{"id":970,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:39","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=970"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:39","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:39","slug":"10-self-surrender-in-works-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20\/10-self-surrender-in-works-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","title":{"rendered":"-10_Self-Surrender in Works.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nChapter
\nIII<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/span>Self-Surrender
\nin Works \u2013 The Way of the Gita<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>L<\/font><\/span>IFE<\/span><\/font>, not a remote silent or
\nhigh-uplifted ecstatic Beyond-Life alone, is the field of our Yoga. The
\ntransformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking,
\nseeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an
\nintegrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the
\ndivine way of life must be its central purpose. The means towards this supreme
\nend is a self-giving of all our nature to the Divine. Everything must be given
\nto the Divine within us, to the universal All and to the transcendent Supreme.
\nAn absolute concentration of our will, our heart and our thought on that one and
\nmanifold Divine, an unreserved self-consecration of our whole being to the
\nDivine alone \u2013 this is the decisive movement, the turning of the ego to That
\nwhich is infinitely greater than itself, its self-giving and indispensable
\nsurrender.<\/span><\/p>\n

The life of the human
\ncreature, as it is ordinarily lived, is composed of a half-fixed, half-fluid
\nmass of very imperfectly ruled thoughts, perceptions, sensations, emotions,
\ndesires, enjoyments, acts, mostly customary and self-repeating, in part only
\ndynamic and self-developing, but all centred around a superficial ego. The sum
\nof movement of these activities eventuates in an internal growth which is
\npartly visible and operative in this life, partly a seed of progress in lives
\nhereafter. This growth of the conscious being, an expansion, an increasing
\nself-expression, a more and more harmonised development of his constituent
\nmembers is the whole meaning and all the pith of human existence. It is for
\nthis meaningful development of consciousness by thought, will, emotion, desire,
\naction and experience, leading in the end to a supreme divine self-discovery,
\nthat Man, the mental being, has entered into the material <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

body. All the rest is either auxiliary and
\nsubordinate or accidental and otiose; that only matters which sustains and
\nhelps the evolution of his nature and the growth or rather the progressive
\nunfolding and discovery of his self and spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

The aim set before our
\nYoga is nothing less than to hasten this supreme object of our existence here.
\nIts process leaves behind the ordinary tardy method of slow and confused growth
\nthrough the evolution of Nature. For the natural evolution is at its best an
\nuncertain growth under cover, partly by the pressure of the environment, partly
\nby a groping education and an ill-lighted purposeful effort, an only partially
\nillumined and half-automatic use of opportunities with many blunders and lapses
\nand relapses; a great portion of it is made up of apparent accidents and
\ncircumstances and vicissitudes, \u2013 though veiling a secret divine intervention
\nand guidance. In Yoga we replace this confused crooked crab-motion by a rapid,
\nconscious and self-directed evolution which is planned to carry us, as far as
\ncan be, in a straight line towards the goal set before us. In a certain sense
\nit may be an error to speak of a goal anywhere in a progression which may well
\nbe infinite. Still we can conceive of an immediate goal, an ulterior objective
\nbeyond our present achievement towards which the soul in man can aspire. There
\nlies before him the possibility of a new birth; there can be an ascent into a
\nhigher and wider plane of being and its descent to transform his members. An
\nenlarged and illumined consciousness is possible that shall make of him a
\nliberated spirit and a perfected force, and, if spread beyond the individual,
\nit might even constitute a divine humanity or else a new, a supramental and
\ntherefore a superhuman race. It is this new birth that we make our aim: a
\ngrowth into a divine consciousness is the whole meaning of our Yoga, an
\nintegral conversion to divinity not only of the soul but of all the parts of
\nour nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>*<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Our purpose in Yoga is
\nto exile the limited outward-looking ego and to enthrone God in its place as
\nthe ruling Inhabitant of the nature. And this means, first, to disinherit
\ndesire and <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

