{"id":972,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=972"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:40","slug":"17-the-three-modes-of-nature-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\/17-the-three-modes-of-nature-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","title":{"rendered":"-17_The Three Modes of Nature.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


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

\nThe Three
\nModes of Nature<\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\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 <\/font> <\/span>T<\/font><\/span>O TRANSCEND<\/span><\/font> the natural action of
\nthe lower Prakriti is indispensable to the soul, if it is to be free
\nin its self and free in its works. Harmonious subjection to this actual
\nuniversal Nature, a condition of good and perfect work for the natural instruments,
\nis not an ideal for the soul, which should rather be subject to God and his
\nShakti, but master of its own nature. As agent or as channel of the Supreme
\nWill it must determine by its vision and sanction or refusal the use that shall
\nbe made of the storage of energy, the conditions of environment, the rhythm of
\ncombined movement which are provided by Prakriti for the labour of the natural
\ninstruments, mind, life and body. But this inferior Nature can only be mastered
\nif she is surmounted and used from above. And this can only be done by a
\ntranscendence of her forces, qualities and modes of action; otherwise we are
\nsubject to her conditions and helplessly dominated by her, not free in the
\nspirit. <\/span><\/p>\n

The idea of
\nthe three essential modes of Nature is a creation of the ancient Indian
\nthinkers and its truth is not at once obvious, because it was the result of
\nlong psychological experiment and profound internal experience. Therefore
\nwithout a long inner experience, without intimate self-observation and
\nintuitive perception of the Nature-forces it is difficult to grasp accurately
\nor firmly utilise. Still certain broad indications may help the seeker on the
\nWay of Works to understand, analyse and control by his assent or refusal the
\ncombinations of his own nature. These modes are termed in the Indian books qualities,
\ngunas, and are given the names sattva,
\nrajas, tamas<\/span><\/i>. Sattwa is the force of equilibrium
\nand translates in quality as good and harmony and happiness and light; rajas is
\nthe force of kinesis and translates in quality as struggle and effort, passion
\nand action; tamas is the force of inconscience and inertia and translates in
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 220<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

quality<\/span><\/span> as obscurity
\nand incapacity and inaction. Ordinarily used for psychological self-analysis,
\nthese distinctions are valid also in physical Nature. Each thing and every
\nexistence in the lower Prakriti contains them and its process and dynamic form
\nare the result of the interaction of these qualitative powers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every form of
\nthings, whether animate or inanimate, is a constantly maintained poise of
\nnatural forces in motion and is subject to an unending stream of helpful,
\ndisturbing or disintegrating contacts from other combinations of forces that surround
\nit. Our own nature of mind, life and body is nothing else than such a formative
\ncombination and poise. In the reception of the environing contacts and the
\nreaction to them the three modes determine the temper of the recipient and the character
\nof the response. Inert and inapt, he may suffer them without any responsive
\nreaction, any motion of self-defence or any capacity of assimilation and
\nadjustment; this is the mode of tamas, the way of inertia. The stigmata of
\ntamas are blindness and unconsciousness and incapacity and unintelligence,
\nsloth and indolence and inactivity and mechanical routine and the mind’s torpor
\nand the life’s sleep and the soul’s slumber. Its effect, if uncorrected by
\nother elements, can be nothing but disintegration of the form or the poise of
\nthe nature without any new creation or new equilibrium or force of kinetic progress.
\nAt the heart of this inert impotence is the principle of ignorance and an
\ninability or slothful unwillingness to comprehend, seize and manage the
\nstimulating or assailing contact, the suggestion of environing forces and their
\nurge towards fresh experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other
\nhand, the recipient of Nature’s contacts, touched and stimulated, solicited or
\nassailed by her forces, may react to the pressure or against it. She allows,
\nencourages, impels him to strive, to resist, to attempt, to dominate or engross
\nhis environment, to assert his will, to fight and create and conquer. This is
\nthe mode of rajas, the way of passion and action and the thirst of desire.
\nStruggle and change and new creation, victory and defeat and joy and suffering
\nand hope and disappointment are its children and build the many-coloured house
\nof life in which it takes its pleasure. But its knowledge is an imperfect or a
\nfalse knowledge and brings with it ignorant <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 221<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

