{"id":973,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=973"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:40","slug":"19-the-divine-work-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\/19-the-divine-work-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","title":{"rendered":"-19_The Divine Work.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


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

\nThe Divine
\nWork<\/font><\/b><\/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>O<\/font><\/span>NE<\/span><\/font> question remains for the
\nseeker upon the way of works, when his quest is or seems to have come to its
\nnatural end, \u2013 whether any work or what work is left for the soul after
\nliberation and to what purpose? Equality has been seated in the nature or
\ngoverns the whole nature; there has been achieved a radical deliverance from the
\nego-idea, from the pervading ego-sense, from all feelings and impulsions of the
\nego and its self-will and desires. The entire self-consecration has been made
\nnot only in thought and heart but in all the complexities of the being. A
\ncomplete purity or transcendence of the three gunas has been harmoniously
\nestablished. The soul has seen the Master of its works and lives in his
\npresence or is consciously contained in his being or is unified with him or
\nfeels him in the heart or above and obeys his dictates. It has known its true
\nbeing and cast away the veil of the Ignorance. What work then remains for the
\nworker in man and with what motive, to what end, in what spirit will it be
\ndone? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n


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

  <\/span><\/p>\n

There is one
\nanswer with which we are very familiar in <\/span>India<\/span>; no work at
\nall remains, for the rest is quiescence. When the soul can live in the eternal
\npresence of the Supreme or when it is unified with the Absolute, the object of
\nour existence in the world, if it can be said to have an object, at once
\nceases. Man, released from the curse of self-division and the curse of Ignorance,
\nis released too from that other affliction, the curse of works. All action
\nwould then be a derogation from the supreme state and a return into the
\nIgnorance. This attitude towards life is supported by an idea founded on the
\nerror of the vital nature to which action is dictated only by one or all of
\nthree inferior motives, necessity, restless instinct and impulse or desire. The
\ninstinct or im<\/span>– <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 252<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

pulse quiescent, desire
\nextinguished, what place is there for works? Some mechanical necessity might
\nremain but no other, and even that would cease for ever with the fall of the
\nbody. But after all, even so, while life remains, action is unavoidable. Mere
\nthinking or, in the absence of thought, mere living is itself an act and a
\ncause of many effects. All existence in the world is work, force, potency, and
\nhas a dynamic effect in the whole by its mere presence, even the inertia of the
\nclod, even the silence of the immobile Buddha on the verge of Nirvana. There is
\nthe question only of the manner of the action, the instruments that are used or
\nthat act of themselves, and the spirit and knowledge of the worker. For in
\nreality, no man works, but Nature works through him for the self-expression of
\na Power within that proceeds from the Infinite. To know that and live in the
\npresence and in the being of the Master of Nature, free from desire and the
\nillusion of personal impulsion, is the one thing needful. That and not the bodily
\ncessation of action is the true release; for the bondage of works at once
\nceases. A man might sit still and motionless for ever and yet be as much bound
\nto the Ignorance as the animal or the insect. But if he can make this greater consciousness
\ndynamic within him, then all the work of all the worlds could pass through him
\nand yet he would remain at rest, absolute in calm and peace, free from all
\nbondage. Action in the world is given us first as a means for our self-development
\nand self-fulfilment; but even if we reached a last possible divine
\nself-completeness, it would still remain as a means for the fulfilment of the
\ndivine intention in the world and of the larger universal self of which each
\nbeing is a portion \u2013 a portion that has come down with it from the
\nTranscendence.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a certain
\nsense, when his Yoga has reached a certain culmination, works cease for a man;
\nfor he has no further personal necessity of works, no sense of works being done
\nby him; but there is no need to flee from action or to take refuge in a
\nblissful inertia. For now he acts as the Divine Existence acts without any
\nbinding necessity and without any compelling ignorance. Even in doing works he
\ndoes not work at all; he undertakes no personal initiative. It is the Divine
\nShakti that works in him through his nature; his action develops through the
\nspontaneity of a supreme
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 253<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