no longer accept the enjoyment of desire as the
\nruling human motive. The spiritual life will draw its sustenance not from
\ndesire but from a pure and selfless spiritual delight of essential existence.
\nAnd not only the vital nature in us whose stamp is desire, but the mental being
\ntoo must undergo a new birth and a transfiguring change. Our divided, egoistic,
\nlimited and ignorant thought and intelligence must disappear; in its place
\nthere must stream in the catholic and faultless play of a shadowless divine
\nillumination which shall culminate in the end in a natural self-existent
\nTruth-consciousness free from groping half-truth and stumbling error. Our
\nconfused and embarrassed ego-centred small-motived will and action must cease
\nand make room for the total working of a swiftly powerful, lucidly automatic,
\ndivinely moved and guided Force. There must be implanted and activised in all
\nour doings a supreme, impersonal, unfaltering and unstumbling will in
\nspontaneous and untroubled unison with the will of the Divine. The unsatisfying
\nsurface play of our feeble egoistic emotions must be ousted and there must be
\nrevealed instead a secret deep and vast psychic heart within that waits behind
\nthem for its hour; all our feelings, impelled by this inner heart in which
\ndwells the Divine, will be transmuted into calm and intense movements of a twin
\npassion of divine Love and manifold Ananda. This is the definition of a divine
\nhumanity or a supramental race. This, not an exaggerated or even a sublimated
\nenergy of human intellect and action, is the type of the superman whom we are
\ncalled to evolve by our Yoga.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the ordinary human
\nexistence an outgoing action is obviously three-fourths or even more of our
\nlife. It is only the exceptions, the saint and the seer, the rare thinker, poet
\nand artist who can live more within themselves; these indeed, at least in the
\nmost intimate parts of their nature, shape themselves more in inner thought and
\nfeeling than in the surface act. But it is not either of these sides separated
\nfrom the other, but rather a harmony of the inner and the outer life made one
\nin fullness and transfigured into a play of something that is beyond them which
\nwill create the form of a perfect living. A Yoga of works, a union with the
\nDivine in our will and acts \u2013 and not only in knowledge and feeling \u2013 is then
\nan indispensable, an inexpres<\/span>–<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

sibly<\/span><\/span> important element of an
\nintegral Yoga. The conversion of our thought and feeling without a corresponding
\nconversion of the spirit and body of our works would be a maimed achievement.<\/span><\/p>\n

But if this total
\nconversion is to be done, there must be a consecration of our actions and outer
\nmovements as much as of our mind and heart to the Divine. There must be
\naccepted and progressively accomplished a surrender of our capacities of
\nworking into the hands of a greater Power behind us and our sense of being the
\ndoer and worker must disappear. All must be given for a more direct use into
\nthe hands of the divine Will which is hidden by these frontal appearances; for
\nby that permitting Will alone is our action possible. A hidden Power is the
\ntrue Lord and overruling Observer of our acts and only he knows through all the
\nignorance and perversion and deformation brought in by the ego their entire
\nsense and ultimate purpose. There must be effected a complete transformation of
\nour limited and distorted egoistic life and works into the large and direct
\noutpouring of a greater divine Life, Will and Energy that now secretly supports
\nus. This greater Will and Energy must be made conscious in us and master; no
\nlonger must it remain, as now, only a superconscious, upholding and permitting
\nForce. There must be achieved an undistorted transmission through us of the
\nall-wise purpose and process of a now hidden omniscient Power and omnipotent
\nKnowledge which will turn into its pure, unobstructed, happily consenting and
\nparticipating channel all our transmuted nature. This total consecration and
\nsurrender and this resultant entire transformation and free transmission make
\nup the whole fundamental means and the ultimate aim of an integral Karmayoga.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even for those whose
\nfirst natural movement is a consecration, a surrender and a resultant entire
\ntransformation of the thinking mind and its knowledge, or a total consecration,
\nsurrender and transformation of the heart and its emotions, the consecration of
\nworks is a needed element in that change. Otherwise, although they may find God
\nin other-life, they will not be able to fulfil the Divine in life; life for
\nthem will be a meaningless undivine inconsequence. Not for them the <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