effort<\/span><\/span>, error, a
\nconstant misadjustment, pain of attachment, disappointed desire, grief of loss
\nand failure. The gift of rajas is kinetic force, energy, activity, the power
\nthat creates and acts and can overcome; but it moves in the wrong lights or the
\nhalf-lights of the Ignorance and it is perverted by the touch of the Asura, Rakshasa
\nand Pishacha. The arrogant ignorance of the human mind and its self-satisfied
\nperversions and presumptuous errors, the pride and vanity and ambition, the
\ncruelty and tyranny and beast wrath and violence, the selfishness and baseness and
\nhypocrisy and treachery and vile meanness, the lust and greed and rapacity, the
\njealousy, envy and bottomless ingratitude that disfigure the earth-nature are
\nthe natural children of this indispensable but strong and dangerous turn of Nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the
\nembodied being is not limited to these two modes of Prakriti; there is a better
\nand more enlightened way in which he can deal with surrounding impacts and the
\nstream of the world-forces. There is possible a reception and reaction with
\nclear comprehension, poise and balance. This way of natural being has the power
\nthat, because it understands, sympathises; it fathoms and controls and develops
\nNature’s urge and her ways: it has an intelligence that penetrates her processes
\nand her significances and can assimilate and utilise; there is a lucid response
\nthat is not overpowered but adjusts, corrects, adapts, harmonises, elicits the
\nbest in all things. This is the mode of sattwa, the turn of Nature that is full
\nof light and poise, directed to good, to knowledge, to delight and beauty, to
\nhappiness, right understanding, right equilibrium, right order: its temperament
\nis the opulence of a bright clearness of knowledge and a lucent warmth of
\nsympathy and closeness. A fineness and enlightenment, a governed energy, an
\naccomplished harmony and poise of the whole being is the consummate achievement
\nof the sattwic nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

No existence
\nis cast entirely in the single mould of any of these three modes of the cosmic
\nForce; all three are present in everyone and everywhere. There is a constant
\ncombining and separation of their shifting relations and interpenetrating influences,
\noften a conflict, a wrestling of forces, a<\/span> struggle to
\ndominate each other. All have in great or in small extent or degree, even
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 222<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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if sometimes in a hardly
\nappreciable minimum, their sattwic states and clear tracts or inchoate
\ntendencies of light, clarity and happiness, fine adaptation and sympathy with
\nthe environment, intelligence, poise, right mind, right will and feeling, right
\nimpulse, virtue, order. All have their rajasic moods and impulses and turbid
\nparts of desire and passion and struggle, perversion and falsehood and error,
\nunbalanced joy and sorrow, aggressive push to work and eager creation and strong
\nor bold or fiery or fierce reactions to the pressure of the environment and to
\nlife’s assaults and offers. All have their tamasic states and constant obscure
\nparts, their moments or points of unconsciousness, their long habit or their
\ntemporary velleities of weak resignation or dull acceptance, their
\nconstitutional feeblenesses or movements of fatigue, negligence and indolence
\nand their lapses into ignorance and incapacity, depression and fear and
\ncowardly recoil or submission to the environment and to the pressure of men and
\nevents and forces. Each one of us is sattwic in some directions of his energy
\nof Nature or in some parts of his mind or character, in others rajasic, tamasic
\nin others. According as one or other of the modes usually dominates his general
\ntemperament and type of mind and turn of action, it is said of him that he is
\nthe sattwic, the rajasic or the tamasic man; but few are always of one kind and
\nnone is entire in his kind. The wise are not always or wholly wise, the
\nintelligent are intelligent only in patches; the saint suppresses in himself
\nmany unsaintly movements and the evil are not entirely evil: the dullest has
\nhis unexpressed or unused and undeveloped capacities, the most timorous his moments
\nor his way of courage, the helpless and the weakling a latent part of strength
\nin his nature. The dominant gunas are not the essential soul-type of the
\nembodied being but only the index of the formation he has made for this life or
\nduring his present existence and at a given moment of his evolution in Time. <\/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

When the
\nsadhaka has once stood back from the action of Prakriti within him or upon him
\nand, not interfering, not <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 223<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

amending or inhibiting,
\nnot choosing or deciding, allowed its play and analysed and watched the
\nprocess, he soon discovers that her modes are self-dependent and work as a
\nmachine once put in action works by its own structure and propelling forces.
\nThe force and the propulsion come from Prakriti and not from the creature. Then
\nhe realises how mistaken was his impression that his mind was the doer of his
\nworks; his mind was only a small part of him and a creation and engine of Nature.
\nNature was acting all the while in her own modes moving the three general
\nqualities about as a girl might play with her puppets. His ego was all along a
\ntool and plaything; his character and intelligence, his moral qualities and
\nmental powers, his creations and works and exploits, his anger and forbearance,
\nhis cruelty and mercy, his love and his hatred, his sin and his virtue, his
\nlight and his darkness, his passion of joy and his anguish of sorrow were the
\nplay of Nature to which the soul, attracted, won and subjected, lent its
\npassive concurrence. And yet the determinism of Nature or Force is not all; the
\nsoul has a word to say in the matter, \u2013 but the secret soul, the Purusha, not
\nthe mind or the ego, since these are not independent entities, they are parts
\nof Nature. For the soul’s sanction is needed for the play and by an inner
\nsilent will as the lord and giver of the sanction it can determine the
\nprinciple of the play and intervene in its combinations, although the execution
\nin thought and will and act and impulse must still be Nature’s part and
\nprivilege. The Purusha can dictate a harmony for Nature to execute, not by
\ninterfering in her functions but by a conscious regard on her which she
\ntransmutes at once or after much difficulty into translating idea and dynamic
\nimpetus and significant figure.<\/span><\/p>\n

