ndiffusion of the Self-existent in the term and stuff of <\/b>His own existence
\nthat we call the world, the becoming or the perpetual movement (bhuvanam,
\njagat).<\/i> It is Brahman that becomes; what He becomes is also the Brahman. The
\nobject of Love is the self of the Lover; the work is the self-figuration of the
\nWorker; Universe is body and action of the Lord. <\/p>\n

When, therefore, we consider the abstract and impersonal
\naspect of the infinite existence, we say, That"; when we consider the Existent
\nself-aware and self-blissful, we say, "He". Neither conception is entirely
\ncomplete. Brahman itself is the Unknowable beyond all conceptions of Personality
\nand Impersonality. We may call it "That" to show that we exile from our
\naffirmation all term and definition. We may equally call it "He", provided we
\nspeak with the same intention of rigorous exclusion. Tat<\/i> and saḥ<\/span><\/i>
\nare always the same. <\/b>One that escapes definition. <\/p>\n

In the universe there is a constant relation of Oneness and
\nMultiplicity. This expresses itself as the universal Personality and the many
\nPersons, and both between the <\/b>One and the Many and among the Many
\nthemselves there is the possibility of an infinite variety of relations. These
\nrelations are determined by     <\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 97<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nThe play of the divine existence, the Lord, entering into His manifested
\nhabitations. They exist at first as conscious relations between individual
\nsouls; they are then taken up by them and used as a means of entering into
\nconscious relation with the One. It is this entering into various relations with
\nthe One which is the object and function of Religion. All religions are
\njustified by this essential necessity; all express one Truth in various ways and
\nmove by various paths to one goal. <\/p>\n

The Divine Personality reveals Himself in various forms and
\nnames to the individual soul. These forms and names are in a sense created in
\nthe human consciousness; in another they are eternal symbols revealed by the
\nDivine who thus concretises Himself in mind-form to the multiple consciousness
\nand aids it in its return to its own Unity.\u00b9<\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nHE THAT WENT ABROAD <\/span><\/p>\n

It is He that has extended Himself in the relative
\nconsciousness whose totality of finite and changeable circumstances dependent on
\nan equal immutable and eternal Infinity is what we call the Universe. Sa
\nparyagāt.<\/i> In this extension we have, therefore, two aspects, one of pure
\ninfinite relationless immutability, another of a totality of objects in Time and
\nSpace working out their relations through causality. Both are different and
\nmutually complementary expressions of the same unknowable "He". <\/p>\n

To express the infinite Immutability the Upanishad uses a
\nseries of neuter adjectives, "Bright, bodiless, without scar, without sinews,
\npure, unpierced by evil." <\/b>To express the same Absolute as cause,
\ncontinent and governing Inhabitant of the totality of objects and of each object
\nin the totality (jagatyām jagat)<\/i> it uses four masculine epithets, "The
\nSeer, the Thinker, the One who becomes everywhere, the Self-existent" or "the
\nSelf-Becoming". <\/p>\n

The Immutable is the still and secret foundation of the play
\nand the movement, extended equally, impartially in all things, samam brahma,\u00b2
\n<\/i> lending its support to all without choice or <\/p>\n

 <\/b><\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/span><\/b>It
\nwould be an error to suppose that these conceptions are in their essence later
\ndevelopments of philosophical Hinduism. The conception of the many forms and
\nnames of the One is as old as the Rig-veda. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00b2 "The equal Brahman". \u2014 Gita. <\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 98<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nactive participation. Secure and free in His eternal immutability the Lord
\nprojects Himself into the play and the movement, becoming there in His
\nself-existence all that the Seer in Him visualises and the Thinker in Him
\nconceives. Kavir manīṣī<\/span> paribhūḥ
\n<\/span>svayambhūḥ<\/span>.<\/i> <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE PURE IMMUTABLE <\/span><\/p>\n

The pure immutability of the Lord is "bright". It is
\nluminosity of pure concentrated Self-awareness, not broken by re-fractions, not
\nbreaking out into colour and form. It is the pure self-knowledge of the Purusha,
\nthe conscious Soul, with his Power, his executive Force contained and inactive.\n<\/p>\n

It is "bodiless", \u2014 without form, indivisible and without
\nappearance of division. It is one equal Purusha in all things, not divided by
\nthe divisions of Space and Time, \u2014 a pure self-conscious Absolute. <\/p>\n

It is without scar, that is, without defect, break or
\nimperfection. It is untouched and unaffected by the mutabilities. It supports
\ntheir clash of relations, their play of more and less, of increase and
\ndiminution, of irruption and interpenetration. For Itself is without action,
\nacalaḥ<\/span> sanātanaḥ<\/span>,<\/i>\u00b9
\n"motionless, sempiternal." <\/p>\n

It is without sinews. The reason for Its being without scar
\nis that It does not put out Power, does not dispense Force in multiple channels,
\ndoes not lose it here, increase it there, replenish its loss or seek by love or
\nby violence its complementary or its food. It is without nerves of force; It
\ndoes not pour itself out in the energies of the Pranic dynamism, of Life, of
\nMatarishwan. <\/p>\n

It is pure, unpierced by evil. What we call sin or evil, is
\nmerely excess and defect, wrong placement, inharmonious action and reaction. By
\nits equality, by its inaction even while it supports all action, the conscious
\nSoul retains its eternal freedom and eternal purity. For it is unmodified; It
\nwatches as the Sakshi, the witness, the modifications effected by Prakriti, but
\ndoes not partake of them, does not get clogged with them, receives not their
\nimpression. Na lipyate.<\/i> <\/p>\n

 <\/i><\/p>\n

\u00b9Gita <\/b>II.<\/b> 24.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n


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\n
<\/div>\n

\nTHE SOUL INALIENABLY FREE <\/span><\/p>\n

 What is the relation of the active Brahman and of the human
\nsoul to this pure Inactive? They too are That, Action does not change the nature
\nof the Self, but only the nature of the diverse forms, The Self is always
\npure,<\/i> blissful perfect, whether inactive or participating in action. <\/p>\n

The Self is all things and exceeds them. It exceeds always
\nthat in which the mind is engrossed, that which it takes in a particular time
\nand space as a figure of itself. The boundless whole is always perfect. The
\ntotality of things is a complete harmony without wound or flaw. The viewpoint of
\nthe part taken for a whole, in other words the Ignorance, is the broken
\nreflection which creates the consciousness of limitation, incompleteness and
\ndiscord. We shall see that this Ignorance has a use in the play of the Brahman;
\nbut in itself it appears at first to be only a parent of evil. <\/p>\n

Ignorance is a veil that separates the mind, body and life
\nfrom their source and reality, Sachchidananda. Thus obscured the mind feels
\nitself pierced by the evil that Ignorance creates. But the Active Brahman is
\nalways Sachchidananda using for its self-becoming the forms of mind, body and
\nlife. All their experiences are therefore seen by It in the terms of
\nSachchidananda. It is not pierced by the evil. For It also is the One and sees
\neverywhere Oneness. It is not mastered by the Ignorance that It uses as a minor
\nterm of its conception. <\/p>\n

The human soul is one with the Lord; it also is in its
\ncompleteness Sachchidananda using Ignorance as the minor term of its being. But
\nit has projected its conceptions into this minor term and established there in
\nlimited mind its centre of vision, its viewpoint. It assumes to itself the
\nincompleteness and the resultant sense of want, discord, desire, suffering. The
\nReal Man behind is not affected by all this confusion; but the apparent or
\nexterior Man is affected. To recover its freedom it must recover its
\ncompleteness; it must identify itself with the divine Inhabitant within, its
\ntrue and complete self. It can then, like the Lord, conduct the action of
\nPrakriti without undergoing the false impression of identification with the
\nresults of its action. It is this idea on which the Upanishad bases the
\nassertion, "Action cleaveth not to a man." <\/p>\n


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\n
<\/div>\n

To this end it must recover the silent Brahman within. The
\nLord possesses always His double term and conducts the action of the universe,
\nextended in it, but not attached to or limited by His works. The human soul,
\nentangled in mind, is obscured in vision by the rushing stream of Prakriti’s
\nworks and fancies itself to be a part of that stream and swept in its currents
\nand in its eddies. It has to go back in its self-existence to the silent Purusha
\neven while participating in its self-becoming in the movement of Prakriti. It
\nbecomes then, not only like the silent Purusha, the witness and upholder, but
\nalso the Lord and the free enjoyer of Prakriti and her works. An absolute calm
\nand passivity, purity and equality within, a sovereign and inexhaustible
\nactivity without is the nature of Brahman as we see it manifested in the
\nuniverse. <\/p>\n

There is therefore no farther objection to works. On the
\ncontrary, works are justified by the participation or self-identification of the
\nsoul with the Lord in His double aspect of passivity and activity. Tranquillity
\nfor the Soul, activity for the
\nenergy, is the balance of the divine rhythm in man. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nTHE LAW OF THINGS <\/span><\/p>\n

The totality of objects (arthān)<\/i> is the becoming of
\nthe Lord in the extension of <\/b>His own being. Its principle is double.
\nThere is consciousness; there is Being. Consciousness dwells in energy
\n(tapas)<\/i> upon its self-being to produce Idea of itself {vij\u00f1ana) <\/i>and
\nform and action inevitably corresponding to the Idea. This is the original
\nIndian conception of creation, self-production or projection into form (sṛ<\/span>ṣ<\/span>ṭ<\/span>i,
\nprasava).<\/i> Being uses its self-awareness to evolve infinite forms of itself
\ngoverned by the expansion of the innate Idea in the form. This is the original
\nIndian conception of evolution, prominent in certain philosophies such as the
\nSankhya (pariṇā<\/span>ma, vikāra, vivarta).<\/i> It is the
\nsame phenomenon diversely stated. <\/p>\n

In the idea of some thinkers the world is a purely
\nsubjective evolution {vivarta),<\/i> not real as objective facts; in the idea
\nof others it is an objective fact, a real modification (pariṇā<\/span>ma),
\n<\/i>but one which makes no difference to the essence of Being. Both notions
\nclaim to derive from the Upanishads as their authority, <\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 101<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nand their opposition comes in fact by the separation of what in the ancient
\nVedanta was viewed as one, \u2014 as we see in this passage. <\/p>\n

Brahman is His own subject and His own object, whether in
\nHis pure self-existence or in His varied self-becoming. He is the object of His
\nown self-awareness; He is the Knower of His own self-being. The two aspects are
\ninseparable, even though they seem to disappear into each other and emerge again
\nfrom each other. All appearance of pure subjectivity holds itself as an object
\nimplicit in its very subjectivity; all appearance of pure objectivity holds
\nitself as subject implicit in its very objectivity. <\/p>\n