true victory that shall be the key to the riddle
\nof our terrestrial existence; their love will not be the absolute love
\ntriumphant over self, their knowledge will not be the total consciousness and
\nthe all-embracing knowledge. It is possible, indeed, to begin with knowledge or
\nGodward emotion solely or with both together and to leave works for the final
\nmovement of the Yoga. But there is then this disadvantage that we may tend to
\nlive too exclusively within, subtilised in subjective experience, shut off in
\nour isolated inner parts; there we may get incrusted in our spiritual seclusion
\nand find it difficult later on to pour ourselves triumphantly outwards and
\napply to life our gains in the higher Nature. When we turn to add this external
\nkingdom also to our inner conquests, we shall find ourselves too much
\naccustomed to an activity purely subjective and ineffective on the material
\nplane. There will be an immense difficulty in transforming the outer life and
\nthe body. Or we shall find that our action does not correspond with the inner
\nlight: it still follows the old accustomed mistaken paths, still obeys the old
\nnormal imperfect influences; the Truth within us continues to be separated by a
\npainful gulf from the ignorant mechanism of our external nature. This is a
\nfrequent experience because in such a process the Light and Power come to be
\nself-contained and unwilling to express themselves in life or to use the
\nphysical means prescribed for the Earth and her processes. It is as if we were
\nliving in another, a larger and subtler world and had no divine hold, perhaps
\nlittle hold of any kind, upon the material and terrestrial existence.<\/span><\/p>\n

But still each must
\nfollow his nature, and there are always difficulties that have to be accepted
\nfor some time if we are to pursue our natural path of Yoga. Yoga is after all
\nprimarily a change of the inner consciousness and nature, and if the balance of
\nour parts is such that this must be done first with an initial exclusiveness
\nand the rest left for later handling, we must accept the apparent imperfection
\nof the process. Yet would the ideal working of an integral Yoga be a movement,
\neven from the beginning, integral in its process and whole and many-sided in
\nits progress. In any case our present preoccupation is with a Yoga, integral in
\nits aim and complete movement, but starting from works and <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

proceeding by works although at each step more
\nand more moved by a vivifying divine love and more and more illumined by a
\nhelping divine knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>*<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

The greatest gospel of
\nspiritual works ever yet given to the race, the most perfect system of
\nKarmayoga known to man in the past, is to be found in the Bhagavad Gita. In that
\nfamous episode of the Mahabharata the great basic lines of Karmayoga are laid
\ndown for all time with an incomparable mastery and the infallible eye of an
\nassured experience. It is true that the path alone, as the ancients saw it, is
\nworked out fully: the perfect fulfilment, the highest secret is hinted rather
\nthan developed; it is kept back as an unexpressed part of a supreme mystery.
\nThere are obvious reasons for this reticence; for the fulfilment is in any case
\na matter for experience and no teaching can express it. It cannot be described
\nin a way that can really be understood by a mind that has not the effulgent
\ntransmuting experience. And for the soul that has passed the shining portals
\nand stands in the blaze of the inner light, all mental and verbal description
\nis as poor as it is superfluous, inadequate and an impertinence. All divine
\nconsummations have perforce to be figured by us in the inapt and deceptive
\nterms of a language which was made to fit the normal experience of mental man;
\nso expressed, they can be rightly understood only by those who already know,
\nand, knowing, are able to give these poor external terms a changed, inner and
\ntransfigured sense. As the Vedic Rishis insisted in the beginning, the words of
\nthe supreme wisdom are expressive only to those who are already of the wise.
\nThe Gita at its cryptic close may seem by its silence to stop short of that
\nsolution for which we are seeking; it pauses at the borders of the highest
\nspiritual mind and does not cross them into the splendours of the supramental
\nLight. And yet its secret of dynamic, and not only static, identity with the
\ninner Presence, its highest mystery of absolute surrender to the Divine Guide,
\nLord and Inhabitant of our nature, is the central secret. This surrender is the
\nindispensable means of the supramental change and, again, it is through the
\nsupramental change that the dynamic identity becomes possible.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