An escape
\nfrom the action of the two inferior gunas is very evidently indispensable if we
\nare to transmute our present nature into a power and form of the divine
\nconsciousness and an instrument of its forces. Tamas obscures and prevents the light
\nof the divine knowledge from penetrating into the dark and dull corners of our
\nnature. Tamas incapacitates and takes away the power to respond to divine
\nimpulse and the energy to change and the will to progress and make ourselves
\nplastic to a greater Shakti. Rajas perverts knowledge, makes our reason the <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 224<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

accomplice<\/span><\/span> of falsehood
\nand the abettor of every wrong movement, disturbs and twists our life-force and
\nits impulses, oversets the balance and health of the body. Rajas captures all high-born
\nideas and high-seated movements and turns them to a false and egoistic use;
\neven divine Truth and divine influences, when they descend into the earthly
\nplane, cannot escape this misuse and seizure. Tamas unenlightened and rajas unconverted,
\nno divine change or divine life is possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

An exclusive
\nresort to sattwa would seem to be the way of escape: but there is this
\ndifficulty that no one of the qualities can prevail by itself against its two
\ncompanions and rivals. If, envisaging the quality of desire and passion as the
\ncause of disturbance, suffering, sin and sorrow, we strain and labour to quell
\nand subdue it, rajas sinks but tamas rises. For, the principle of activity
\ndulled, inertia takes its place. A quiet peace, happiness, knowledge, love,
\nright sentiment can be founded by the principle of light, but, if rajas is
\nabsent or completely suppressed, the quiet in the soul tends to become a
\ntranquillity of inaction, not the firm ground of a dynamic change.
\nIneffectively right-thinking, right-doing, good, mild and even, the nature may
\nbecome in its dynamic parts sattwa-tamasic, neutral, pale-tinted, uncreative or
\nemptied of power. Mental and moral obscurity may be absent, but so are the
\nintense springs of action, and this is<\/span> a hampering
\nlimitation and another kind of incompetence. For tamas is a double principle;
\nit contradicts rajas by inertia, it contradicts sattwa by narrowness, obscurity
\nand ignorance and, if either is depressed, it pours in to occupy its place.<\/span><\/p>\n

If we call in
\nrajas again to correct this error and bid it ally itself to sattwa and by their
\nunited agency endeavour to get rid of the dark principle, we find that we have
\nelevated our action, but that there is again subjection to rajasic eagerness, passion,
\ndisappointment, suffering, anger. These movements may be more exalted in their
\nscope and spirit and action than before, but they are not the peace, the
\nfreedom, the power, the self-mastery at which we long to arrive. Wherever
\ndesire and ego harbour, passion and disturbance harbour with them and share
\ntheir life. And if we seek a compromise between the three \u00a0<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 225<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

modes<\/span><\/span>, sattwa
\nleading, the others subordinate, still we have only arrived at a more temperate
\naction of the play of Nature. A new poise has been reached, but a spiritual
\nfreedom and mastery are not in sight or else are still only a far-off prospect.<\/span><\/p>\n

A radically
\ndifferent movement has to draw us back from the gunas and lift us above them.
\nThe error that accepts the action of the modes of Nature must cease; for as
\nlong as it is accepted, the soul is involved in their operations and subjected to
\ntheir law. Sattwa must be transcended as well as rajas and tamas; the golden
\nchain must be broken no less than the leaden fetters and the bond-ornaments of
\na mixed alloy. The Gita prescribes to this end a new method of self-discipline.
\nIt is to stand back in oneself from the action of the modes and observe this
\nunsteady flux as the Witness seated above the surge of the forces of Nature. He
\nis one who watches but is impartial and indifferent, aloof from them on their
\nown level and in his native posture high above them. As they rise and fall in
\ntheir waves, the Witness looks, observes, but neither accepts nor for the
\nmoment interferes with their course. First there must be the freedom of the
\nimpersonal Witness; afterwards there can be the control of the Master, the
\nIshwara. <\/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