Force by which his
\ninstruments are possessed, of which he is a part, with whose will his will is
\nidentical and his power is her power. The spirit within him contains, supports
\nand watches this action; it presides over it in knowledge but is not glued or
\nclamped to the work by attachment or need, is not bound by desire of its fruit,
\nis not enslaved to any movement or impulse.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is a
\ncommon error to suppose that action is impossible or at least meaningless
\nwithout desire. If desire ceases, we are told, action also must cease. But
\nthis, like other too simply comprehensive generalisations, is more attractive
\nto the cutting and defining mind than true. The major part of the work done in
\nthe universe is accomplished without any interference of desire; it proceeds by
\nthe calm necessity and spontaneous law of Nature. Even man constantly does work
\nof various kinds by a spontaneous impulse, intuition, instinct or acts in
\nobedience to a natural necessity and law of forces without either mental
\nplanning or the urge of a conscious vital volition or emotional desire. Often
\nenough his act is contrary to his intention or his desire; it proceeds out of
\nhim in subjection to a need or compulsion, in submission to an impulse, in
\nobedience to a force in him that pushes for self-expression or in conscious
\npursuance of a higher principle. Desire is an additional lure to which Nature
\nhas given a great part in the life of animated beings in order to produce a
\ncertain kind of rajasic action necessary for her intermediate ends; but it is
\nnot her sole or even her chief engine. It has its great use while it endures:
\nit helps us to rise out of inertia, it contradicts many tamasic forces which
\nwould otherwise inhibit action. But the seeker who has advanced far on the way
\nof works has passed beyond this intermediate stage in which desire is a helpful
\nengine. Its push is no longer indispensable for his action, but is rather a
\nterrible hindrance and source of stumbling, inefficiency and failure. Others
\nare obliged to obey a personal choice or motive, but he has to learn to act
\nwith an impersonal or a universal mind or as a part or an instrument of an
\ninfinite Person. A calm indifference, a joyful impartiality or a blissful
\nresponse to a divine Force, whatever its dictate, is the condition of his doing
\nany effective work or undertaking any worth-while action. Not desire, not
\nattachment must drive him, but a Will that stirs in a divine peace, <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 254<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

a Knowledge that moves
\nfrom the transcendent Light, a glad Impulse that is a force from the supreme
\nAnanda.<\/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

In an
\nadvanced stage of the Yoga it is indifferent to the seeker, in the sense of any
\npersonal preference, what action he shall do or not do; even whether he shall
\nact or not, is not decided by his personal choice or pleasure. Always he is
\nmoved to do whatever is in consonance with the Truth or whatever the Divine
\ndemands through his nature. A false conclusion is sometimes drawn from this
\nthat the spiritual man, accepting the position in which Fate or God or his past
\nKarma has placed him, content to work in the field and cadre of the family,
\nclan, caste, nation, occupation which are his by birth and circumstance, will
\nnot and even perhaps ought not to make any movement to exceed them or to pursue
\nany great mundane end. Since he has really no work to do, since he has only to
\nuse works, no matter what works, as long as he is in the body in order to
\narrive at liberation or, having arrived, only to obey the supreme Will and do
\nwhatever it dictates, the actual field given him is sufficient for the purpose.
\nOnce free, he has only to continue working in the sphere assigned to him by
\nFate and circumstances till the great hour arrives when he can at last
\ndisappear into the Infinite. To insist on any particular end or to work for
\nsome great mundane object is to fall into the illusion of works; it is to
\nentertain the error that terrestrial life has an intelligible intention and
\ncontains objects worthy of pursuit. The great theory of Illusion, which is a
\npractical denial of the Divine in the world, even when in idea it acknowledges
\nthe Presence, is once more before us. But the Divine is here in the world, \u2013 not
\nonly in status but in dynamis, not only as a spiritual self and presence but as
\npower, force, energy, \u2013 and therefore a divine work in the world is possible. <\/span><\/p>\n

There is no
\nnarrow principle, no field of cabined action that can be imposed on the
\nKarmayogin as his rule or his province. This much is true that every kind of
\nworks, whether small to man’s imagination or great, petty in scope or wide, can
\nbe equally used in the progress towards liberation or for self-discipline. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 255<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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        This much is also true
\nthat after liberation a man may dwell in any sphere of life and in any kind of
\naction and fulfil there his existence in the Divine. According as he is moved
\nby the Spirit, he may remain in the sphere assigned to him by birth and
\ncircumstances or break that framework and go forth to an untrammelled action
\nwhich shall be the fitting body of his greatened consciousness and higher
\nknowledge. To the outward eyes of men the inner liberation may make no apparent
\ndifference in his outward acts; or, on the contrary, the freedom and infinity
\nwithin may translate itself into an outward dynamic working so large and new
\nthat all regards are drawn by this novel force. If such be the intention of the
\nSupreme within him, the liberated soul may be content with a subtle and limited
\naction within the old human surroundings which will in no way seek to change
\ntheir outward appearance. But it may too be called to a work which will not
\nonly alter the forms and sphere of its own external life but, leaving nothing around
\nit unchanged or unaffected, create a new world or a new order.<\/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

