{"id":94,"date":"2013-07-13T01:25:52","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=94"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:25:52","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:52","slug":"47-the-three-purushas-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03\/47-the-three-purushas-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-47_The Three Purushas.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nThe Three Purushas<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n                            T<\/font>HE <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b>greatest of all the philosophical problems which human thought has struggled to solve is the exact
\nnature and relation to us of the conscious Intelligence in the
\nphenomenal existence around. The idealist denies the phenomenal existence, the materialist denies the conscious Intelligence.
\nTo the former, phenomenon is a passing shadow on the luminous calm of the single universal Spirit: to the latter, Intelligence
\nis a temporary result of the motions of Matter. The idealist can
\ngive no satisfactory explanation of the existence of the shadow;<\/font>
\n<\/font>.he admits that it is inexplicable, a thing that is and yet is not: the
\nmaterialist can give no satisfactory explanation of the existence of
\nintelligence; he simply tries to trace the stages of its development and the methods of its workings, and covers over the want
\nof an explanation by the abundant minuteness of his observations. But the soul of Man, looking out and in, is satisfied neither
\nwith Shankara nor with Haeckel. It sees the universal existence
\nof phenomena, it sees the universal existence of Intelligence.
\nIt seeks a term which will admit both, cover both, identify both;<\/font>
\n<\/font>it demands, not an elimination of either, but a reconcilement.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Upanishads do not deny the reality of the world, but
\nthey identify it with Brahman who transcends it. He is the One
\nwithout a second; He is the All. If all is Brahman, then there
\ncan be nothing but Brahman, and therefore the existence of the
\nAll, sarvam idam<\/i>, does not contradict the unity of Brahman, does
\nnot establish the reality of bheda<\/i>, difference. It is one Intelligence looking at itself from a hundred viewpoints, each point
\nconscious of and enjoying the existence of the others. The
\nshoreless stream of idea and thought, imagination and experience, name and form, sensation and vibration sweeps onward
\nfor ever, without beginning, without end, rising into view, sinking
\nout of sight; through it the one Intelligence with its million self-expressions pours itself abroad, an ocean with innumerable
\nwaves. One particular self-expression may disappear into its<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 369<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nsource and continent, but that does not and cannot abolish the
\nphenomenal universe. The One is for ever, and the Many are
\nfor ever because the <\/b> One is for ever. So long as there is a sea,
\nthere will be waves.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn the oceanic stir and change of universal Nature the soul
\nor Purusha is the standing-point, stable, unmoving, unchanging,
\neternal, \u2014 nityah sarvagatah sthānur acalo’yam sanātanah<\/i>. In the
\nwhole, the Purusha or soul is one, \u2014 there is One Spirit which
\nsupports the stir of the Universe, not many. In the individual the
\nOne Purusha has three stages of personality; He is One, but
\ntriple, trivrt<\/i>. The Upanishads speak of two birds on one tree, of
\nwhich one eats the fruit of the tree, the other, seated on a higher
\nbranch, does not eat but watches its fellow; one is īśa<\/i> or Lord of
\nitself, the other is anīśā<\/i>, not lord of itself, and it is when the
\neater looks up and perceives the greatness of the watcher and fills
\nhimself with it that grief, death, subjection, \u2014 in one word māyā<\/i>,
\n<\/i>ignorance and illusion,\u2014cease to touch him. There are two
\nunborn who are male and one unborn who is female; she is the
\ntree with its sweet and bitter fruit, the two are the birds. One of
\nthe unborn enjoys her sweetness, the other has put it away from
\nhim. These are the two Purushas, the aksara<\/i> or immutable spirit,
\nand the ksara<\/i> or apparently mutable, and the tree or woman is
\nPrakriti, universal Energy which the Europeans call Nature.
\nThe ksara<\/i> Purusha is the soul in Nature and enjoying Nature,
\nthe aksara<\/i> Purusha is the soul above Nature and watching her.
\nBut there is One who is not seated on the tree but occupies and
\npossesses it, who is not only lord of Himself, but lord of all that
\nis; He is higher than the ksara<\/i>, higher than the aksara<\/i>. He is
\nPurushottama, the Soul one with God, with the All.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThese three Purushas are described in the fifteenth chapter
\nof the Gita. "There are two Purushas in the world, the aksara
\n<\/i>and the ksara<\/i>, \u2014<\/i> the ksara<\/i> is all creatures, the aksara<\/i> is called
\nkūtastha<\/i>, the one on the summit. There is another Purusha, the
\nhighest (uttama<\/i>), called also the paramātmā<\/i> or Supreme Spirit,
\nwho enters into the three worlds, (the worlds of susupti<\/i>, svapna<\/i>, jāgrat<\/i>, otherwise the causal, mental and physical planes of existence), and sustains them as their imperishable lord." And in
\nthe thirteenth chapter, while drawing the distinction between<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 370<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe lower Purusha and the higher, Sri Krishna defines more minutely the relations of God and the individual soul to Nature.
\n"Prakriti is the basic source of cause, effect and agency; the
\nPurusha, of the sense <\/b> of enjoyment, of happiness and grief;<\/font>
\n<\/font>for it is the soul in Nature (Purusha in Prakriti) that enjoys
\nthe threefold workings of things caused by Nature (the play of
\nconservation, creation and destruction; reception, reaction and
\nresistance; illumination, misconception and obscuration; calm,
\nwork and inertia; all being different manifestations of three
\nfundamental forces called the gunas<\/i> or essential properties of
\nPrakriti), and it is the attachment of the soul to the gunas<\/i> that is
\nthe cause of births in bodies, good and evil. The highest Purusha
\nin this body is the one who watches, who sanctions, who enjoys,
\nwho upholds, who is the mighty Lord and the Supreme Soul."<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe personality of the Supreme Soul is universal, not individual. Whatever is in all creatures, character, idea, imagination,
\nexperience, sensation, motion, is contained by Him as an object
\nof spiritual enjoyment without limiting or determining Him.