The initial
\nadvantage of this process of detachment is that one begins to understand one’s
\nown nature and all Nature. The detached Witness is able to see entirely without
\nthe least blinding by egoism the play of her modes of the Ignorance and to
\npursue it into all its ramifications, coverings and subtleties \u2013 for it is full
\nof camouflage and disguise and snare and treachery and ruse. Instructed by long
\nexperience, conscious of all act and condition as their interaction, made wise
\nof their processes, he cannot any longer be overcome by their assaults,
\nsurprised in their nets or deceived by their disguises. At the same time he
\nperceives the ego to be nothing better than a device and the sustaining knot of
\ntheir interaction and, perceiving it, he is delivered from the illusion of the
\nlower egoistic Nature. He escapes from the sattwic egoism of the altruist and
\nthe saint and
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 226<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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the thinker; he shakes
\noff from its control on his life-impulses the rajasic egoism of the self-seeker
\nand ceases to be the laborious caterer of self-interest and the pampered
\nprisoner or toiling galley-slave of passion and desire; he slays with the light
\nof knowledge the tamasic egoism of the ignorant or passive being, dull,
\nunintelligent, attached to the common round of human life. Thus convinced and
\nconscious of the essential vice of the ego-sense in all our personal action, he
\nseeks no longer to find a means of self-correction and self-liberation in the
\nrajasic or sattwic ego but looks above, beyond the instruments and the working
\nof Nature, to the Master of works alone and his supreme Shakti, the supreme
\nPrakriti. There alone all the being is pure and free and the rule of a divine
\nTruth possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this
\nprogression the first step is a certain detached superiority to the three modes
\nof Nature. The soul is inwardly separated and free from the lower Prakriti, not
\ninvolved in its coils, indifferent and glad above it. Nature continues to act
\nin the triple round of her ancient habits, \u2013 desire, grief and joy attack the
\nheart, the instruments fall into inaction and obscurity and weariness, light
\nand peace come back into the heart and mind and body; but the soul stands
\nunchanged and untouched by these changes. Observing and unmoved by the grief
\nand desire of the lower members, smiling at their joys and their strainings,
\nregarding and unoverpowered by the failing and the darknesses of the thought
\nand the wildness or the weaknesses of the heart and nerves, uncompelled and
\nunattached to the mind’s illuminations and its relief and sense of ease or of
\npower in the return of light and gladness, it throws itself into none of these
\nthings, but waits unmoved for the intimations of a higher Will and the
\nintuitions of a greater luminous knowledge. Thus doing always, it becomes
\neventually free even in its nature parts from the strife of the three modes and
\ntheir insufficient values and imprisoning limits. For now this lower Prakriti
\nfeels progressively a compulsion from a higher Shakti. The old habits to which
\nit clung receive no further sanction and begin steadily to lose their frequency
\nand force of recurrence. At last it understands that it is called to a higher
\naction and a better state and, however slowly, however reluctantly, with
\nwhatever initial or
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 227<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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prolonged<\/span><\/span> ill-will and
\nstumbling ignorance, it submits, turns and prepares itself for the change.<\/span><\/p>\n