All objective existence is the Self-existent, the
\nSelf-becoming, svayambhū,<\/i> becoming by the force of the Idea within it.
\nThe Idea is, self-contained, the Fact that it becomes. For svayambhū sees <\/i>
\nor comprehends Himself in the essence of the Fact as kavi<\/i> thinks Himself
\nout in the evolution of its possibilities as manīṣī<\/span>,<\/i>
\nbecomes form of Himself in the movement in Space and Time as paribhū. <\/i>
\nThese three are one operation appearing as successive in the relative, temporal
\nand spatial Consciousness. <\/p>\n

It follows that every object holds in itself the law of its
\nown being eternally, śāśvatībhyaḥ<\/span> samābhyaḥ<\/span>,<\/i>
\nfrom years sempiternal, in perpetual Time. All relations in the totality of
\nobjects are thus determined by their Inhabitant, the Self-existent, the
\nSelf-becoming, and stand contained in the nature of things by the omnipresence
\nof the One, the Lord, by His self-vision which is their inherent subjective
\nTruth, by His self-becoming which, against a background of boundless
\npossibilities, is the Law of their inevitable evolution in the objective Fact.\n<\/p>\n

Therefore all things are arranged by Him perfectly,
\nyāthā-tathyataḥ<\/span><\/i> as they should be in their nature.
\nThere is an imperative harmony in the All, which governs the apparent discords
\nof individualisation. That discord would be real and operate in eternal chaos,
\nif there were only a mass of individual forms and forces, if each form and force
\ndid not contain in itself and were not in its reality the self-existent All, the
\nLord. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE PROCESS OF THINGS <\/span><\/p>\n

The Lord appears to us in the relative notion of the process\n<\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 102<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nof things first as Kavi, the Wise, the Seer. The Kavi sees the Truth in itself
\nthe truth in its becoming, in its essence, possibilities, actuality. He contains
\nall that in the Idea, the Vijnana, called the Truth and Law, satyam ṛ<\/span>tam.<\/i>
\nHe contains it comprehensively, not piecemeal; the Truth and Law of things is
\nthe bṛ<\/span>hat,<\/i> the Large. Viewed by itself, the realm
\nof Vijnana would seem a realm of predetermination, of concentration, of
\ncompelling seed-state. But it is a determination not in previous Time, but in
\nperpetual Time; a Fate compelled by the Soul, not compelling it, compelling
\nrather the action and result, present in the expansion of the movement as well
\nas in the concentration of the Idea. Therefore the truth of the Soul is freedom
\nand mastery, not subjection and bondage. Purusha commands Prakriti, Prakriti
\ndoes not compel Purusha. Na karma lipyate nare.<\/i> <\/p>\n

The Manishi takes his stand in the possibilities. He has
\nbehind him the freedom of the Infinite and brings it in as a background for the
\ndetermination of the finite. Therefore every action in the world seems to emerge
\nfrom a balancing and clashing of various possibilities. None of these, however,
\nare effective in the determination except by their secret consonance with the
\nLaw of that which has to become. The Kavi is in the Manishi and upholds him in
\nhis working. But viewed by itself the realm of the Manishi would seem to be a
\nstate of plasticity, of free-will, of the interaction of forces, but of a
\nfree-will in thought which is met by a fate in things. <\/p>\n

For the action of the Manishi is meant to eventuate in the
\nbecoming of the Paribhu. The Paribhu, called also Virat, extends Himself in the
\nrealm of eventualities. <\/b>He fulfils what is contained in the Truth, what
\nworks out in the possibilities reflected by the mind, what appears to us as the
\nfact objectively realised. The realm of Virat would seem, if taken separately,
\nto be that of a Law and Predetermination which compels all things that evolve in
\nthat realm, \u2014 the iron chain of Karma, the rule of mechanical necessity, the
\ndespotism of an inexplicable Law. <\/p>\n

But the becoming of Virat is always the becoming of the
\nself-existent Lord, \u2014 paribhūḥ<\/span> svayambhūḥ<\/span>.<\/i>
\nTherefore to  realise the truth of that becoming we have to go back and
\nre-embrace all that stands behind: \u2014 we have to return to the full truth of the\n<\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 103<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nfree and infinite Sachchidananda. <\/p>\n

This is the truth of things as seen from above and from the
\nUnity. It is the divine standpoint; but we have to take account of the human
\nstandpoint which starts from below, proceeds from the Ignorance, and perceives
\nthese principles successively, not comprehensively, as separate states of
\nconsciousness. Humanity is that which returns in experience to Sachchidananda,
\nand it must begin from below, in Avidya, with the mind embodied in matter, the
\nThinker imprisoned and emerging from the objective Fact. This imprisoned Thinker
\nis Man, the "Manu". <\/p>\n

He has to start from death and division and arrive at unity
\nand immortality. He has to realise the universal in the individual and the
\nAbsolute in the relative. He is Brahman growing self-conscious in the objective
\nmultiplicity. He is the ego in the cosmos vindicating himself as the All and the
\nTranscendent. <\/p>\n


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\n
<\/div>\n

\nTHIRD
\nMOVEMENT<\/font><\/b> 
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n2. KNOWLEDGE AND IGNORANCE
\n <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nVerses 9-11* \n<\/p>\n

\nVIDYA AND AVIDYA <\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll manifestation proceeds by the two terms, Vidya and Avidya, the consciousness
\nof Unity and the consciousness of Multiplicity. They are the two aspects of the
\nMaya, the formative self-conception of the Eternal. <\/p>\n

\nUnity is the eternal and fundamental fact, without which all multiplicity would
\nbe unreal and an impossible illusion. The consciousness of Unity is therefore
\ncalled Vidya, the Knowledge. <\/p>\n

\nMultiplicity is the play or varied self-expansion of the One, shifting in its
\nterms, divisible in its view of itself, by force of which the One occupies many
\ncentres of consciousness, inhabits many .formations of energy in the universal
\nMovement. Multiplicity is implicit or explicit in unity. Without it the Unity
\nwould be either a void of non-existence or a powerless, sterile limitation to
\nthe state of indiscriminate self-absorption or of blank repose. <\/p>\n

\nBut the consciousness of multiplicity separated from the true knowledge in the
\nmany of their own essential oneness, \u2014 the viewpoint of the separate ego
\nidentifying itself with the divided form and the limited action, \u2014 is a state of
\nerror and delusion. In man this is the form taken by the consciousness of
\nmultiplicity. Therefore it is given the name of Avidya, the Ignorance. <\/p>\n

\nBrahman, the Lord, is one and all-blissful, but free from limitation by His
\nunity; all-powerful. He is able to conceive Himself from multiple centres in
\nmultiple forms from which and upon <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\n*9 Into a blind darkness they enter who follow
\nafter the Ignorance, they as if into a greater darkness who devote themselves to
\nthe Knowledge alone. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n10 Other, verily, it is said, is that which
\ncomes by the Knowledge, other that which comes by the Ignorance; this is the
\nlore we have received from the wise who revealed That to our understanding.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n11 He who knows That as both in one, the
\nKnowledge and the Ignorance, by the Ignorance crosses beyond death and by the
\nKnowledge enjoys Immortality. <\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 105<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nwhich flow multiple currents of energy, seen by us as actions or play of forces.
\nWhen He is thus multiple., He is not bound by His multiplicity, but amid all
\nvariations dwells eternally in His own oneness. He is Lord of Vidya and Avidya.
\nThey are the two sides of His self-conception (Maya), the twin powers of His
\nEnergy (Chit-Shakti). <\/p>\n

\nBrahman, exceeding as well as dwelling in the play of His Maya, is īś,<\/i>
\nlord of it and free. Man, dwelling in the play, is anis,<\/i> not lord, not
\nfree, subject to Avidya. But this subjection is itself a play of the Ignorance,
\nunreal in essential fact (paramārtha),<\/i> real only in practical relation
\n(vyavahāra),<\/i> in the working out of the actions of the divine Energy, the
\nChit-Shakti. To get back to the essential fact of his freedom he must recover
\nthe sense of Oneness, the consciousness of Brahman, of the Lord, realise his
\noneness in Brahman and with the Lord. Recovering his freedom, realising his
\noneness with all existences as becomings of the One Being who is always himself
\n(so’ham asmi,<\/i> <\/b>He am I), he is able to carry out divine actions in
\nthe world,  no longer subject to the Ignorance, because free in the Knowledge.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe perfection of man, therefore, is the full manifestation of the Divine in the
\nindividual through the supreme accord between Vidya and Avidya. Multiplicity
\nmust become conscious of its oneness, Oneness embrace its multiplicity. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE EXTREME PATHS <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe purpose of the Lord in the world cannot be fulfilled by following Vidya
\nalone or Avidya alone.  <\/p>\n

\nThose who are devoted entirely to the principle of multiplicity and division and
\ntake their orientation away from oneness enter into a blind darkness of
\nIgnorance. For this tendency is one of increasing contraction and limitation,
\ndisaggregation of the gains of knowledge and greater and greater subjection to
\nthe mechanical necessities of Prakriti and finally to her separative and
\nself-destructive forces. To turn away from the progression towards Oneness is to
\nturn away from existence and from light. <\/p>\n

\nThose who are devoted entirely to the principle of indiscriminate Unity and seek
\nto put away from them the integrality of the Brahman, also put away from them
\nknowledge and completeness  \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 106<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nand enter as if into a greater darkness. They enter into some special state and
\naccept it for the whole, mistaking exclusion in consciousness for transcendence
\nin consciousness. They ignore by choice of knowledge, as the others are ignorant
\nby compulsion of error. Knowing all to transcend all is the right path of Vidya.\n<\/p>\n

\nAlthough a higher state than the other, this supreme Night is termed a greater
\ndarkness, because the lower is one of chaos from which reconstitution is always
\npossible, the higher is a conception of Void or Asat, an attachment to
\nnon-existence of Self from which it is more difficult to return to fulfilment of
\nSelf. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE GAINS IN EITHER PATH <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPursued with a less entire attachment the paths of Vidya and Avidya have each
\ntheir legitimate gains for the human soul, but neither of these are the full and
\nperfect thing undertaken by the individual in the manifestation. <\/p>\n

\nBy Vidya one may attain to the state of the silent Brahman or the Akshara
\nPurusha regarding the universe without actively participating in it or to His
\nself-absorbed state of Chit in Sat from which the universe proceeds and towards
\nwhich it returns. Both these states are conditions of serenity, plenitude,
\nfreedom from the confusions and sufferings of the world. <\/p>\n

\nBut the highest goal of man is neither fulfilment in the movement as a separate
\nindividual nor in the Silence separated from the movement, but in the Uttama
\nPurusha, the Lord, He who went abroad and upholds in Himself both the Kshara and
\nthe Akshara as modes of His being. The self of man, the Jivatman, is here in
\norder to realise in the individual and for the universe that one highest Self of
\nall. The ego created by Avidya is a necessary mechanism for affirming
\nindividuality in the universal as a starting-point for this supreme achievement.\n<\/p>\n