What then are the lines
\nof Karmayoga laid down by the Gita? Its key principle, its spiritual method,
\ncan be summed up as the union of two largest and highest states or powers of
\nconsciousness, equality and oneness. The kernel of its method is an unreserved
\nacceptance of the Divine in our life as in our inner self and spirit. An inner
\nrenunciation of personal desire leads to equality, accomplishes our total
\nsurrender to the Divine, supports a delivery from dividing ego which brings us
\noneness. But this must be a oneness in dynamic force and not only in static
\npeace or inactive beatitude. The Gita promises us freedom for the spirit even
\nin the midst of works and the full energies of Nature, if we accept subjection
\nof our whole being to that which is higher than the separating and limiting
\nego. It proposes an integral dynamic activity founded on a still passivity; a
\nlargest possible action irrevocably based on an immobile calm is its secret, \u2013
\nfree expression out of a supreme inward silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

All things here are the
\none and indivisible eternal transcendent and cosmic Brahman that is in its seeming
\ndivided in things and creatures; in seeming only, for in truth it is always one
\nand equal in all things and creatures and the division is only a phenomenon of
\nthe surface. As long as we live in the ignorant seeming, we are the ego and are
\nsubject to the modes of Nature. Enslaved to appearances, bound to the
\ndualities, tossed between good and evil, sin and virtue, grief and joy, pain
\nand pleasure, good fortune and ill fortune, success and failure, we follow
\nhelplessly the iron or gilt and iron round of the wheel of Maya. At best we
\nhave only the poor relative freedom which by us is ignorantly called free-will.
\nBut that is at bottom illusory, since it is the modes of Nature that express
\nthemselves through our personal will; it is force of Nature, grasping us,
\nungrasped by us that determines what we shall will and how we shall will it.
\nNature, not an independent ego, chooses what object we shall seek, whether by
\nreasoned will or unreflecting impulse, at any moment of our existence. If, on
\nthe contrary, we live in the unifying reality of the Brahman, then we go beyond
\nthe ego and overstep Nature. For then we get back to our true self and become
\nthe spirit; in the spirit we are above the impulsion of Nature, superior to her
\nmodes and forces. Attaining to a perfect equality in the soul,<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

mind and heart, we realise our true self of
\noneness \u2013 one with all beings, one too with That which expresses itself in them
\nand in all that we see and experience. This equality and this oneness are the
\nindispensable twin foundation we must lay down for a divine being, a divine
\nconsciousness, a divine action. Not one with all, we are not spiritual, not
\ndivine. Not equal-souled to all things, happenings and creatures, we cannot see
\nspiritually, cannot know divinely, cannot feel divinely towards others. The
\nSupreme Power, the one Eternal and Infinite is equal to all things and to all
\nbeings; and because it is equal, it can act with an absolute wisdom according
\nto the truth of its works and its force and according to the truth of each
\nthing and of every creature. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is also the only
\ntrue freedom possible to man, \u2013 a freedom which he cannot have unless he
\noutgrows his mental separativeness and becomes the conscious soul in Nature.
\nThe only free will in the world is the one divine Will of which Nature is the
\nexecutrix; for she is the master and creator of all other wills. Human
\nfree-will can be real in a sense, but, like all things that belong to the modes
\nof Nature, it is only relatively real. The mind rides on a swirl of natural
\nforces, balances on a poise between several possibilities, inclines to one side
\nor another, settles and has the sense of choosing: but it does not see, it is
\nnot even dimly aware of the Force behind that has determined its choice. It
\ncannot see it, because that Force is something total and to our eyes
\nindeterminate. At most mind can only distinguish with an approach to clarity
\nand precision some out of the complex variety of particular determinations by
\nwhich this Force works out her incalculable purposes. Partial itself, the mind
\nrides on a part of the machine, unaware of nine-tenths of its motor agencies in
\nTime and environment, unaware of its past preparation and future drift; but
\nbecause it rides, it thinks that it is directing the machine. In a sense it
\ncounts: for that clear inclination of the mind which we call our will, that
\nfirm settling of the inclination which presents itself to us as a deliberate choice,
\nis one of Nature’s most powerful determinants; but it is never independent and
\nsole. Behind this petty instrumental action of the human will there is
\nsomething vast and powerful and eternal that oversees the trend of the
\ninclination and presses on the turn of <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