The static
\nfreedom of the soul, no longer witness only and knower, is crowned by a dynamic
\ntransformation of the nature. The constant mixture, the uneven operation of the
\nthree modes acting upon each other in our three instruments ceases from its
\nnormal confused, troubled and improper action and movement. Another action
\nbecomes possible, commences, grows, culminates, a working more truly right,
\nmore luminous, natural and normal to the deepest divine interplay of Purusha
\nand Prakriti although supernatural and supernormal to our present imperfect
\nnature. The body conditioning the physical mind insists no longer on its
\ntamasic inertia that repeats always the same ignorant movement: it becomes a
\npassive field and instrument of a greater force and light, it responds to every
\ndemand of the spirit’s force, holds and supports every variety and intensity of
\nnew divine experience. Our kinetic and dynamic vital parts, our nervous and
\nemotional and sensational and volitional being, expand in power and admit a
\ntireless action and a blissful enjoyment of experience, but learn at the same
\ntime to stand on a foundation of wide self-possessed and self-poised calm,
\nsublime in force, divine in rest, neither exulting and excited nor tortured by
\nsorrow and pain, neither harried by desire and importunate impulses nor dulled by
\nincapacity and indolence. The intelligence, the thinking, understanding and
\nreflective mind, renounces its sattwic limitations and opens to an essential
\nlight and peace. An infinite knowledge offers to us its splendid ranges, a knowledge
\nnot made up of mental constructions, not bound by opinion and idea or dependent
\non a stumbling uncertain logic and the petty support of the senses, but
\nself-sure, authentic, all-penetrating, all-comprehending; a boundless bliss and
\npeace, not dependent on deliverance from the hampered strenuousness of creative
\nenergy and dynamic action, not constituted by a few limited felicities but
\nself-existent and all-including, pour into ever-enlarging fields and through
\never-widening and always more numerous channels to possess the nature. A higher
\nforce, bliss and knowledge from a source beyond mind and life and body seize on
\nthem to remould in a diviner image. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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Here the
\ndisharmonies of the triple mode of our inferior existence are overpassed and
\nthere begins a greater triple mode of a divine Nature. There is no obscurity of
\ntamas or inertia. Tamas is replaced by a divine peace and tranquil eternal repose
\nout of which is released from a supreme matrix of calm concentration the play
\nof action and knowledge. There is no rajasic kinesis, no desire, no joyful and
\nsorrowful striving of action, creation and possession, no fruitful chaos of
\ntroubled impulse. Rajas is replaced by a self-possessed power and illimitable
\nact of force, that even in its most violent intensities does not shake the
\nimmovable poise of the soul or stain the vast and profound heavens and luminous
\nabysses of its peace. There is no constructing light of mind casting about to
\nseize and imprison the Truth, no insecure or inactive ease. Sattwa is replaced
\nby an illumination and a spiritual bliss identical with the depth and infinite
\nexistence of the soul and instinct with a direct and authentic knowledge that
\nsprings straight from the veiled glories of the secret Omniscience. This is the
\ngreater consciousness into which our inferior consciousness has to be
\ntransformed, this nature of the Ignorance with its unquiet unbalanced activity
\nof the three modes changed into this greater luminous supernature. At first we
\nbecome free from the three gunas, detached, untroubled, nistraiguņya<\/i>; but this is the recovery of the native state of
\nthe soul, the self, the spirit free and watching in its motionless calm the
\nmotion of Prakriti in her force of the Ignorance. If on this basis the nature,
\nthe motion of Prakriti, is also to become free, it must be by a quiescence of
\naction in a luminous peace and silence in which all necessary movements are
\ndone without any conscious reaction or participation or initiation of action by
\nthe mind or by the life-being, without any ripple of thought or eddy of the
\nvital parts: it must be done under the impulsion, by the initiation, by the working
\nof an impersonal cosmic or a transcendent Force. A cosmic Mind, Life, Substance
\nmust act, or a pure transcendent Self-Power and Bliss other than our own
\npersonal being or its building of Nature. This is a state of freedom which can
\ncome in the Yoga of works through renunciation of ego and desire and personal
\ninitiation and the surrender of the being to the cosmic Self or to the
\nuniversal Shakti; it can come in the
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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Yoga of knowledge by the
\ncessation of thought, the silence of the mind, the opening of the whole being
\nto the cosmic Consciousness, to the cosmic Self, the cosmic Dynamis or to the supreme
\nReality; it can come in the Yoga of devotion by the surrender of the heart and
\nthe whole nature into the hands of the All-Blissful as the adored Master of our
\nexistence. But the culminating change intervenes by a more positive and dynamic
\ntranscendence: there is a transference or transmutation into a superior
\nspiritual status, triguņātīta, in which we participate in a
\ngreater spiritual dynamisation; for the three lower unequal modes pass into an
\nequal triune mode of eternal calm, light and force, the repose, kinesis,
\nillumination of the divine Nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

This supreme
\nharmony cannot come except by the cessation of egoistic will and choice and act
\nand the quiescence of our limited intelligence. The individual ego must cease
\nto strive, the mind fall silent, the desire-will learn not to initiate. Our personality
\nmust join its source and all thought and initiation come from above. The secret
\nMaster of our activities will be slowly unveiled to us and from the security of
\nthe supreme Will and Knowledge give the sanction to the Divine Shakti who will
\ndo all works in us with a purified and exalted nature for her instrument; the
\nindividual centre of personality will be only the upholder of her works here,
\ntheir recipient and channel, the reflector of her power and luminous
\nparticipator in her light, joy and force. Acting it will not act and no
\nreaction of the lower Prakriti will touch it. The transcendence of the three
\nmodes of Nature is the first condition, their transformation the decisive step
\nof this change by which the Way of Works climbs out of the pit of narrowness of
\nour darkened human nature into the unwalled wideness of the Truth and Light
\nabove us.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 230<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter X  The Three Modes of Nature    \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 TO TRANSCEND the natural action of the lower Prakriti is indispensable to the soul, if it…<\/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-972","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\/972","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=972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}