\nBy Avidya one may attain to a sort of fullness of power, joy, world-knowledge,
\nlargeness of being, which is that of the Titans or of the Gods;, of Indra, of
\nPrajapati. This is gained in the path of self-enlargement by an ample acceptance
\nof the multiplicity in all its possibilities and a constant enrichment of the
\nindividual by all the materials that the universe can pour into him. But this\n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 107<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nalso is not the goal of man; for though it brings transcendence of the ordinary
\nhuman limits, it does not bring the divine transcendence of the universe in the
\nLord of the universe. One transcends confusion of Ignorance, but not limitation
\nof Know-ledge,\u2014transcends death of the body, but not limitation of being, \u2014
\ntranscends subjection to sorrow, but not subjection to joy, \u2014 transcends the
\nlower Prakriti, but not the higher. To gain the real freedom and the perfect
\nImmortality one would have to descend again to all that had been rejected and
\nmake the right use of death, sorrow and ignorance. <\/p>\n

\nThe real knowledge is that which perceives Brahman in His integrality and does
\nnot follow eagerly after one consciousness rather than another, is no more
\nattached to Vidya than to Avidya. This was the knowledge of the ancient sages
\nwho were dhīra,<\/i> steadfast in the gaze of their thought, not drawn away
\nfrom the completeness of knowledge by one light or by another and whose
\nperception of Brahman was consequently entire and comprehensive and their
\nteaching founded on that perception equally entire and comprehensive
\n(vicacakṣ<\/span>ire).<\/i> It is the knowledge handed down from
\nthese Ancients that is being set forth in the Upanishad. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE COMPLETE PATH <\/span><\/p>\n

\nBrahman embraces in His manifestation both Vidya and Avidya and if they are both
\npresent in the manifestation, it is because they are both necessary to its
\nexistence and its accomplishment. Avidya subsists because Vidya supports and
\nembraces it; Vidya depends upon Avidya for the preparation and the advance of
\nthe soul towards the great Unity. Neither could exist without the other; for if
\neither were abolished, they would both pass away into something which would be
\nneither the one nor the other, something inconceivable and ineffable beyond all
\nmanifestation. <\/p>\n

\nIn the worst Ignorance there is some point of the knowledge which constitutes
\nthat form of Ignorance and some support of Unity which prevents it in its most
\nextreme division, limitation, obscurity from ceasing to exist by dissolving into
\nnothingness. The destiny of the Ignorance is not that it should be dissolved
\nout   \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 108<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nof existence, but that its elements should be enlightened, united, that which
\nthey strive to express delivered, fulfilled and in the fulfilment transmuted and
\ntransfigured. <\/p>\n

\nIn the uttermost unity of which knowledge is capable the contents of the
\nMultiplicity are inherent and implicit and can any moment be released into
\nactivity. The office of Vidya is not to destroy Avidya as a thing that ought
\nnever to have been manifested but to draw it continually towards itself,
\nsupporting it the while and helping it to deliver itself progressively from that
\ncharacter of Ignorance, of the oblivion of its essential Oneness, which gives it
\nits name. <\/p>\n

\nAvidya fulfilled by turning more and more to Vidya enables the individual and
\nthe universal to become what the Lord is in Himself, conscious of <\/b>His
\nmanifestation, conscious of His non- manifestation, free in birth, free in
\nnon-birth. <\/p>\n

\nMan represents the point at which the multiplicity in the universe becomes
\nconsciously capable of this turning and fulfilment. His own natural fulfilment
\ncomes by following the complete path of Avidya surrendering itself to Vidya, the
\nMultiplicity to the Unity, the Ego to the One in all and beyond all, and of
\nVidya accepting Avidya into itself, the Unity fulfilling the Multiplicity, the
\n<\/b>One manifesting Himself unveiled in the individual and in the universe. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nMORTALITY AND IMMORTALITY<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMORTALITY <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\nBy Avidya fulfilled man passes beyond death, by Vidya accepting Avidya into
\nitself he enjoys immortality.  <\/p>\n

\nBy death is meant the state of mortality which is a subjection to the process of
\nconstant birth and dying as a limited ego bound to the dualities of joy and
\nsorrow, good and evil, truth and error, love and hatred, pleasure and suffering.\n<\/p>\n

\nThis state comes by limitation and self-division from the One who is all and in
\nall and beyond all and by attachment of the idea of self to a single formation
\nin Time and Space of body, life and mind, by which the Self excludes from its
\nview all that it verily is with the exception of a mass of experiences flowing
\nout from and in upon a particular centre and limited by the capacities of a  \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 109<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nparticular mental, vital and bodily frame. This mass of experiences it organises
\naround the ego-centre in the mind and linking them together in Time by a double
\naction of memory, passive in state, active in work, says continually, "This is
\nI," <\/p>\n

\nThe result is that the soul attributes to itself a certain portion only of the
\nplay of Prakriti or Chit-Shakti and consequently a certain limited capacity of
\nforce of consciousness which has to bear all the impact of what the soul does
\nnot regard as itself but as a rush of alien forces; against them it defends its
\nseparate formation of individuality from dissolution into Nature or mastery by
\nNature. It seeks to assert in the individual form and by its means its innate
\ncharacter of Ish or Lord and so to possess and enjoy its world. <\/p>\n

\nBut by the very definition of the ego its capacity is limited. It accepts as
\nitself a form made of the movement of Nature which cannot endure in the general
\nflux of things. It has to form it by the process of the movement and this is
\nbirth, it dissolves it by the process of the movement and this is death. <\/p>\n

\nIt can master by the understanding only so much of its experiences as assimilate
\nwith its own viewpoint and in a way which must always be imperfect and subject
\nto error because it is not the view of all or the viewpoint of the All. Its
\nknowledge is partly error and all the rest it ignores. <\/p>\n

\nIt can only accept and harmonise itself with a certain number of its
\nexperiences, precisely because these are the only ones it can understand
\nsufficiently to assimilate. This is its joy; the rest is sorrow or indifference.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt is only capable of harmonising with the force in its body, nerves and mind a
\ncertain number of impacts of alien forces. In these it takes pleasure. The rest
\nit receives with insensibility or pain. <\/p>\n

\nDeath therefore is the constant denial by the All of the ego’s false
\nself-limitation in the individual frame of mind, life and body. <\/p>\n

\nError is the constant denial by the All of the ego’s false sufficiency in a
\nlimited knowledge. <\/p>\n

\nSuffering of mind and body is the constant denial by the All of the ego’s
\nattempt to confine the universal Ananda to a false and self-regarding formation
\nof limited and exclusive enjoyments.  \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 110<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nIt is only by accepting the oneness of the All that the individual can escape
\nfrom this constant and necessary denial and attain beyond. Then All-being,
\nAll-force, All-consciousness, All-truth, All-delight take possession of the
\nindividual soul. It changes mortality for immortality. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nMORTALITY AND AVIDYA <\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut the way of attaining to immortality is not by the self-dissolution of the
\nindividual formation into the flux of Prakriti, neither is it by prematurely
\ndissolving it into the All-soul which Prakriti expresses. Man moves towards
\nsomething which fulfils the universe by transcending it. <\/b>He has to
\nprepare his individual soul for the transcendence and for the fulfilment. <\/p>\n

\nIf Avidya is the cause of mortality, it is also the path out of mortality. The
\nlimitation has been created precisely in order that the individual may affirm
\nhimself against the flux of Prakriti in order eventually to transcend, possess
\nand transform it. <\/p>\n

\nThe first necessity is therefore for man continually to enlarge himself in
\nbeing, knowledge, joy, power in the limits of the ego so that he may arrive at
\nthe conception of something which progressively manifests itself in him in these
\nterms and becomes more and more powerful to deal with the oppositions of
\nPrakriti and to change, individually, more and more the terms of ignorance,
\nsuffering and weakness into the terms of knowledge, joy and power and even death
\ninto a means of wider life. <\/p>\n

\nThis self-enlargement has then to awaken to the perception of something
\nexceeding itself, exceeding the personal manifestation. Man has so to enlarge
\nhis conception of self as to see all in himself and himself in all (Verse 6).<\/i>
\nHe has to see that this "I" which contains all and is contained in all, is the
\nOne, is universal and not his personal ego. To That he has to subject his ego,
\nThat he has to reproduce in his nature and become, That is what he has to
\npossess and enjoy with an equal soul in all its forms and movements. <\/p>\n

\nHe has to see that this universal One is something entirely transcendent, the
\nsole Being, and that the universe and all its forms, actions, egos are only
\nbecomings of that Being (Verse<\/i> 7). World is a becoming which seeks always
\nto express in motion of <\/i><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 111<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nTime and Space, by progression in mind, life and body what is beyond all
\nbecoming, beyond Time and Space, beyond mind, life and body. <\/p>\n

\nThus Avidya becomes one with Vidya. By Avidya man passes beyond that death,
\nsuffering, ignorance, weakness which were the first terms he had to deal with,
\nthe first assertions of the One in the birth affirming Himself amid the
\nlimitations and divisions of the Multiplicity. By Vidya he enjoys even in the
\nbirth the Immortality. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

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

\nImmortality does not mean survival of the self or the ego after dissolution of
\nthe body. The Self always survives the dissolution of the body, because it
\nalways pre-existed before the birth of the body. The self is unborn and undying.
\nThe survival of the ego is only the first condition by which the individual soul
\nis able to continue and link together its experiences in Avidya so as to pursue
\nwith an increasing self-possession and mastery that process^ of self-enlargement
\nwhich culminates in Vidya. <\/p>\n

\nBy immortality is meant the consciousness which is beyond birth and death,
\nbeyond the chain of cause and effect, beyond all bondage and limitation, free,
\nblissful, self-existent in conscious-being, the consciousness of the Lord, of
\nthe supreme Purusha, of Sachchidananda. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nIMMORTALITY AND BIRTH <\/span><\/p>\n

\nOn this realisation man can base his free activity in the universe. <\/p>\n

\nBut having so far attained, what further utility has the soul for birth or for
\nworks ? None for itself, everything for God and the universe. <\/p>\n

\nImmortality beyond the universe is not the object of manifestation in the
\nuniverse, for that the Self always possessed. Man exists in order that through
\nhim the Self may enjoy Immortality in the birth as well as in the non-becoming.\n<\/p>\n

\nNor is individual salvation the end; for that would only be the sublime of the
\nego, not its self-realisation through the
\nLord in all.  \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 112<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nHaving realised his own immortality, the individual has yet to fulfil God’s work
\nin the universe. <\/b>He has to help the life,  he mind and the body in all
\nbeings to express progressively Immortality and not mortality. <\/p>\n