A prevalent
\nidea would persuade us that the sole aim of liberation is to secure for the
\nindividual soul freedom from physical rebirth in the unstable life of the
\nuniverse. If this freedom is once assured, there is no further work for it in
\nlife here or elsewhere or only that which the continued existence of the body
\ndemands or the unfulfilled effects of past lives necessitate. This little,
\nrapidly exhausted or consumed by the fire of Yoga, will cease with the
\ndeparture of the released soul from the body. The aim of escape from rebirth,
\nnow long fixed in the Indian mentality as the highest object of the soul, has replaced
\nthe enjoyment of a heaven beyond fixed in the mentality of the devout by many
\nreligions as their divine lure. Indian religion also upheld that earlier and
\nlower call when the gross external interpretation of the Vedic hymns was the
\ndominant creed, and the dualists in later <\/span>India<\/span> also have
\nkept that as part of their supreme spiritual motive. Undoubtedly a release from
\nthe limitations of the mind and body into an eternal peace, rest, silence of
\nthe Spirit, makes
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 256<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

a higher appeal than the
\noffer of a heaven of mental joys or eternised physical pleasures, but this too
\nafter all is a lure; its insistence on the mind’s world-weariness, the
\nlife-being’s shrinking from the adventure of birth, strikes a chord of weakness
\nand cannot be the supreme motive. The desire of personal salvation, however
\nhigh its form, is an outcome of ego; it rests on the idea of our own
\nindividuality and its desire for its personal good or welfare, its longing for
\na release from suffering or its cry for the extinction of the trouble of
\nbecoming and makes that the supreme aim of our existence. To rise beyond the desire
\nof personal salvation is necessary for the complete rejection of this basis of
\nego. If we seek the Divine, it should be for the sake of the Divine and for
\nnothing else, because that is the supreme call of our being, the deepest truth
\nof the spirit. The pursuit of liberation, of the soul’s freedom, of the
\nrealisation of our true and highest self, of union with the Divine, is justified
\nonly because it is the highest law of our nature, because it is the attraction
\nof that which is lower in us to that which is highest, because it is the Divine
\nWill in us. That is its sufficient justification and its one truest reason; all
\nother motives are excrescences, minor or incidental truths or useful lures which
\nthe soul must abandon, the moment their utility has passed and the state of
\noneness with the Supreme and with all beings has become our normal
\nconsciousness and the bliss of that state our spiritual atmosphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