the will. There is a total Truth in Nature
\ngreater than our individual choice. And in this total Truth, or even beyond and
\nbehind it, there is something that determines all results; its presence and
\nsecret knowledge keep up steadily in the process of Nature a dynamic, almost
\nautomatic perception of the right relations, the varying or persistent
\nnecessities, the inevitable steps of the movement. There is a secret divine
\nWill, eternal and infinite, omniscient and omnipotent, that expresses itself in
\nthe universality and in each particular of all these apparently temporal and
\nfinite inconscient or half-conscient things. This is the Power or Presence
\nmeant by the Gita when it speaks of the Lord within the heart of all existences
\nwho turns all creatures as if mounted on a machine by the illusion of Nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

This divine Will is not
\nan alien Power or Presence; it is intimate to us and we ourselves are part of
\nit: for it is our own highest Self that possesses and supports it. Only, it is
\nnot our conscious mental will; it rejects often enough what our conscious will
\naccepts and accepts what our conscious will rejects. For while this secret One
\nknows all and every whole and each detail, our surface mind knows only a little
\npart of things. Our will is conscious in the mind, and what it knows, it knows
\nby the thought only; the divine Will is superconscious to us because it is in
\nits essence supra-mental, and it knows all because it is all. Our highest Self
\nwhich possesses and supports this universal Power is not our ego-self, not our
\npersonal nature; it is something transcendent and universal of which these
\nsmaller things are only foam and flowing surface. If we surrender our conscious
\nwill and allow it to be made one with the will of the Eternal, then, and then
\nonly, shall we attain to a true freedom; living in the divine liberty, we shall
\nno longer cling to this shackled so-called free-will, a puppet freedom
\nignorant, illusory, relative, bound to the error of its own inadequate vital
\nmotives and mental figures.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>*<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

A distinction has to be
\nfirmly seized in our consciousness, the capital distinction between mechanical
\nNature and the free Lord of Nature, between the Ishwara or single luminous
\ndivine Will<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

and the many executive modes and forces of the
\nuniverse.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nature, \u2013 not as she is
\nin her divine Truth, the conscious Power of the Eternal, but as she appears to
\nus in the Ignorance, \u2013 is executive Force, mechanical in her steps, not
\nconsciously intelligent to our experience of her, although all her works are
\ninstinct with an absolute intelligence. Not in herself master, she is full of a
\nself-aware Power\u00b9 which has an infinite mastery and, because of this Power
\ndriving her, she rules all and exactly fulfils the work intended in her by the
\nIshwara. Not enjoying but enjoyed, she bears in herself the burden of all
\nenjoyments. Nature as Prakriti is an inertly active Force, \u2013 for she works out
\na movement imposed upon her; but within her is One that knows, \u2013 some Entity
\nsits there that is aware of all her motion and process. Prakriti works
\ncontaining the knowledge, the mastery, the delight of the Purusha, the Being
\nassociated with her or seated within her; but she can participate in them only
\nby subjection and reflection of that which fills her. Purusha knows and is
\nstill and inactive; he contains the action of Prakriti within his consciousness
\nand knowledge and enjoys it. He gives the sanction to Prakriti’s works and she
\nworks out what is sanctioned by him for his pleasure. Purusha himself does not
\nexecute; he maintains Prakriti in her action and allows her to express in
\nenergy and process and formed result what he perceives in his knowledge. This
\nis the distinction made by the Sankhyas; and although it is not all the true
\ntruth, not in any way the highest truth either of Purusha or of Prakriti, still
\nit is a valid and indispensable practical knowledge in the lower hemisphere of
\nexistence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The individual soul or
\nthe conscious being in a form may identify itself with this experiencing
\nPurusha or with this active Prakriti. If it identifies itself with Prakriti, it
\nis not master, enjoyer and knower, but reflects the modes and workings of
\nPrakriti. It enters by its identification into that subjection and mechanical
\nworking which is characteristic of her. And even, by an entire immersion in
\nPrakriti, this soul becomes inconscient or subconscient, asleep in her forms as
\nin the earth and the metal or almost asleep as in plant life. There, in that
\ninconscience, it is <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9 This Power is
\nthe conscious divine Shakti of the Ishwara, the transcendent and universal
\nMother.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