\nThis he may do by the becoming in the material body which we ordinarily call
\nbirth, or from some status in another world or even, it is possible, from beyond
\nworld. But birth in the body is the most close, divine and effective form of
\nhelp which the liberated can give to those who are themselves still bound to the
\nprogression of birth in the lowest world of the Ignorance. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 113<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nTHIRD
\nMOVEMENT<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n3. BIRTH AND NON-BIRTH
\n <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nVerses 12-14*<\/p>\n

 
\nTHE BIRTH AND THE NON-BIRTH <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Self outside Nature does not become; it is immutable as well as eternal. The
\nSelf in Nature becomes, it changes its states and forms. This entry into various
\nstates and forms in the succession of Time is Birth in Nature. <\/p>\n

\nBecause of these two positions of the Self, in Nature and out of Nature, moving
\nin the movement and seated above the movement, active in the development and
\neating the fruits of the tree of Life or inactive and simply regarding, there
\nare two possible states of conscious existence directly opposed to each other of
\nwhich the human soul is capable, the state of Birth, the state of Non-Birth. <\/p>\n

\nMan starts from the troubled state of Birth, he arrives at that tranquil poise
\nof conscious existence liberated from the movement which is the Non-Birth. The
\nknot of the Birth is the ego-sense; the dissolution of the ego-sense brings us
\nto the Non-Birth. Therefore the Non-Birth is also called the Dissolution
\n(vināśa).<\/i> <\/p>\n

\nBirth and Non-Birth are not essentially physical conditions, but soul-states. A
\nman may break the knot of the ego-sense and yet remain in the physical body; but
\nif he concentrates himself solely in the state of dissolution of ego, then he is
\nnot born again in the body. He is liberated from birth as soon as the present
\nimpulse of Nature which continues the action of the mind and body has been
\nexhausted. On the other hand if he attaches himself <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n*12 Into a blind darkness they enter who follow
\nafter the Non-Birth, they as if into a greater darkness who devote themselves to
\nthe Birth alone. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n13 Other, verily, it is said, is that which
\ncomes by the Birth, other that which comes by the Non-Birth; this is the lore we
\nhave received from the wise who revealed That to our understanding. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n14 He who knows That as both in one, the Birth
\nand the dissolution of Birth, by the dissolution crosses beyond death and by the
\nBirth enjoys Immortality. <\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 114<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nto the Birth, the ego-principle in him seeks continually to clothe itself in
\nfresh mental and physical forms. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE EVIL OF THE EXTREMES <\/span><\/p>\n

\nNeither attachment to Non-Birth nor attachment to Birth is the perfect way. For
\nall attachment is an act of ignorance and a violence committed upon the Truth.
\nIts end also is ignorance, a state of blind darkness. <\/p>\n

\nExclusive attachment to Non-Birth leads to a dissolution into indiscriminate
\nNature or into the Nihil, into the Void, and both of these are states of blind
\ndarkness. For the Nihil is an attempt not to transcend the state of existence in
\nbirth, but to annul it, not to pass from a limited into an illimitable
\nexistence, but from existence into its opposite. The opposite of existence can
\nonly be the Night of negative consciousness, a state of ignorance and not of
\nrelease. <\/p>\n

\nOn the other hand, attachment to Birth in the body means a constant
\nself-limitation and an interminable round of egoistic births in the tower forms
\nof egoism without issue or release. This is, from a certain point of view, a
\nworse darkness than the other; for it is ignorant even of the impulse of
\nrelease. It is not an error in the grasping after truth, but a perpetual
\ncontentment with the state of blindness. It cannot lead even eventually to any
\ngreater good, because it does not dream of any higher condition. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nTHE GOOD OF THE EXTREMES <\/span><\/p>\n

\nOn the other hand each of these tendencies, pursued with a certain relativeness
\nto the other, has its own fruit and its own good. Non-Birth pursued as the goal
\nof Birth and a higher, fuller and truer existence may lead to withdrawal into
\nthe silent Brahman or into the pure liberty of the Non-Being. Birth, pursued as
\na means of progress and self-enlargement, leads to a greater and fuller life
\nwhich may, in its turn, become a vestibule to the final achievement. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nTHE PERFECT WAY <\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut neither of these results is perfect in itself nor the true goal of humanity.
\nEach of them brings its intended portion into  \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 115<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nthe perfect good of the human soul only when it is completed by the other. <\/p>\n

\nBrahman is both Vidya and Avidya, both Birth and Non-Birth. The realisation of
\nthe Self as the unborn and the poise of the soul beyond the dualities of birth
\nand death in the infinite and transcendent existence are the conditions of a
\nfree and divine life in the Becoming. The one is necessary to the other. It is
\nby participation in the pure unity of the Immobile (Akshara) Brahman that the
\nsoul is released from its absorption in the stream of the movement. So released
\nit identifies itself with the Lord to whom becoming and non-becoming are only
\nmodes of His existence and is able to enjoy immortality in the manifestation
\nwithout being caught in the wheel of Nature’s delusions. The necessity of birth
\nceases, its personal object having been fulfilled; the freedom of becoming
\nremains. For the Divine enjoys equally and simultaneously the freedom of His
\neternity and the freedom of His becoming. <\/p>\n

\nIt may even be Said that to have had the conscious experience of a dissolution
\nof the very idea of Being into the supreme Non-Being is necessary for the
\nfullest and freest possession of Being itself. This would be from the synthetic
\nstandpoint the justification of the great effort of Buddhism to exceed the
\nconception of all positive being even in its widest or purest essentiality. <\/p>\n

\nThus by dissolution of ego and of the attachment to birth the soul crosses
\nbeyond death; it is liberated from all limitation in the dualities. Having
\nattained this liberation it accepts becoming as a process of Nature subject to
\nthe soul and not binding upon it and by this free and divine becoming enjoys
\nImmortality. <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nTHE JUSTIFICATION OF LIFE <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThus, the third movement of the Upanishad is a justification of life and works,
\nwhich were enjoined upon the seeker of the Truth in its second verse. Works are
\nthe essence of Life. Life is a manifestation of the Brahman; in Brahman the Life
\nPrinciple arranges a harmony of the seven principles of conscious being by which
\nthat manifestation works out its involution and evolution. In Brahman
\nMatarishwan disposes the waters, the sevenfold movement of the divine Existence.
\n <\/i><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 116<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nThat divine Existence is the Lord who has gone abroad in the movement and
\nunrolled the universe in His three modes as All-Seer of the Truth of things.
\nThinker-out of their possibilities, Realiser of their actualities. He has
\ndetermined all things sovereignly in their own nature, development and goal from
\nyears sempiternal. <\/p>\n

\nThat determination works out through His double power of Vidya and Avidya,
\nconsciousness of essential unity and consciousness of phenomenal multiplicity.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Multiplicity carried to its extreme limit returns upon itself in the
\nconscious individual who is the Lord inhabiting the forms of the movement and
\nenjoying first the play of the Ignorance. Afterwards by development in the
\nIgnorance the soul returns to the capacity of Knowledge and enjoys by the
\nKnowledge Immortality. <\/p>\n

\nThis Immortality is gained by the dissolution of the limited ego and its chain
\nof births into the consciousness of the unborn and undying, the Eternal, the
\nLord, the ever-free. But it is enjoyed by a free and divine becoming in the
\nuniverse and not outside the universe; for there it is always possessed, but
\nhere in the material body it is to be worked out and enjoyed by the divine
\nInhabitant under circumstances that are in appearance the most opposite to its
\nterms, in the life of the individual and in the multiple life of the universe.\n<\/p>\n

\nLife has to be transcended in order that it may be freely accepted; the works of
\nthe universe have to be over-passed in order that they may be divinely
\nfulfilled.  <\/p>\n

\nThe soul even in apparent bondage is really free and only plays at being bound;
\nbut it has to go back to the consciousness of freedom and possess and enjoy
\nuniversally not this or that but the Divine and the All.  \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 117<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nFOURTH
\nMOVEMENT<\/font><\/b> 
\n<\/font><\/p>\n


\n1. THE WORLDS \u2014 SURYA<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nVerses 15-16*<\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\nTHE WORLDS AFTER DEATH <\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn the third verse the Upanishad has spoken of sunless worlds enveloped in blind
\ngloom. In its third movement it also speaks twice of the soul entering into a
\nblind gloom, but here it is a state of consciousness that seems to be indicated
\nand not a world. Nevertheless, the two statements differ little in effect;  for
\nin the Vedantic conception a world is only a condition of conscious being
\norganised in the terms of the seven constituent principles of manifested
\nexistence. According to the state of consciousness which we reach here in the
\nbody, will be our state of consciousness and the surroundings organised by it
\nwhen the mental being passes out of the body. For the individual soul out of the
\nbody must either disappear into the general constituents of its existence, merge
\nitself into Brahman or persist in an organisation of consciousness other than
\nthe terrestrial and in relations with the universe other than those which are
\nappropriate to life in the body. This state of consciousness and the relations
\nbelonging to it are the other worlds, the worlds after death. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nTHE THREE STATES <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe Upanishad admits three states of the soul in relation to the manifested
\nuniverse, \u2014 terrestrial life by birth in the body, the survival of the
\nindividual soul after death in other states and the immortal existence which
\nbeing beyond birth and death, beyond manifestation can yet enter into forms as
\nthe Inhabitant and embrace Nature as its lord. The two former conditions
\nappertain to the Becoming; Immortality stands in the Self, in the  <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n*15 The face of Truth is covered with a
\nbrilliant golden lid; that do thou remove, O Fosterer, for the law of the Truth,
\nfor sight. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n  16 O Fosterer, O sole Seer, O Ordainer, O
\nillumining Sun, O power of the Father of creatures, marshal thy rays, draw
\ntogether thy light; the Lustre which is thy most blessed form of all, that in
\nThee I behold. The Purusha there and there. He am I. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 118<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nNon-Birth, and enjoys the Becoming. <\/p>\n

\nThe Upanishad, although it does not speak expressly of rebirth in an earthly
\nbody, yet implies that belief in its thought and language,\u2014especially in the
\n17th verse. On the basis of this belief in rebirth man may aim at three distinct
\nobjects beyond death, \u2014 a better or more fortunate life or lives upon earth,
\neternal enjoyment of bliss in an ultra-terrestrial world of light and joy or a
\ntranscendence exclusive of all universal existence, merged in the Supreme as in
\none’s true self, but having no relation with the actual or possible contents of
\nits infinite consciousness. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