Often, we see
\nthis desire of personal salvation overcome by another attraction which also
\nbelongs to the higher turn of our nature and which indicates the essential
\ncharacter of the action the liberated soul must pursue. It is that which is
\nimplied in the great legend of the Amitabha Buddha who turned away when his
\nspirit was on the threshold of Nirvana and took the vow never to cross it while
\na single being remained in the sorrow and the Ignorance. It is that which
\nunderlies the sublime verse of the Bhagavata Purana, \u201cI desire not the supreme
\nstate with all its eight siddhis nor the cessation of rebirth; may I assume the
\nsorrow of all creatures who suffer and enter into them so that they may be made
\nfree from grief.\u201d It is that which inspires a remarkable passage in a letter of
\nSwami Vivekananda. \u201cI have lost all wish for my salvation,\u201d wrote the great
\nVedantin, \u201cmay I be born
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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a<\/a>gain and
\nagain and suffer thousands of miseries so that I may worship the only God that
\nexists, the only God I believe in, the sum-total of all souls, \u2013 and above all,
\nmy God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all
\nspecies is the special object of my worship. He who is the high and low, the
\nsaint and the sinner, the god and the worm, Him worship, the visible, the
\nknowable, the real, the omnipresent; break all other idols. In whom there is
\nneither past life nor future birth, nor death nor going nor coming, in whom we
\nalways have been and always will be one, Him worship; break all other idols.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The last two
\nsentences contain indeed the whole gist of the matter. The true salvation or
\nthe true freedom from the chain of rebirth is not the rejection of terrestrial
\nlife or the individual’s escape by a spiritual self-annihilation, even as the
\ntrue renunciation is not the mere physical abandonment of family and society;
\nit is the inner identification with the Divine in whom there is no limitation
\nof past life and future birth but instead the eternal existence of the unborn
\nSoul. He who is free inwardly, even doing actions, does nothing at all, says
\nthe Gita; for it is Nature that works in him under the control of the Lord of
\nNature. Equally, even if he assumes a hundred times the body, he is free from
\nany chain of birth or mechanical wheel of existence since he lives in the
\nunborn and undying spirit and not in the life of the body. Therefore attachment
\nto the escape from rebirth is one of the idols which, whoever keeps, the
\nsadhaka of the integral Yoga must break and cast away from him. For his Yoga is
\nnot limited to the realisation of the Transcendent beyond all world by the
\nindividual soul; it embraces also the realisation of the Universal, \u201cthe
\nsum-total of all souls\u201d, and cannot therefore be confined to the movement of a
\npersonal salvation and escape. Even in his transcendence of cosmic limitations
\nhe is still one with all in God; a divine work remains for him in the universe.<\/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

That work
\ncannot be fixed by any mind-made rule or human standard; for his consciousness
\nhas moved away from human law and limits and passed into the divine liberty,
\naway from
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 258<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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government by the
\nexternal and transient into the self-rule of the inner and eternal, away from
\nthe binding forms of the finite into the free self-determination of the
\nInfinite. \u201cHowsoever he lives and acts,\u201d says the Gita, \u201che lives and acts in
\nMe.\u201d The rules which the intellect of men lays down cannot apply to the
\nliberated soul, \u2013 by the external criteria and tests which their mental
\nassociations and prejudgments prescribe, such a one cannot be judged; he is
\noutside the narrow jurisdiction of these fallible tribunals. It is immaterial whether
\nhe wears the garb of the ascetic or lives the full life of the householder;
\nwhether he spends his days in what men call holy works or in the many-sided
\nactivities of the world; whether he devotes himself to the direct leading of
\nmen to the Light like Buddha, Christ or Shankara or governs kingdoms like
\nJanaka or stands before men like Sri Krishna as a politician or a leader of
\narmies; what he eats or drinks; what are his habits or his pursuits; whether he
\nfails or succeeds; whether his work be one of construction or of destruction;
\nwhether he supports or restores an old order or labours to replace it by a new;
\nwhether his associates are those whom men delight to honour or those whom their
\nsense of superior righteousness outcastes and reprobates; whether his life and
\ndeeds are approved by his contemporaries or he is condemned as a misleaders of
\nmen and a fomenter of religious, moral or social heresies. He is not governed
\nby the judgments of men or the laws laid down by the ignorant; he obeys an
\ninner voice and is moved by an unseen Power. His real life is within and this
\nis its description that he lives, moves and acts in God, in the Divine, in the
\nInfinite.<\/span><\/p>\n

But if his
\naction is governed by no external rule, one rule it will observe that is not
\nexternal; it will be dictated by no personal desire or aim, but will be a part
\nof a conscious and eventually a well-ordered because self-ordered divine
\nworking in the world. The Gita declares that the action of the liberated man
\nmust be directed not by desire, but towards the keeping together of the world,
\nits government, guidance, impulsion, maintenance in the path appointed to it.
\nThis injunction has been<\/span><\/p>\n

interpreted in the sense
\nthat the world being an illusion in which most men must be kept, since they are
\nunfit for liberation, he must so act <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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outwardly as to cherish
\nin them an attachment to their customary works laid down for them by the social
\nlaw. If so, it would be a poor and petty rule and every noble heart would
\nreject it to follow rather the divine vow of Amitabha Buddha, the sublime
\nprayer of the Bhagavata, the passionate aspiration of Vivekananda. But if we
\naccept rather the view that the world is a divinely guided movement of Nature
\nemerging in man towards God and that this is the work in which the Lord of the
\nGita declares that he is ever occupied although he himself has nothing ungained
\nthat he has yet to win, then a deep and true sense will appear for this great
\ninjunction. To participate in that divine work, to live for God in the world
\nwill be the rule of the Karmayogin; to live for God in the world and therefore
\nso to act that the Divine may more and more manifest himself and the world go
\nforward by whatever way of its obscure pilgrimage and move nearer to the divine
\nideal.<\/span><\/p>\n

