Bhagavad Gita, chapter 18, verse 66

Therefore it is a mistake to interpret the Gita from the standpoint of the mentality of today and force it to teach us the disinterested performance of duty as the highest and all-sufficient law. A little consideration of the situation with which the Gita deals will show us that this could not be its meaning. For the whole point of the teaching, that from which it arises, that which compels the disciple to seek the Teacher, is an inextricable clash of the various related conceptions of duty ending in the collapse of the whole useful intellectual and moral edifice erected by the human mind. In human life some sort of a clash arises fairly often, as for instance between domestic duties and the call of the country or the cause, or between the claim of the country and the good of humanity or some larger religious or moral principle. An inner situation may even arise, as with the Buddha, in which all duties have to be abandoned, trampled on, flung aside in order to follow the call of the Divine within. I cannot think that the Gita would solve such an inner situation by sending Buddha back to his wife and father and the government of the Sakya State, or would direct a Ramakrishna to become a Pundit in a vernacular school and disinterestedly teach little boys their lessons, or bind down a Vivekananda to support his family and for that to follow dispassionately the law or medicine or journalism. The Gita does not teach the disinterested performance of duties but the following18.66 of the divine life, the abandonment of all dharmas, sarvadharmān, to take refuge in the Supreme alone, and the divine activity of a Buddha, a Ramakrishna, a Vivekananda is perfectly in consonance with this teaching. Nay, although the Gita prefers action to inaction, it does not rule out the renunciation of works, but accepts it as one of the ways to the Divine. If that can only be attained by renouncing works and life and all duties and the call is strong within us, then into the bonfire they must go, and there is no help for it. The call of God is imperative and cannot be weighed against any other considerations.

What the great, the supreme word of the Gita is, its mahāvākya, we have not to seek; for the Gita itself declares it in its18.62-66 last utterance, the crowning note of the great diapason. “With the Lord in thy heart take refuge with all thy being; by His grace thou shalt attain to the supreme peace and the eternal status. So have I expounded to thee a knowledge more secret than that which is hidden. Further hear the most secret, the supreme word that I shall speak to thee. Become my-minded, devoted to Me, to Me do sacrifice and adoration; infallibly, thou shalt come to Me, for dear to me art thou. Abandoning all laws of conduct seek refuge in Me alone. I will release thee from all sin; do not grieve.”

I have declared to you the poise of a self-liberating intelligence in Sankhya, says the divine Teacher to Arjuna. I will now declare to you another poise in Yoga. You are shrinking from the results of your works, you desire other results and turn from your right path in life because it does not lead you to them. But this idea of works and their result, desire of result as the motive, the work as a means for the satisfaction of desire, is the bondage of the ignorant who know not what works are, nor their true source, nor their real operation, nor their high utility. My Yoga will free you from all bondage of the soul to its works, karmabandhaṁ prahāsyasi. You are afraid of many things, afraid of sin, afraid of suffering, afraid of hell and punishment, afraid of God, afraid of this world, afraid of the hereafter, afraid of yourself. What is it that you are not afraid of at this moment, you the Aryan fighter, the world's chief hero? But this is the great fear which besieges humanity, its fear of sin and suffering now and hereafter, its fear in a world of whose true nature it is ignorant, of a God whose true being also it has not seen and whose cosmic purpose it does not understand. My Yoga will deliver2.40 you from the great fear and even a little of it will bring deliverance. When you have once set out on this path, you will find that no step is lost; every least movement will be a gain; you will find there no obstacle that can baulk you of your advance. A bold and absolute promise and one to which the fearful and hesitating mind beset and stumbling in all its paths cannot easily lend an assured trust; nor is the large and full truth of it apparent unless with these first words of the message of the Gita we read also the last, "Abandon all laws of conduct and18.66 take refuge in Me alone; I will deliver you from all sin and evil; do not grieve."