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

\nThe attainment of a better life or lives upon earth is not the consummation
\noffered to the soul by the thought of the Upanishad. But it is an important
\nintermediate object so long as the soul is in a state of growth and
\nself-enlargement and has not attained to liberation. The obligation of birth and
\ndeath is a sign that the mental being has not yet unified itself with its true
\nsupramental self and spirit, but is dwelling "in Avidya and enclosed within
\nit".\u00b9 To attain that union the life of man upon earth is its appointed means.
\nAfter liberation the soul is free, but may still participate in the entire
\nmovement and return to birth no longer for its own sake but for the sake of
\nothers and according to the will in it of its divine Self, the Lord of its
\nmovement. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nHEAVEN AND HELL <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe enjoyment of beatitude in a heaven beyond is also not the supreme
\nconsummation. But Vedantic thought did not envisage rebirth as an immediate
\nentry after death into a new body; the mental being in man is not so rigidly
\nbound to the vital and physical, \u2014 on the contrary, the latter are ordinarily
\ndissolved together after death, and there must therefore be, before the soul is
\nattracted back towards terrestrial existence, an interval in which it
\nassimilates its terrestrial experiences in order to be able to constitute a new
\nvital and physical being upon <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9 Avidyāyām antare vartamānāḥ<\/span>. \u2014 Katha Upanishad1.<\/i>
\n2.5; Mundaka<\/i> I. 2. 8. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 119<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nearth. During this interval it must dwell in states or worlds beyond and these
\nmay be favourable or unfavourable to its future development. They are favourable
\nin proportion as the light of the Supreme Truth of which Surya is a symbol
\nenters into them, but states of intermediate ignorance or darkness are harmful
\nto the soul in its progress. Those enter into them, as has been affirmed in the
\nthird verse, who do hurt to themselves by shutting themselves to the light or
\ndistorting the natural course of their development. The Vedantic heavens are
\nstates of light and the soul’s expansion; darkness, self-obscuration and
\nself-distortion are the nature of the Hells which it has to shun. <\/p>\n

\nIn relation to the soul’s individual development, therefore, the life in worlds
\nbeyond, like the life upon earth, is a means and not an object in itself. After
\nliberation the soul may possess these worlds as it possesses the material birth,
\naccepting in them a means towards the divine manifestation in which they form a
\ncondition of its fullness, each being one of the parts in a series of organised
\nstates of conscious being which is linked with and supports all the rest. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

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

\nTranscendence is the goal of the development, but it does not exclude the
\npossession of that which is transcended. The soul need not and should not push
\ntranscendence so far as to aim at its own extinction. Nirvana is extinction of
\nthe ego-limitations, but not of all possibility of manifestation, since it can
\nbe possessed even in the body. <\/p>\n

\nThe desire of the exclusive liberation is the last desire that the soul in its
\nexpanding knowledge has to abandon; the delusion that it is bound by birth is
\nthe last delusion that it has to destroy. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nSURYA AND AGNI <\/span><\/p>\n

\nOn the basis of this conception of the worlds and the relation of these
\ndifferent soul-states to each other the Upanishad proceeds to indicate the two
\nlines of knowledge and action which lead to the supreme vision and the divine
\nfelicity. This is done under the form of an invocation to Surya and Agni, the\n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 120<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nVedic godheads, representative one of the supreme Truth and its illuminations,
\nthe other of the divine Will raising, purifying
\nand perfecting human action. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nTHE ORDER OF THE WORLDS <\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo understand entirely the place and function of Surya we must enter a little
\nmore profoundly into the Vedic conception of the seven worlds and the principles
\nof consciousness they represent. <\/p>\n

\nAll conscious being is one and indivisible in itself, but in manifestation it
\nbecomes a complex rhythm, a scale of harmonies, a hierarchy of states or
\nmovements. For what we call a state is only the organisation of a complex
\nmovement. This hierarchy is composed by a descending or involutive and an
\nascending or evolutive movement of which Spirit and Matter are the highest and
\nlowest terms. <\/p>\n

\nSpirit is Sat or pure existence, pure in self-awareness (Chit), pure in
\nself-delight (Ananda). Therefore Spirit can be regarded as a triune basis of all
\nconscious being. There are three terms, but they are really one. For all pure
\nexistence is in its essence pure self-conscience and all pure self-conscience is
\nin its essence pure self-delight. At the same time our consciousness is capable
\nof separating these three by the Idea and the Word and even of creating for
\nitself in its divided or limited movements the sense of their apparent
\nopposites. <\/p>\n

\nAn integral intuition into the nature of conscious being shows us that it is
\nindeed one in essence but also that it is capable of an infinite potential
\ncomplexity and multiplicity in self-experience. The working of this potential
\ncomplexity and multiplicity in the <\/b>One is what we call from our point of
\nview manifestation or creation or world or becoming \u2014 (bhuvana, bhāva).<\/i>
\nWithout it no world-existence is possible. <\/p>\n

\nThe agent of this becoming is always the self-conscience of the Being. The power
\nby which the self-conscience brings   out of itself its potential complexities
\nis termed Tapas, Force or Energy, and, being self-conscious, is obviously of the
\nnature of Will. But not Will as we understand it, something exterior to its
\nobject, other than its works, labouring on material outside itself, but Will <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 121<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\ninherent in the Being, inherent in the becoming, one with the movement of
\nexistence, \u2014 self-conscious Will that becomes what it sees and knows in itself.
\nWill that is expressed as Force of its own work and formulates itself in the
\nresult of its work. By this Will, Tapas or Chit-Shakti, the worlds are created.\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE HIGHER WORLDS <\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll organisation of self-conscient being which takes as its basis the unity of
\npure existence belongs to the world of the highest creation, parārdha \u2014<\/i>
\nthe worlds of the Spirit. <\/p>\n

\nWe can conceive three principal formations. <\/p>\n

\nWhen tapas<\/i> or energy of self-conscience dwells upon sat <\/i>or pure
\nexistence as its basis, the result is satyaloka<\/i> or world of true
\nexistence. The soul in satyaloka<\/i> is one with all its manifestations by
\noneness of essence and therefore one in self-conscience and in energy of
\nself-conscience and one also in bliss. <\/p>\n

\nWhen tapas<\/i> dwells upon active power of cit<\/i> as its basis, the
\nresult is tapoloka<\/i> or world of energy of self-conscience. The soul in
\ntapoloka<\/i> is one with all manifestations in this Energy and therefore enjoys
\noneness also in the totality of their bliss and possesses equally their unity of
\nessence. <\/p>\n

\nWhen tapas<\/i> dwells upon active Delight of being as its basis, the result
\nis janaloka,<\/i> world of creative Delight. The soul in janaloka<\/i> is
\none in delight of being with all manifestation and through that bliss one also
\nin conscious energy and in essence of being.  <\/p>\n

\nAll these are states of consciousness in which unity and multiplicity have not
\nyet been separated from each other. All is in all, each in all and all in each,
\ninherently, by the very nature of conscious being and without effort of
\nconception or travail of perception. There is no night, no obscurity. Neither is
\nthere, properly speaking, any dominant action of illuminating Surya. For the
\nwhole of consciousness there is self-luminous and needs no light other than
\nitself. The distinct existence of Surya is lost in the oneness of the Lord or
\nPurusha; that luminous oneness is Surya’s most blessed form of all. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE LOWER CREATION <\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn the lower creation also there are three principles. Matter, <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 122<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nLife, and Mind. Sat or pure existence appears there as extended substance or
\nMatter; Will or Force appears as Life which is in its nature creative or
\nmanifesting Force and that Force is in its nature a self-conscient will involved
\nand obscure in the forms of its creation. It is liberated from the involution
\nand obscurity by delight of being struggling to become conscious of itself in
\ndesire and sensation; the result is the emergence of Mind. So at least it
\nappears to us in the ascending or evolutive movement. <\/p>\n

\nWherever there is Matter, Life and Mind are present involved or evolving. So
\nalso. Life and Mind have some kind of material form as the condition of their
\nactivities. These three appear not as triune, owing to their domination by the
\ndividing
\nprinciple of Avidya, but as triple. <\/p>\n

\nIn the organisation of consciousness to which we belong, Tapas dwells upon
\nMatter as its basis. <\/b>Our consciousness is determined by the divisibility
\nof extended substance in its apparent forms. This is Bhurloka, the material
\nworld, the world of formal becoming. <\/p>\n

\nBut we may conceive of a world in which dynamic Life-force with sensation
\nemergent in it is the basis and determines without the gross obstacle of Matter
\nthe forms that it shall take. This organisation of consciousness has for its
\nfield Bhuvarloka, the world of free vital becoming in form. <\/p>\n

\nWe may conceive also of an organised state of consciousness  in which Mind
\nliberates itself from subjection to material sensation and becoming dominant
\ndetermines its own forms instead of being itself determined by the forms in
\nwhich it finds itself as a result of life-evolution. This formation is Swarloka
\nor world of free, pure and luminous mentality. <\/p>\n

\nIn these lower worlds consciousness is normally broken up and divided. The light
\nof Surya, the Truth, is imprisoned in the night of the subconscient or appears
\nonly reflected in limited centres or with its rays received by those centres and
\nutilised according to their individual nature.  <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nTHE INTERMEDIATE WORLD <\/span><\/p>\n

\nBetween these two creations, linking them together, is the world or organisation
\nof consciousness of which the infinite Truth  <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 123<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nof things is the foundation. There dominant individualisation no longer usurps
\nthe all-pervading soul and the foundation of consciousness is its own vast
\ntotality arranging in itself individualised movements which never lose the
\nconsciousness of their integrality and total oneness with all others.
\nMultiplicity no longer prevails and divides, but even in the complexity of its
\nmovements always refers back to essential unity and its own integral totality.
\nThis world is therefore called Maharloka or world of large consciousness. <\/p>\n

\nThe principle of Maharloka is Vijnana, the Idea. But this Vijnana is intuitional
\nor rather gnostic Idea,1 not intellectual conception. The difference is that
\nintellectual conception not only tends towards form, but determines itself in
\nthe form of the idea and once determined distinguishes itself sharply from other
\nconceptions. But pure intuitional or gnostic Idea sees itself in the Being as
\nwell as in the Becoming. It is one with the existence which throws out the form
\nas a symbol of itself and it therefore carries with it always the knowledge of
\nthe Truth behind the form. It is in its nature self-conscience of the being and
\npower of the One, aware always of its totality, starting therefore from the
\ntotality of all existence and perceiving directly its contents. Its nature is
\ndṛ<\/span>ṣ<\/span>ṭ<\/span>i,<\/i>
\nseeing, not conceiving. It is the vision at once of the essence and the image.
\nIt is this intuition or gnosis which is the Vedic Truth, the self-vision and
\nall-vision of Surya. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nTHE LAW OF THE TRUTH <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe face of this Truth is covered as with a brilliant shield, as with a golden
\nlid; covered, that is to say, from the view of our human consciousness. For we
\nare mental beings and our highest ordinary mental sight is composed of the
\nconcepts and percepts of the mind, which are indeed a means of knowledge, rays
\nof the Truth, but not in their nature truth of existence, only truth of form. By
\nthem we arrange our knowledge of the appearances of things and try to infer the
\ntruth behind. The true knowledge is  <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Intuition (revelation, inspiration, intuitive
\nperception, intuitive discrimination) is <\/b>Vijnana working in mind under
\nthe conditions and in the forms of mind. Gnosis or true supermind is a power
\nabove mind working in its own law, out of the direct identity of the supreme
\nSelf, his absolute self-conscious Truth knowing herself by her own power of
\nabsolute Light without any need of seeking, even the most luminous seeking.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 124<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\ntruth of existence, satyam,<\/i> not mere truth of form or appearance. <\/p>\n