subject to the domination of Tamas, the
\nprinciple, the power, the qualitative mode of obscurity and inertia: Sattwa and
\nRajas are there, but they are concealed in the thick coating of Tamas. Emerging
\ninto its own proper nature of consciousness but not yet truly conscious,
\nbecause there is still too great a domination of Tamas in the nature, the
\nembodied being becomes more and more subject to Rajas, the principle, the
\npower, the qualitative mode of action and passion impelled by desire and
\ninstinct. There is then formed and developed the animal nature, narrow in
\nconsciousness, rudimentary in intelligence, rajaso-tamasic in vital habit and
\nimpulse. Emerging yet farther from the great Inconscience towards a spiritual
\nstatus the embodied being liberates Sattwa, the mode of light, and acquires a
\nrelative freedom and mastery and knowledge and with it a qualified and
\nconditioned sense of inner satisfaction and happiness. Man, the mental being in
\na physical body, should be but is not, except in a few among this multitude of
\nensouled bodies, of this nature. Ordinarily he has too much in him of the
\nobscure earth-inertia and a troubled ignorant animal life-force to be a soul of
\nlight and bliss or even a mind of harmonious will and knowledge. There is here
\nin man an incomplete and still hampered and baffled ascension towards the true
\ncharacter of the Purusha, free, master, knower and enjoyer. For these are in
\nhuman and earthly experience relative modes, none giving its single and
\nabsolute fruit; all are intermixed with each other and there is not the pure
\naction of any one of them anywhere. It is their confused and inconstant
\ninteraction that determines the experiences of the egoistic human consciousness
\nswinging in Nature’s uncertain balance.<\/span><\/p>\n

The sign of the immersion
\nof the embodied soul in Prakriti is the limitation of consciousness to the ego.
\nThe vivid stamp of this limited consciousness can be seen in a constant
\ninequality of the mind and heart and a confused conflict and disharmony in
\ntheir varied reactions to the touches of experience. The human reactions sway
\nperpetually between the dualities created by the soul’s subjection to Nature
\nand by its often intense but narrow struggle for mastery and enjoyment, a
\nstruggle for the most part ineffective. The soul circles in an unending round
\nof Nature’s alluring and distressing opposites, success and failure, good <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

fortune and ill fortune, good and evil, sin and
\nvirtue, joy and grief, pain and pleasure. It is only when, awaking from its
\nimmersion in Prakriti, it perceives its oneness with the One and its oneness
\nwith all existences that it can become free from these things and found its
\nright relation to this executive world-Nature. Then it becomes indifferent to
\nher inferior modes, equal-minded to her dualities, capable of mastery and
\nfreedom; it is seated above her as the high-throned<\/span>
\nknower and witness filled with the calm intense unalloyed delight of his own
\neternal existence. The embodied spirit continues to express its powers in
\naction, but it is no longer involved in ignorance, no longer bound by its
\nworks; its actions have no longer a consequence within it, but only a
\nconsequence outside in Prakriti. The whole movement of Nature becomes to its
\nexperience a rising and falling of waves on the surface that make no difference
\nto its own unfathomable peace, its wide delight, its vast universal equality or
\nits boundless God-existence.\u00b9<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>*<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

These are the conditions
\nof our effort and they point to an ideal which can be expressed in these or in
\nequivalent formulae.<\/span><\/p>\n

To live in God and not
\nin the ego; to move, vastly founded, not in the little egoistic consciousness,
\nbut in the consciousness of the All-Soul and the Transcendent.<\/span><\/p>\n

To be perfectly equal in
\nall happenings and to all beings, and to see and feel them as one with oneself
\nand one with the Divine; to feel all in oneself and all in God; to feel God in
\nall, oneself in all.<\/span><\/p>\n