\nHe is all things at once. Such universality is necessary to support
\nand supply individual existence, but it cannot be the determining
\nlimit of individual existence. Something has to be reserved,
\nsomething put forward, and this partial manifestation is the
\nindividual. "It is verily an eternal part of Me that in the world
\nof individual existence becomes the jīva<\/i> or individual." The jīva
\n<\/i>or individual is ksara<\/i> Purusha, and between him and the Supreme stands the aksara<\/i> Purusha, the bird on the summit of the
\ntree, joyous in his own bliss, undisturbed by the play of Nature,
\nimpartially watching it, receiving its image on his calm immovable existence without being for a moment bound or affected,
\neternally self-gathered, eternally free. This aksara<\/i> Purusha is
\nour real self, our divine unity with God, our inalienable freedom
\nfrom that which is transient and changing. If it did not exist,
\nthere would be no escape from the bondage of life and death,
\njoy and grief, sin and virtue; we should be prisoners in a cage
\nwithout a door, beating our wings against the bars in vain for an
\nexit; life and death, joy and grief, sin and virtue would be eternal, ineffugable realities, not temporary rules determining the
\ngreat game of life, and we should be unwilling actors, not free<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 371<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nplaymates of God able to suspend and renew the game when we
\nwill. It is by realising our oneness with the aksara<\/i> Purusha that
\nwe get freedom from ignorance, freedom from the cords of desire,
\nfreedom from the imperative law of works. On the other hand,
\nif the aksara<\/i> Purusha were all, as the Sankhya philosophy contends, there would be no basis for different experience, no varying personality, every individual existence would be precisely
\nlike every other individual existence, the development and experience of one soul in Nature an exact replica of the development
\nand experience of another soul. It is the ksara<\/i> Purusha who is all
\ncreatures, and the variety of experience, character and development is effected by a particular part of the universal svabhāva
\n<\/i>or nature of conscious existence in phenomena, being attached
\nto a particular individual or jīva<\/i>. This is what is meant by saying
\nthat it is a part of God which becomes the jīva<\/i>. This svabhāva<\/i>,
\n<\/i>once determined, does not change; but it manifests various parts
\nof itself, at various times, under various circumstances, in various
\nforms of action and various bodies suited to the action or development it has to enjoy. It is for this reason that the Purusha in
\nNature is called ksara<\/i>, fluid, shifting, although it is not in reality
\nfluid or shifting, but constant, eternal and immutable, sanātana<\/i>. <\/i>It is the variety of its enjoyment in Time, Space and Causality
\nthat makes it ksara<\/i>. The enjoyment of the aksara<\/i> Purusha is
\nself-existent, beyond Time, Space and Causality, aware of, but
\nundisturbed by the continual multitudinous flux and reflux of
\nPrakriti. The enjoyment of Purushottama is both in Prakriti
\nand beyond it, it embraces and is the reality of all experience and
\nenjoyment.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nDevelopment is determined by the ksara<\/i> Purusha, but not
\nconducted by him. It is Prakriti, the Universal Energy, that
\nconducts development under the law of cause and effect and is
\nthe true agent. The soul is not the agent, but the lord who enjoys
\nthe results of the action of his agent, Prakriti or nature; only
\nby his attachment to Prakriti he forgets himself and identifies
\nhimself with her so as to have the illusion of agency and, by thus
\nforgetting himself, ceases to be lord of himself, becomes subject
\nto Causality, imprisoned in Time and Space, bound by the work
\nwhich he sanctions. He himself, being a part of God, is made in<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 372<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nHis image, of one nature with Him. Therefore what God is, he
\nalso is, only with limitation, subject to Time, Space and Causality, because he has, of his own will, accepted that bondage. He
\nis the witness, and if he ceased to watch, the drama would stop.
\nHe is the source of sanction, and what he declares null and void,
\ndrops away from the development. He is the enjoyer, and if
\nhe became indifferent, that individual development would be
\narrested. He is the upholder, and if he ceased to sustain the ādhāra<\/i>, the vehicle, it would fall and cease. He is the lord, and it
\nis for his pleasure that Nature acts. He is the spirit, and matter
\nis only his vehicle, his robe, his means of self-expression. But all
\nhis sanctions, refusals, behests act not at once, not there and then,
\nnot by imperative absolute compulsion, but subject to lapse of
\ntime, change of place, working of cause to effect. The lapse may
\nbe brief or long, a moment or centuries; the change small or
\ngreat, here or in another world; the working direct or indirect,
\nwith the rapid concentration of processes which men call a miracle or with the careful and laboured evolution in which every
\nstep is visibly ordered and deliberate; but so long as the jīva
\n<\/i>is
\n<\/i>bound, his lordship is limited and constitutional, not despotic
\nand absolute. His sanction and signature are necessary, but it is
\nthe Lords spiritual and temporal of his mind and body, the Commons in his external environment who do the work of the State,
\nexecute, administer, legislate.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe first step in self-liberation is to get rid of the illusion of
\nagency, to realise that Nature acts, not the soul. The second is
\nto remove the siege of phenomenal associations, by surrendering
\nlordship to God, leaving Him alone to uphold and sanction by
\nthe abdication of one’s own independent use of these powers,
\noffering up the privilege of the enjoyer to Him. All that is then
\nleft is the attitude of the aksara<\/i> Purusha, the free, blissful self-existence watching the action of Prakriti, but outside it. The
\nksara<\/i> withdraws into the aksara<\/i>. When the sāksī<\/i> or witness withdraws into God Himself, that is the utter liberation.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 373<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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