\nWe can only arrive at the true Truth, if Surya works in us to remove this
\nbrilliant formation of concepts and percepts and replaces them by the
\nself-vision and all-vision. <\/p>\n

\nFor this it is necessary that the law and action of the Truth should be
\nmanifested in us. We must learn to see things as they are, see ourselves as we
\nare. Our present action is one in which self-knowledge and will are divided. We
\nstart with a fundamental falsehood, that we have a separate existence from
\nothers and we try to know the relations of separate beings in their separateness
\nand act on the knowledge so formed for an individual utility. The law of the
\nTruth would work in us if we saw the totality of our existence containing all
\nothers its forms created by the action of the totality, its powers working in
\nand by the action of the totality. <\/b>Our internal and external action would
\nthen well naturally and directly out of our self-existence, out of the very
\ntruth of things and not in obedience to an intermediate principle which is in
\nits nature a falsifying reflection. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nTHE FULFILMENT OF SURYA IN MAN
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNevertheless even in our ordinary action there is the beginning or at least the
\nseed of the Truth which must liberate us. Behind every act and perception there
\nis an intuition, a truth which, if it is continually falsified in the form, yet
\npreserves itself in the essence and works to lead us by increasing light and
\nlargeness to truth in the manifestation. Behind all this travail of
\ndifferentiation and division there is an insistent unifying tendency which is
\nalso continually falsified in the separate result, but yet leads persistently
\ntowards our eventual integrality in knowledge, in being and in will. <\/p>\n

\nSurya is Pushan, fosterer or increaser. His work must be to effect this
\nenlargement of the divided self-perception and action of will into the integral
\nwill and knowledge. He is sole seer and replacing other forms of knowledge by
\nhis unifying vision enables us to arrive finally at oneness. That intuitive
\nvision of the totality, of one in All and All in one, becomes the ordainer of
\nthe right law of action in us, the law of the Truth. For Surya is Yama, the
\nOrdainer or Controller who assures the law, the <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 125<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nDharma. Thus we arrive at the fullness of action of the Illuminer in us,
\naccomplish the entirety of the Truth-Consciousness. We are then able to see that
\nall that is contained in the being of Surya, in the Vijnana which builds up the
\nworlds is becoming
\nof existence in the one existence and one Lord of all becoming, the Purusha,
\nSachchidananda. All becoming is born in the Being who himself exceeds all
\nbecomings and is their Lord, Prajapati. <\/p>\n

\nBy the revelation of the vision of Surya the true knowledge is formed. In this
\nformation the Upanishad indicates two successive actions. First, there is an
\narrangement or marshalling of the rays of Surya, that is to say, the truths
\nconcealed behind our concepts and percepts are brought out by separate
\nintuitions of the image and the essence of the image and arranged in their true
\nrelations to each other. So we arrive at totalities of intuitive knowledge and
\ncan finally go beyond to unity. This is the drawing together of the light of
\nSurya. This double movement is necessitated by the constitution of our minds
\nwhich cannot, like the original Truth-Consciousness, start at once from the
\ntotality and perceive its contents from within. The mind can hardly conceive
\nunity except as an abstraction, a sum or a void. Therefore it has to be
\ngradually led from its own manner to that which exceeds it. It has to carry out
\nits own characteristic action of arrangement, but with the help and by the
\noperation of the higher faculty, no longer arbitrarily, but following the very
\naction of the Truth of existence itself. Afterwards, by thus gradually
\ncorrecting the manner of its own characteristic action it can succeed in
\nreversing that characteristic action itself and learn to proceed from the whole
\nto the contents instead of proceeding from "parts\u201d\u00b9 mistaken for entities to an
\napparent whole which is still a "part" and still mistaken for an entity. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE ONE EXISTENT <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThus by the action of Surya we arrive at that light of the supreme
\nsuper-conscient in which even the intuitive knowledge of the truth of things
\nbased upon the total vision passes into the self-luminous self-vision of the one
\nexistent, one in all infinite  <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9There are really no parts, existence being
\nindivisible. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 126<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\ncomplexities of a self-experience which never loses its unity or its
\nself-luminousness. This is Surya’s godliest form of all. For it is the supreme
\nLight, the supreme Will, the supreme Delight of existence. <\/p>\n

\nThis is the Lord, the Purusha, the self-conscient Being. When we have this
\nvision, there is the integral self-knowledge, the perfect seeing, expressed in
\nthe great cry of the Upanishad, so’ham.<\/i> The Purusha there and there, He
\nam I. The Lord manifests Himself in the movements and inhabits many forms, but
\nit  is One who inhabits all. This self-conscient being, this real \u201cI\u201d whom the
\nmental being individualised in the form is aware of as his true self\u2014 it is
\n<\/b>He.<\/b> It is the All; and it is that which transcends the All. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 127<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\n                                                                                            <\/font>FOURTH
\nMOVEMENT<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n          
\n2. ACTION AND THE DIVINE WILL<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

         
\nVerses 17-18* <\/p>\n

\nTHE SIDE OF ACTION <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThrough Surya then, through the growth of the illumination in the mind which
\nenables it eventually to pass beyond itself, we have the first principle of
\nprogress from mortality to immortality. It is by the Sun as a door or gate\u00b9 that
\nthe individual, the limited consciousness attains to the full consciousness and
\nlife in the one, supreme and all-embracing Soul. <\/p>\n

\nBoth consciousness and life are included in the formula of Immortality;
\nKnowledge is incomplete without action. Chit fulfils itself by Tapas,
\nConsciousness by energy. And as Surya represents the divine Light, so Agni to
\nthe ancient Rishis represented divine Force, Power or Will-in-Consciousness. The
\nprayer to Agni completes the prayer to Surya. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nTHE INDIVIDUAL WILL <\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs in knowledge, so in action, unity is the true foundation. The individual,
\naccepting division as his law, isolating himself in his own egoistic limits, is
\nnecessarily mortal, obscure and ignorant in his workings. He follows in his aims
\nand in his methods a knowledge that is personal, governed by desire, habits of
\nthought, obscure subconscious impulses or, at best, a broken partial and
\nshifting light. He lives by rays and not in the full blaze of the Sun. His
\nknowledge is narrow in its objectivity, narrow in its subjectivity, in neither
\none with the integral knowledge  <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n*17 The Breath of things is an immortal life,
\nbut of this body ashes are the end \u2014 <\/b>OM! O Will, remember, that which was
\ndone remember! O Will, remember, that which was done remember.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n180 god Agni, knowing all things that are
\nmanifested, lead us by the good path to the felicity; remove from us the devious
\nattraction of sin. To thee completes! speech of submission we address.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Suryadvaren<\/i><\/span>̣<\/span>a
\n\u2014 Mundaka Upanishad <\/b>1.2.<\/b><\/span><\/i>
\n11. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 128<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nand the total working and total will in the universe. <\/b>His action,
\ntherefore, is crooked, many-branching, hesitating and fluctuating in its
\nimpulsion and direction; it beats about among falsehoods to find the Truth,
\ntosses or scraps fragments together to piece out the whole, stumbles among
\nerrors and sins to find the right. Being neither one-visioned nor
\nwhole-visioned, having neither the totality of the universal Will nor the
\nconcentrated oneness of the transcendent, the individual will cannot walk
\nstraight on the right or good path towards the Truth and the Immortality.
\nGoverned by desire, exposed to the shock of the forces around it with which its
\negoism and ignorance forbid it to put itself in harmony, it is subject to the
\ntwin children of the Ignorance, suffering and falsehood. Not having the divine
\nTruth and Right it cannot have the divine Felicity. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nAGNI, THE DIVINE WILL <\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut as there is in and behind all the falsehoods of our material mind and reason
\na Light that prepares by this twilight the full dawn of the Truth in man, so
\nthere is in and behind all our errors, sins and stumblings a secret Will,
\ntending towards Love and Harmony, which knows where it is going and prepares and
\ncombines our crooked branchings towards the straight path which will be the
\nfinal result of their toil and seeking. The emergence of this Will and that
\nLight is the condition of immortality. <\/p>\n

\nThis Will is Agni. Agni is in the Rig-veda, from which the closing verse of the
\nUpanishad is taken, the flame of the Divine Will or Force of Consciousness
\nworking in the worlds. He is described as the immortal in mortals, the leader of
\nthe journey, the divine Horse that bears us on the road, the "son of
\ncrookedness" who himself knows and is the straightness and the Truth. Concealed
\nand hard to seize in the workings of this world because they are all falsified
\nby desire and egoism, he uses them to transcend them and emerges as the
\nuniversal in Man or universal Power, Agni Vaishwanara, who contains in himself
\nall the gods and all the worlds, upholds all the universal workings and finally
\nfulfils the godhead, the immortality. He is the worker of the divine Work. It is
\nthese symbols which govern the sense of the two final verses of the Upanishad.  \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 129<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nTHE IMMORTAL LIFE-PRINCIPLE<\/b> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nLife is the condition from which the Will and the Light emerge. It is said in
\nthe Veda that Vayu or Matarishwan, the Life-principle;, is he who brings down
\nAgni from Surya in the high and far-off supreme world. Life calls down the
\ndivine Will from the Truth-Consciousness into the realm of mind and body to
\nprepare here, in Life, its own manifestation. Agni, enjoying and devouring the
\nthings of Life, generates the Maruts, nervous forces of Life that become forces
\nof thought; they, upheld by Agni, prepare the action of Indra, the luminous
\nMind, who is for our life-powers their Rishi or finder of the Truth and Right.
\nIndra slays Vritra, the Coverer, dispels the darkness, causes Surya to rise upon
\nour being and go abroad over its whole field with the rays of the Truth. Surya
\nis the Creator or manifester, Savitri, who manifests in this mortal world the
\nworld or state of immortality, dispels the evil dream of egoism, sin and
\nsuffering and transforms Life into the immortality, the good, the beatitude. The
\nVedic gods are a parable of human life emerging, mounting, lifting itself
\ntowards the Godhead. <\/p>\n

\nLife, body, action, will, these are our first materials. Matter supplies us with
\nthe body; but it is only a temporary knot of the movement, a dwelling-place of
\nthe Purusha in which he presides over the activities generated out of the
\nLife-principle. Once it is thrown aside by the Life-principle it is dissolved;
\nashes are its end. Therefore the body is not ourselves, but only an outer tool
\nand instrument. For Matter is the principle of obscurity and division, of birth
\nand death, of formation and dissolution. It is the assertion of death. Immortal
\nman must not identify himself with the body. <\/p>\n