To act in God and not in
\nthe ego. And here, first, not to choose action by reference to personal needs
\nand standards, but in obedience to the dictates of the living highest Truth
\nabove us. Next, as soon as we are sufficiently founded in the spiritual
\nconsciousness, not to act any longer by our separate will or move-<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9 <\/span>It is not
\nindispensable for the Karmayoga to accept implicitly all the philosophy of the
\nGita. We may regard it, if we like, as a statement of psychological experience
\nuseful as a practical basis for the Yoga; here it is perfectly valid and in
\nentire consonance with a high and wide experience. For this reason I have thought
\nit well to state it here, as far as possible in the language of modern thought,
\nomitting all that belongs to metaphysics rather than to psychology.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

ment<\/span><\/span>, but more and more to allow
\naction to happen and develop under the impulsion and guidance of a divine Will
\nthat surpasses us. And last, the supreme result, to be exalted into an identity
\nin knowledge, force, consciousness, act, joy of existence with the Divine
\nShakti; to feel a dynamic movement not dominated by mortal desire and vital
\ninstinct and impulse and illusive mental free-will, but luminously conceived
\nand evolved in an immortal self-delight and an infinite self-knowledge. For
\nthis is the action that comes by a conscious subjection and merging of the
\nnatural man into the divine Self and eternal Spirit; it is the Spirit that for
\never transcends and guides this world-Nature.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>*<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

But by what practical
\nsteps of self-discipline can we arrive at this consummation?<\/span><\/p>\n

The elimination of all
\negoistic activity and of its foundation, the egoistic consciousness, is clearly
\nthe key to the consummation we desire. And since in the path of works action is
\nthe knot we have first to loosen, we must endeavour to loosen it where it is centrally
\ntied, in desire and in ego; for otherwise we shall cut only stray strands and
\nnot the heart of our bondage. These are the two knots of our subjection to this
\nignorant and divided Nature, desire and ego-sense. And of these two desire has
\nits native home in the emotions and sensations and instincts and from there
\naffects thought and volition; ego-sense lives indeed in these movements, but it
\ncasts its deep roots also in the thinking mind and its will and it is there
\nthat it becomes fully self-conscious. These are the twin obscure powers of the
\nobsessing world-wide Ignorance that we have to enlighten and eliminate.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the field of action
\ndesire takes many forms, but the most powerful of all is the vital self’s
\ncraving or seeking after the fruit of our works. The fruit we covet may be a
\nreward of internal pleasure; it may be the accomplishment of some preferred
\nidea or some cherished will or the satisfaction of the egoistic emotions, or
\nelse the pride of success of our highest hopes and ambitions. Or it may be an
\nexternal reward, a recompense entirely material, \u2013 wealth, position, honour,
\nvictory, good fortune or <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

any other fulfilment of vital or physical
\ndesire. But all alike are lures by which egoism holds us. Always these
\nsatisfactions delude us with the sense of mastery and the idea of freedom,
\nwhile really we are harnessed and guided or ridden and whipped by some gross or
\nsubtle, some noble or ignoble, figure of the blind Desire that drives the
\nworld. Therefore the first rule of action laid down by the Gita is to do the
\nwork that should be done without any desire for the fruit, nişkāma
\nkarma.<\/span><\/p>\n

A simple rule in
\nappearance, and yet how difficult to carry out with anything like an absolute
\nsincerity and liberating entireness! In the greater part of our action we use
\nthe principle very little if at all, and then even mostly as a sort of
\ncounterpoise to the normal principle of desire and to mitigate the extreme
\naction of that tyrant impulse. At best, we are satisfied if we arrive at a
\nmodified and disciplined egoism not too shocking to our moral sense, not too
\nbrutally offensive to others. And to our partial self-discipline we give
\nvarious names and forms; we habituate ourselves by practice to the sense of
\nduty, to a firm fidelity to principle, a stoical fortitude or a religious
\nresignation, a quiet or an ecstatic submission to God’s will. But it is not
\nthese things that the Gita intends, useful though they are in their place; it
\naims at something absolute, unmitigated, uncompromising, a turn, an attitude
\nthat will change the whole poise of the soul. Not the mind’s control of vital
\nimpulse is its rule, but the strong immobility of an immortal spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