How he shall
\ndo this, in what particular way, can be decided by no general rule. It must
\ndevelop or define itself from within; the decision lies between God and our
\nself, the Supreme Self and the individual self that is the instrument of the work;
\neven before liberation, it is from the inner self, as soon as we become
\nconscious of it, that there rises the sanction, the spiritually determined
\nchoice. It is altogether from within that must come the knowledge of the work
\nthat has to be done. There is no particular work, no law or form or outwardly
\nfixed or invariable way of works which can be said to be that of the liberated
\nbeing. The phrase used in the Gita to express this work that has to be done has
\nindeed been interpreted in the sense that we must do our duty without regard to
\nthe fruit. But this is a conception born of European culture which is ethical rather
\nthan spiritual and external rather than inwardly profound in its concepts. No
\nsuch general thing as duty exists; we have only duties, often in conflict with
\neach other, and these are determined by our environment, our social relations,
\nour external status in life. They are of great value in training the immature
\nmoral nature and setting up a standard which discourages the action of selfish desire.
\nIt has already been said that so long as the seeker has no inner light, he must
\ngovern himself by the best light he has, and duty, a prin<\/span>– <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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ciple<\/span><\/span>, a cause are
\namong the standards he may temporarily erect and observe. But for all that,
\nduties are external things, not stuff of the soul and cannot be the ultimate
\nstandard of action in this path. It is the duty of the soldier to fight when
\ncalled upon, even to fire upon his own kith and kin; but such a standard or any
\nakin to it cannot be imposed on the liberated man. On the other hand, to love
\nor have compassion, to obey the highest truth of our being, to follow the command
\nof the Divine are not duties; these things are a law of the nature as it rises
\ntowards the Divine, an outflowing of action from a soul-state, a high reality
\nof the spirit. The action of the liberated doer of works must be even such an outflowing
\nfrom the soul; it must come to him or out of him as a natural result of his
\nspiritual union with the Divine and not be formed by an edifying construction
\nof the mental thought and will, the practical reason or the social sense. In
\nthe ordinary life a personal, social or traditional constructed rule, standard
\nor ideal is the guide; once the spiritual journey has begun, this must be
\nreplaced by an inner and outer rule or way of living necessary for our
\nself-discipline, liberation and perfection, a way of living proper to the path
\nwe follow or enjoined by the spiritual guide and master, the Guru, or else
\ndictated by a Guide within us. But in the last state of the soul’s infinity and
\nfreedom all outward standards are replaced or laid aside and there is left only
\na spontaneous and integral obedience to the Divine with whom we are in union
\nand an action spontaneously fulfilling the integral spiritual truth of our being
\nand 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

It is this
\ndeeper sense in which we must accept the dictum of the Gita that action
\ndetermined and governed by the nature must be our law of works. It is not,
\ncertainly, the superficial temperament or the character or habitual impulses
\nthat are meant, but in the literal sense of the Sanskrit word our \u201cown being\u201d,
\nour essential nature, the divine stuff of our souls. Whatever springs from this
\nroot or flows from these sources is profound, essential, right; the rest \u2013 opinions,
\nimpulses, habits, desires \u2013 may be merely surface formations or casual vagaries <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 261<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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of the being or
\nimpositions from outside. They shift and change, but this remains constant. It
\nis not the executive forms taken by Nature in us that are ourselves or the
\nabidingly constant and expressive shape of ourselves; it is the spiritual being
\nin us \u2013 and this includes the soul-becoming of it \u2013 that persists through time
\nin the universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