\nThe Life-principle in us survives. It is the immortal Breath\u00b9 or, as the phrase
\nreally means, the subtle force of existence which is superior to the principle
\nof birth and death. At first sight it may appear that birth and death are
\nattributes of the Life, but it is not really so: birth and death are processes
\nof Matter, of the body. The Life-principle is not formed and dissolved in the
\nformulation and dissolution of the body; if that were so, there could be no
\ncontinuity of the individual existence and all would go back <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Anilam amr<\/span>̣<\/span>tam.<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 130<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nat death into the formless. Life forms body, it is not formed by it. It is the
\nthread upon which the continuity of our successive bodily lives is arranged,
\nprecisely because it is itself immortal. It associates itself with the
\nperishable body and carries forward the mental being, the Purusha in the mind,
\nupon his journey. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nWILL AND MEMORY <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis journey consists in a series of activities continued from life to life in
\nthis world with intervals of life in other states. The Life-principle maintains
\nthem; it supplies their material in the formative energy which takes shape in
\nthem. But their presiding god is not the Life-principle; it is the Will. Will is
\nKratu, the effective power behind the act. It is of the nature of consciousness
\n; it is energy of consciousness, and although present in all forms, conscious,
\nsubconscious or superconscious, vital, physical or mental, yet comes into its
\nkingdom only when it emerges in Mind. It uses the mental faculty of memory to
\nlink together and direct consciously the activities towards the goal of the
\nindividual. <\/p>\n

\nIn man the use of consciousness by the mental will is imperfect, because memory
\nis limited. Our action is both dispersed and circumscribed because mentally we
\nlive from hour to hour in the current of Time, holding only to that which
\nattracts or seems immediately useful to our egoistic mind. We live in what we
\nare doing, we do not control what has been done, but are rather controlled by
\nour past works which we have forgotten. This is because we dwell in the action
\nand its fruits instead of living in the soul and viewing the stream of action
\nfrom behind it. The Lord, the true Will, stands back from the actions and
\ntherefore is their lord and not bound by them. <\/p>\n

\nThe Upanishad solemnly invokes the Will to remember the thing that has been
\ndone, so as to contain and be conscious of the becoming, so as to become a power
\nof knowledge and self-possession and not only a power of impulsion and
\nself-formulation. It will thus more and more approximate itself to the true Will
\nand preside over the co-ordination of the successive lives with a conscious
\ncontrol. Instead of being carried from life to life in a crooked path, as by
\nwinds, it will be able to proceed more and more straight in an ordered series,
\nlinking life to life <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 131<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nwith an increasing force of knowledge and direction until it becomes the fully
\nconscious Will moving with illumination on the straight path towards the
\nimmortal felicity. The mental will, kratu,<\/i> becomes what it at present
\nonly represents, the divine Will, Agni. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nWILL AND KNOWLEDGE <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe essentiality of the divine Will is that in it Consciousness and Energy,
\nKnowledge and Force are one. It knows all manifestations, all things that take
\nbirth in the worlds. It is Jatavedas, that which has right knowledge of all
\nbirths. It knows them in the law of their being, in their relation to other
\nbirths, in their aim and method, in their process and goal, in their unity with
\nall and their difference from all. It is this divine Will that conducts the
\nuniverse; it is one with all the things that it combines and its being, its
\nknowledge, its action are inseparable from each other. What it is, it knows;
\nwhat it knows, that it does and becomes. <\/p>\n

\nBut as soon as egoistic consciousness emerges and interferes, there is a
\ndisturbance, a division, a false action. Will becomes an impulsion ignorant of
\nits secret motive and aim, knowledge becomes a dubious and partial ray not in
\npossession of the will, the act and the result, but only striving to possess and
\ninform them. This is because we are not in possession of our self,\u00b9 our true
\nbeing, but only of the ego. What we are, we know not; what we know, we cannot
\neffect. For knowledge is real and action in harmony with true knowledge only
\nwhen they proceed naturally out of the conscious, illumined and self-possessing
\nsoul, in which being, knowledge and action are one movement. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nSURRENDER TO THE DIVINE WILL
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis is the change that happens when, the mental will approximating more and
\nmore to the divine, Agni burns out in us. It is that increasing knowledge and
\nforce which carries us finally into the straight or good path out of the
\ncrookedness. It is the divine will, one with the divine knowledge, which leads
\nus towards felicity, towards the state of Immortality. All that belongs to the
\ndeviations of the ego, all that obscures and drives or  <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9ātmavān. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 132<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\ndraws us into this or that false path with its false lures and stumblings are
\nput away from us by it. These things fall away from the divinised Will and cease
\nto find lodging in our consciousness. <\/p>\n

\nTherefore the sign of right action is the increasing and finally the complete
\nsubmission of the individual to the divine Will which the illumination of Surya
\nreveals in him. Although manifested in his consciousness, this Will is not
\nindividual. It is the will of the Purusha who is in all things and transcends
\nthem. It is the will of the Lord. <\/p>\n

\nKnowledge of the Lord as the One in the fully self-conscious being, submission
\nto the Lord as the universal and transcendent in the fully self-conscious
\naction, are the two keys of the divine gates, the gates of Immortality. <\/p>\n

\nAnd the nature of the two united is an illuminated Devotion which accepts,
\naspires to and fulfils God in the human existence. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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

\nThus the fourth movement indicates psychologically the double process of that
\nattainment of Immortality which is the subject of the third movement, the state
\nof bliss and truth within  and the worlds of Light after death culminating in
\nthe identity of the self-luminous <\/b>One.<\/b> At the same time it
\nparticularises under the cover of Vedic symbols the process of that
\nself-knowledge and identification with the Self and all its becomings which is
\nthe subject of the second movement and of that liberated action in the assertion
\nof which the first culminates. It is thus a fitting close and consummation to
\nthe Upanishad.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 133<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nConclusion and Summary
\n<\/font><\/span>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nT<\/span>HE
\n<\/span><\/b>Isha Upanishad is one of the more ancient of the Vedantic writings in
\nstyle, substance and versification, subsequent certainly to the Chhandogya,
\nBrihadaranyaka and perhaps to the Taittiriya and Aitareya, but certainly the
\nmost antique of the extant metrical Upanishads. Upanishadic thought falls
\nnaturally into two great periods; in one, the earlier, it still kept close to
\nits Vedic roots, reflected the old psychological system of the Vedic Rishis and
\npreserved what may be called their spiritual pragmatism; in the other and later,
\nin which the form and thought became more modern and independent of early
\nsymbols and origins, some of the principal elements of Vedic thought and
\npsychology begin to be omitted or to lose their previous connotation and the
\nfoundations of the later ascetic and anti-pragmatic Vedanta begin to appear. The
\nIsha belongs to the earlier or Vedic group. It is already face to face with the
\nproblem of reconciling human life and activity with the Monistic standpoint and
\nits large solution of the difficulty is one of the most interesting passages of
\nVedantic literature. It is the sole Upanishad which offered almost insuperable
\ndifficulties to the extreme illusionism and anti-pragmatism of Shankaracharya
\nand it was even, for this reason, excised from the list of authoritative
\nUpanishads by one of his greatest followers. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nTHE PRINCIPLE OF THE UPANISHAD
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe principle it follows throughout is the uncompromising reconciliation of
\nuncompromising extremes. Later thought took one series of terms, \u2014 the World,
\nEnjoyment, Action, the Many, Birth, the Ignorance, \u2014 and gave them a more and
\nmore secondary position, exalting the opposite series. God, Renunciation,
\nQuietism, the <\/b>One, Cessation of Birth, the Knowledge until this trend of
\nthought culminated in Illusionism and the idea of existence in the world as a
\nsnare and a meaningless burden imposed inexplicably on the soul by itself, which
\nmust be cast aside as <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 134<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nsoon as possible. It ended in a violent cutting of the knot of the great enigma.
\nThis Upanishad tries instead to get hold of the extreme ends of the knots,
\ndisengage and place them alongside of each other in a release that will be at
\nthe same time a right placing and relation. It will not qualify or subordinate
\nunduly any of the extremes, although it recognises a dependence of one
\non the other. Renunciation is to go to the extreme, but also enjoyment is to be
\nequally integral; Action has to be complete and ungrudging, but also freedom of
\nthe soul from its works must be absolute; Unity utter and absolute is the goal,
\nbut this absoluteness has to be brought to its highest term by including in it
\nthe whole infinite multiplicity of things. <\/p>\n

\nSo great is this scruple in the Upanishad that having so expressed itself in the
\nformula ‘"By the Ignorance having crossed over death by the knowledge one enjoys
\nImmortality" that Life in the world might be interpreted as only a preliminary
\nto an existence beyond, it at once rights the balance by reversing the order in
\nthe parallel formula "By dissolution having crossed over death by birth one
\nenjoys Immortality", and thus makes life itself the field of the immortal
\nexistence which is the goal and aspiration of all life. In this conclusion it
\nagrees with the early Vedic thought which believed all the worlds and existence
\nand non-existence and death and life and immortality to be here in the embodied
\nhuman being, there evolvent, there realisable and to be possessed and enjoyed,
\nnot dependent either for acquisition or enjoyment on the renunciation of life
\nand bodily existence. This thought has never entirely passed out of Indian
\nphilosophy, but has become secondary and a side admission not strong enough to
\nqualify seriously the increasing assertion of the extinction of mundane
\nexistence as the condition of our freedom and our sole wise and worthy aim. <\/p>\n

\n <\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE OPPOSITES <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe pairs of opposites successively taken up by the Upanishad and resolved are,
\nin the order of their succession: <\/p>\n

\n1. The Conscious Lord and phenomenal Nature. <\/p>\n

\n2. Renunciation and Enjoyment. <\/p>\n

\n3. Action in Nature and Freedom in the Soul. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 135<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\n4. The <\/b>One stable Brahman and the multiple Movement. <\/p>\n

\n5. Being and Becoming. <\/p>\n

\n6. The Active Lord and the indifferent Akshara Brahman. <\/p>\n

\n7. Vidya and Avidya. <\/p>\n

\n8. Birth and Non-Birth. <\/p>\n

\n9. Works and Knowledge. <\/p>\n

\nThese discords are thus successively resolved: <\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\nGOD<\/span> AND
\nNATURE<\/span> <\/b> <\/p>\n

\n1. Phenomenal Nature is a movement of the conscious Lord. The object of the
\nmovement is to create forms of His consciousness in motion in which He as the
\none soul in many bodies can take up his habitation and enjoy the multiplicity
\nand the movement with all their relations.\u00b9 <\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nENJOYMENT AND RENUNCIATION<\/span> <\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\n2. Real integral enjoyment of all this movement and multiplicity in its truth
\nand in its infinity depends upon an absolute renunciation; but the renunciation
\nintended is an absolute renunciation of the principle of desire founded on the
\nprinciple of egoism and not a renunciation of world-existence.\u00b2 This solution
\ndepends on the idea that desire is only an egoistic and vital deformation of the
\ndivine Ananda or delight of being from which the world is born; by extirpation
\nof ego and desire Ananda again becomes the conscious principle of existence.
\nThis substitution is the essence of the change from life in death to life in
\nimmortality. The enjoyment of the infinite delight of existence free from ego,
\nfounded on oneness of all in the Lord, is what is meant by the enjoyment of
\nImmortality. <\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\nACTION AND FREEDOM<\/span> <\/b> <\/p>\n