The test it lays down is
\nan absolute equality of the mind and the heart to all results, to all reactions,
\nto all happenings. If good fortune and ill fortune, if respect and insult, if
\nreputation and obloquy, if victory and defeat, if pleasant event and sorrowful
\nevent leave us not only unshaken but untouched, free in the emotions, free in
\nthe nervous reactions, free in the mental view, not responding with the least
\ndisturbance or vibration in any spot of the nature, then we have the absolute
\nliberation to which the Gita points us, but not otherwise. The tiniest reaction
\nis a proof that the discipline is imperfect and that some part of us accepts
\nignorance and bondage as its law and clings still to the old nature. Our
\nself-conquest is only partially accomplished; it is still imperfect or unreal
\nin some stretch or part or smallest <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

spot of the ground of our nature. And that
\nlittle pebble of imperfection may throw down the whole achievement of the Yoga!<\/span><\/p>\n

There are certain
\nsemblances of an equal spirit which must not be mistaken for the profound and
\nvast spiritual equality which the Gita teaches. There is an equality of
\ndisappointed resignation, an equality of pride, an equality of hardness and
\nindifference: all these are egoistic in their nature. Inevitably they come in
\nthe course of the sadhana, but they must be rejected or transformed into the
\ntrue quietude. There is too, on a higher level, the equality of the stoic, the
\nequality of a devout resignation or a sage detachment, the equality of a soul
\naloof from the world and indifferent to its doings. These too are insufficient;
\nfirst approaches they can be, but they are at most early soul-phases only or
\nimperfect mental preparations for our entry into the true and absolute
\nself-existent wide evenness of the spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

For it is certain that
\nso great a result cannot be arrived at immediately and without any previous
\nstages. At first we have to learn to bear the shocks of the world with the
\ncentral part of our being untouched and silent, even when the surface mind,
\nheart, life are strongly shaken; unmoved there on the bedrock of our life, we
\nmust separate the soul watching behind or immune deep within from these outer
\nworkings of our nature. Afterwards, extending this calm and steadfastness of
\nthe detached soul to its instruments, it will become slowly possible to radiate
\npeace from the luminous centre to the darker peripheries. In this process we
\nmay take the passing help of many minor phases; a certain stoicism, a certain
\ncalm philosophy, a certain religious exaltation may help us towards some
\nnearness to our aim, or we may call in even less strong and exalted but still
\nuseful powers of our mental nature. In the end we must either discard or
\ntransform them and arrive instead at an entire equality, a perfect
\nself-existent peace within and even, if we can, a total unassailable,
\nself-poised and spontaneous delight in all our members.<\/span><\/p>\n

But how then shall we
\ncontinue to act at all? For ordinarily the human being acts because he has a
\ndesire or feels a mental, vital or physical want or need; he is driven by the
\nnecessities of the body, by the lust of riches, honours or fame, or by a
\ncraving <\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

for the personal satisfactions of the mind or
\nthe heart or a craving for power or pleasure. Or he is seized and pushed about
\nby a moral need or, at least, the need or the desire of making his ideas or his
\nideals or his will or his party or his country or his gods prevail in the
\nworld. If none of these desires nor any other must be the spring of our action,
\nit would seem as if all incentive or motive power had been removed and action
\nitself must necessarily cease. The Gita replies with its third great secret of
\nthe divine life. All action must be done in a more and more Godward and finally
\na God-possessed consciousness; our works must be a sacrifice to the Divine and
\nin the end a surrender of all our being, mind, will, heart, sense, life and
\nbody to the One must make God-love and God-service our only motive. This
\ntransformation of the motive force and very character of works is indeed its
\nmaster idea; it is the foundation of its unique synthesis of works, love and
\nknowledge. In the end not desire, but the consciously felt will of the Eternal
\nremains as the sole driver of our action and the sole originator of its
\ninitiative.<\/span><\/p>\n

Equality, renunciation
\nof all desire for the fruit of our works, action done as a sacrifice to the
\nsupreme Lord of our nature and of all nature, \u2013 these are the three first
\nGodward approaches in the Gita’s way of Karmayoga.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 97<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter III   Self-Surrender in Works \u2013 The Way of the Gita    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 LIFE, not a remote silent or high-uplifted ecstatic Beyond-Life alone, is the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","wpcat-20-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970","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=970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}