We cannot,
\nhowever, easily distinguish this true inner law of our being; it is kept
\nscreened from us so long as the heart and intellect remain unpurified from
\negoism: till then we follow superficial and impermanent ideas, impulses,
\ndesires, suggestions and impositions of all kinds from our environment or work
\nout formations of our temporary mental, vital, physical personality \u2013 that
\npassing experimental and structural self which has been made for us by an
\ninteraction between our being and the pressure of a lower cosmic Nature. In
\nproportion as we are purified, the true being within declares itself more clearly;
\nour will is less entangled in suggestions from outside or shut up in our own
\nsuperficial mental constructions. Egoism renounced, the nature purified, action
\nwill come from the soul’s dictates, from the depths or the heights of the
\nspirit, or it will be openly governed by the Lord who was all the time seated
\nsecretly within our hearts. The supreme and final word of the Gita for the
\nYogin is that he should leave all conventional formulas of belief and action,
\nall fixed and external rules of conduct, all constructions of the outward or
\nsurface Nature, Dharmas, and take refuge in the Divine alone. Free from desire and
\nattachment, one with all beings, living in the infinite Truth and Purity and
\nacting out of the profoundest deeps of his inner consciousness, governed by his
\nimmortal, divine and highest Self, all his works will be directed by the Power
\nwithin through that essential spirit and nature in us which, knowing, warring,
\nworking, loving, serving, is always divine, towards the fulfilment of God in
\nthe world, an expression of the Eternal in Time.<\/span><\/p>\n

A divine
\naction arising spontaneously, freely, infallibly from the light and force of
\nour spiritual self in union with the Divine is the last state of this integral
\nYoga of Works. The truest reason why we must seek liberation is not to be
\ndelivered, individually, from the sorrow of the world, though that deliverance
\ntoo will
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 262<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

be given to us, but that
\nwe may be one with the Divine, the Supreme, the Eternal. The truest reason why
\nwe must seek perfection, a supreme status, purity, knowledge, strength, love,
\ncapacity, is not that personally we may enjoy the divine Nature or be even as
\nthe gods, though that enjoyment too will be ours, but because this liberation
\nand perfection are the divine Will in us, the highest truth of our self in
\nNature, the always intended goal of a progressive manifestation in the
\nuniverse. The divine Nature, free and perfect and blissful, must be manifested
\nin the individual in order that it may manifest in the world. Even in the
\nIgnorance the individual lives really in the universal and for the universal
\nPurpose, for in the very act of pursuing the purposes and desires of his ego,
\nhe is forced by Nature to contribute by his egoistic action to her work and
\npurpose in the worlds; but it is without conscious intention, imperfectly done,
\nand his contribution is to her half-evolved and half-conscient, her imperfect
\nand crude movement. To escape from ego and be united with the Divine is at once
\nthe liberation and the consummation of his individuality; so liberated,
\npurified, perfected, the individual \u2013 the divine soul \u2013 lives consciously and
\nentirely, as was from the first intended, in and for the cosmic and
\ntranscendent Divine and for his Will in the universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Way of
\nKnowledge we may arrive at a point where we can leap out of personality and
\nuniverse, escape from all thought and will and works and all way of Nature and,
\nabsorbed and taken up into Eternity, plunge into the Transcendence; that,
\nthough not obligatory on the God-knower, may be the soul’s decision, the turn
\npursued by the self within us. In the Way of Devotion we may reach through an
\nintensity of adoration and joy union with the supreme All-Beloved and remain
\neternally in the ecstasy of his presence, absorbed in him alone, intimately in
\none world of bliss with him; that then may be our being’s impulsion, its
\nspiritual choice. But in the Way of Works another prospect opens; for travelling
\non that path, we can enter into liberation and perfection by becoming of one
\nlaw and power of nature with the Eternal; we are identified with him in our
\nwill and dynamic self as much as in our spiritual status; a divine way of works
\nis the natural outcome of this union; a divine living
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 263<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

in a spiritual freedom
\nthe body of its self-expression. In the Integral Yoga these three lines of
\napproach give up their exclusions, meet and coalesce or spring out of each
\nother; liberated from the mind’s veil over the self, we live in the Transcendence,
\nenter by the adoration of the heart into the oneness of a supreme love and
\nbliss, and all our forces of being uplifted into the one Force, our will and
\nworks surrendered into the one Will and Power, assume the dynamic perfection of
\nthe divine Nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 264<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter XII  The Divine Work   \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 ONE question remains for the seeker upon the way of works, when his quest is or seems to…<\/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-973","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\/973","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=973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}