\n3. Actions are not inconsistent with the soul’s freedom. Man is not bound by
\nworks, but only seems to be bound. He has <\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00b9This is also the view of the Gita and generally
\naccepted.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\u00b2This, again, is the central standpoint of the
\nGita, which, however, admits also the renunciation of world-existence. The
\ngeneral trend of Vedantic thought would accept the
\nrenunciation of desire and egoism as the essential but would hold that
\nrenunciation of egoism means the renunciation of all world-existence, for it
\nsees desire and not Ananda as the cause of world-existence.<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 136<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nto recover the consciousness of his inalienable freedom by recovering the
\nconsciousness of unity in the Lord, unity in himself, unity with all existence.\u00b9
\nThis done, life and works can and should be accepted in their fullness; for the
\nmanifestation of the Lord in life and works is the law of our being and the
\nobject of our world-existence. <\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE QUIESCENCE AND THE MOVEMENT<\/span> <\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\n4. What then of the Quiescence of the Supreme Being and how is persistence in
\nthe Movement compatible with that Quiescence which is generally recognised as an
\nessential condition of the supreme Bliss? <\/p>\n

\nThe Quiescence and the Movement are equally one Brahman and the distinction
\ndrawn between them is only a phenomenon of our consciousness. So it is with the
\nidea of space and time, the far and the near, the subjective and the objective,
\ninternal and external, myself and others, one and many. Brahman, the real
\nexistence, is all these things to our consciousness, but in itself ineffably
\nsuperior to all such practical distinctions. The Movement is a phenomenon of the
\nQuiescence, the Quiescence itself may be conceived as a Movement too rapid for
\nthe gods, that is to say, for our various functions of consciousness to follow
\nin its real nature. But it is no formal, material, spatial, temporal movement,
\nonly a movement in consciousness. Knowledge sees it all as one. Ignorance
\ndivides and creates oppositions where there is no opposition but simply
\nrelations of one consciousness in itself. The ego in the body says, "I am
\nwithin, all else is outside ; and in what is outside, this is near to me in Time
\nand Space, that is far." All this is true in present relation; but in essence it
\nis all one indivisible movement of Brahman which is not material movement but a
\nway of seeing things in the one consciousness. <\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBEING AND BECOMING<\/span>
\n<\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\n5. Everything depends on what we see, how we look at existence in our soul’s
\nview of things. Being and Becoming, One and Many are both true and are both the
\nsame thing: Being <\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00b9This truth would, again, be generally admitted,
\nbut not the conclusion that is drawn from it.<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 137<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nis one. Becomings are many; but this simply means that all Becomings are one
\nBeing who places Himself variously in the phenomenal movement of His
\nconsciousness. We have to see the One Being, but we have not to cease to see the
\nmany Becomings, for they exist and are included in Brahman’s view of Himself.
\nOnly, we must see with knowledge and not with ignorance. We have to realise our
\ntrue self as the one unchangeable, indivisible Brahman. We have to see all
\nbecomings as developments of the movement in our true self and this self as one
\ninhabiting all bodies and not our body only. We have to be consciously, in our
\nrelations with this world, what we really are, \u2014 this one self becoming
\neverything that we observe. All the movement, all energies, all forms, all
\nhappenings we must see as those of our one and real self in many existences, as
\nthe play of the Will and Knowledge and Delight of the Lord in His
\nworld-existence. <\/p>\n

\nWe shall then be delivered from egoism and desire and the sense of separate
\nexistence and therefore from all grief and delusion and shrinking; for all grief
\nis born of the shrinking of the ego from the contacts of existence, its sense of
\nfear, weakness, want, dislike, etc.; and this is born from the delusion of
\nseparate existence, the sense of being my separate ego exposed to all these
\ncontacts of so much that is not myself. Get rid of this, see oneness everywhere,
\nbe the One manifesting Himself in all creatures;  ego will disappear; desire
\nborn of the sense of not being this, not having that, will disappear; the free
\ninalienable delight of the One in His own existence will take the place of
\ndesire and its satisfactions and dissatisfactions.1 Immortality will be yours,
\ndeath born of division will be overcome. <\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE ACTIVE AND INACTIVE BRAHMAN<\/span> <\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\n6. The Inactive and the Active Brahman are simply two aspects of the one Self,
\nthe one Brahman, who is the Lord. It is He who has gone abroad in the movement.
\nHe maintains Himself free from all modifications in His inactive existence. The
\ninaction is the basis of the action and exists in the action; it is His\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00b9In the ordinary view all this would be admitted,
\nbut the practical possibility of maintaining this state of consciousness and
\nbirth in the world together would be doubted.<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 138<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nfreedom from all He does and becomes and in all He does and becomes. These are
\nthe positive and negative poles of one indivisible consciousness. We embrace
\nboth in one quiescence and one movement, inseparable from each other, dependent
\non each other. The quiescence exists relatively to the movement, the movement to
\nthe quiescence. He is beyond both. This is a different point of view from that
\nof the identity of the Movement and Quiescence which are one in reality; it
\nexpresses rather their relation in our consciousness once they are admitted as a
\npractical necessity of that consciousness. It is obvious that we also by
\nbecoming one with the Lord would share in this biune conscious existence.\u00b9<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nVIDYA AND AVIDYA <\/span><\/p>\n

\n7. The knowledge of the One and the knowledge of the Many are a result of the
\nmovement of the one consciousness, which sees all things as One in their
\ntruth-Idea but differentiates them in their mentality and formal becoming. If
\nthe mind (manīṣī<\/span>)<\/i> absorbs itself in God as the
\nformal becoming (paribhū)<\/i> and separates itself from God in the true Idea
\n(kavi),<\/i> then it loses Vidya, the knowledge of the <\/b>One,<\/b> and
\nhas only the knowledge of the Many which becomes no longer knowledge at all but
\nignorance, Avidya. This is the cause of the separate ego-sense. <\/p>\n

\nAvidya is accepted by the Lord in the Mind (manīṣī<\/span>)<\/i>
\nin order to develop individual relations to their utmost in all the
\npossibilities of division and its consequences and then through these individual
\nrelations to come back individually to the knowledge of the One in all. That
\nknowledge has remained all along unabrogated in the consciousness of the true
\nseer or Kavi. This seer in ourselves stands back from the mental thinker; the
\nlatter, thus separated, has to conquer death and division by a developing
\nexperience as the individual Inhabitant and finally to recover by the reunited
\nknowledge of the One and the Many the state of Immortality. This is our proper
\ncourse and not either to devote ourselves exclusively to the life of Avidya or
\nto reject it entirely for motionless absorption in the <\/b>One. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9In the ordinary view the Jiva cannot exist in
\nboth at the same time; his dissolution is into the Quiescence and not into unity
\nwith the Lord in the action and inaction. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 139<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nBIRTH AND NON-BIRTH <\/span><\/p>\n

\n8. The reason for this double movement of the Thinker is that we are intended to
\nrealise immortality in the Birth. The self is uniform and undying and in itself
\nalways possesses immortality. It does not need to descend into Avidya and Birth
\nto get that immortality of Non-Birth; for it possesses it always. It descends in
\norder to realise and possess it as the individual Brahman in the play of
\nworld-existence. It accepts Birth and Death, assumes the ego and then dissolving
\nthe ego by the recovery of unity realises itself as the Lord, the One, and Birth
\nas only a becoming of the Lord in mental and formal being; this becoming is now
\ngoverned by the true sight of the Seer and, once this is done, becoming is no
\nlonger inconsistent with Being, birth becomes a means and not an obstacle to the
\nenjoyment of immortality by the lord of this formal habitation.\u00b9 This is our
\nproper course and not to remain for ever in the chain of birth and death, nor to
\nflee from birth into a pure non-becoming. The bondage does not consist in the
\nphysical act of becoming, but in the persistence of  the ignorant sense of the
\nseparate ego. The Mind creates the chain and not the body. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nWORKS AND KNOWLEDGE <\/span><\/p>\n

\n9. The opposition between works and knowledge exists as long as works and
\nknowledge are only of the egoistic mental character. Mental knowledge is not
\ntrue knowledge; true knowledge is that which is based on the true sight, the
\nsight of the Seer, of Surya, of the Kavi. Mental thought is not knowledge, it is
\na golden lid placed over the face of the Truth, the Sight, the divine Ideation,
\nthe Truth-Consciousness. When that is removed, sight replaces mental thought,
\nthe all-embracing truth-ideation mahas, veda, dṛ<\/span>ṣ<\/span>ṭ<\/span>i,<\/i>
\nreplaces the fragmentary mental activity. True Buddhi (vij\u00f1āna)<\/i> emerges
\nfrom the dissipated action of the Buddhi which is all that is possible on the
\nbasis of the sense-mind, the Manas. Vijnana leads us to pure knowledge (jnana),<\/i> \n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9This is the stumbling-block to the ordinary
\nphilosophies which are impregnated with the idea of the illusoriness of the
\nworld, even when they do not go the whole way with the Mayavada. Birth, they
\nwould say, is a play of ignorance, it cannot subsist along with entire
\nknowledge. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 140<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\npure consciousness (cit).<\/i> There we realise our entire identity with the
\nLord in all at the very roots of our being. <\/p>\n

\nBut in Chit, Will and Seeing are one. Therefore in Vijnana or truth-ideation
\nalso which comes luminously out of Chit, Will and Sight are combined and no
\nlonger as in the mind separated from each other. Therefore, when we have the
\nsight and live in the Truth-Consciousness, our will becomes the spontaneous law
\nof the truth in us and, knowing all its acts and their sense and objective,
\nleads straight to the human goal, which was always the enjoyment of the Ananda,
\nthe Lord’s delight in self-being, the state of Immortality. In our acts also we
\nbecome one with all beings and our life grows into a representation of oneness,
\ntruth and divine joy and no longer proceeds on the crooked path of egoism full
\nof division, error and stumbling. In a word, we attain to the object of our
\nexistence which is to manifest in itself whether on earth in a terrestrial body
\nand against the resistance of Matter or in the worlds beyond or enter beyond all
\nworld the glory of the divine Life and the divine Being.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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ANALYSIS  PREFATORY Plan of the Upanishad    THE Upanishads, being vehicles of illumination and not of instruction, composed for seekers who had already a general…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12-the-upanishad-volume-12","wpcat-14-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674","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=674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}