We have now set before us three interdependent movements of our release out of the normal nature and our growth into the divine and spiritual being. "By the delusion of the7.27 dualities which arises from wish and disliking, all existences in the creation are led into bewilderment," says the Gita. That is the ignorance, the egoism which fails to see and lay hold on the Divine everywhere, because it sees only the dualities of Nature and is constantly occupied with its own separate personality and its seekings and shrinkings. For escape from this circle the first necessity in our works is to get clear of the sin of the vital ego, the fire of passion, the tumult of desire of the rajasic nature, and this has to be done by the steadying sattwic impulse of the ethical being. When that is done,7.28 yeṣāṁ tvantagataṁ pāpaṁ janānāṁ puṇyakarmaṇām,—or rather as it is being done, for after a certain point all growth in the sattwic nature brings an increasing capacity for a high quietude, equality and transcendence,—it is necessary to rise above the dualities and to become impersonal, equal, one self with the Immutable, one self with all existences. This process of growing into the spirit completes our purification. But while this is being done, while the soul is enlarging into self-knowledge, it has also to increase in devotion. For it has not only to act in a large spirit of equality, but to do also sacrifice to the Lord, to that Godhead in all beings which it does not yet know perfectly, but which it will be able so to know, integrally, samagraṁ mām, when it has firmly the vision of the one self everywhere and in all existences. Equality and vision of unity once perfectly gained, te dvandva-moha-nirmuktāḥ, a supreme bhakti, an all-embracing devotion7.28 to the Divine, becomes the whole and the sole law of the being. All other law of conduct merges into that surrender,18.66 sarva-dharmān parityajya. The soul then becomes firm in this bhakti and in the vow of self-consecration of all its being, knowledge, works; for it has now for its sure base, its absolute foundation of existence and action the perfect, the integral, the unifying knowledge of the all-originating Godhead, te bhajante māṁ dṛḍha-vratāḥ7.28.

In the frame of its synthesis it admits the seeking of the abstractive thinkers for the Indefinable, anirdeśyam, the ever8.21 unmanifest Immutable, avyaktam akṣaram. Those who devote themselves to this search, find, they also, the Purushottama, the supreme Divine Person, mām, the Spirit and highest Soul and Lord of things. For his utmost self-existent way of being is indeed an unthinkable, acintyarūpam, an unimaginable positive, an absolute quintessence of all absolutes far beyond the determination of the intelligence. The method of negative passivity, quietude, renunciation of life and works by which men feel after this intangible Absolute is admitted and ratified in the Gita's philosophy, but only with a minor permissive sanction. This negating knowledge approaches the Eternal by one side only of the truth and that side the most difficult to reach and follow for the embodied soul in Nature,12.5 duḥkhaṁ dehavadbhir avāpyate; it proceeds by a highly specialised, even an unnecessarily arduous way, "narrow and difficult to tread as a razor's edge." Not by denying all relations, but through all relations is the Divine Infinite naturally approachable to man and most easily, widely, intimately seizable. This seeing is not after all the largest or the truest truth that the Supreme is without any relations with the mental, vital, physical existence of man in the universe, avyavahāryam, nor that what is described as the empirical truth of things, the truth of relations, vyavahāra, is altogether the opposite of the highest spiritual truth, paramārtha. On the contrary there are a thousand relations by which the supreme Eternal is secretly in contact and union with our human existence and by all essential ways of our nature and of the world's nature, sarva-bhāvena18.62, can that contact be made sensible and that union made real to our soul, heart, will, intelligence, spirit. Therefore is this other way natural and easy for man, sukham āptum. God does not make himself difficult of approach to us: only one thing is needed, one demand made on us, the single indomitable will to break through the veil of our ignorance and the whole, the persistent seeking of the mind and heart and life for that which is all the time near to it, within it, its own soul of being and spiritual essence and the secret of its personality and its impersonality, its self and its nature. This is our one difficulty; the rest the Master of our existence will himself see to and accomplish,18.66 ahaṁ tvāṁ mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ.

This is the foundation, the condition, the means by which the supreme spiritual perfection is to be won, and those who have it in any way are all dear to me, says the Godhead,12.17 bhaktimān me priyaḥ. But exceedingly dear, atīva me priyāḥ, are those12.20 souls nearest to the Godhead whose love of me is completed by the still wider and greatest perfection of which I have just shown to you the way and the process. These are the bhaktas who make the Purushottama their one supreme aim and follow out with a perfect faith and exactitude the immortalising Dharma described in this teaching. Dharma in the language of the Gita means the innate law of the being and its works and an action proceeding from and determined by the inner nature,18.47 svabhāva-niyataṁ karma. In the lower ignorant consciousness of mind, life and body there are many dharmas, many rules, many standards and laws because there are many varying determinations and types of the mental, vital and physical nature. The immortal Dharma is one; it is that of the highest spiritual divine consciousness and its powers, parā prakṛtiḥ. It is beyond the three gunas, and to reach it all these lower dharmas have to be abandoned,18.66 sarva-dharmān parityajya. Alone in their place the one liberating unifying consciousness and power of the Eternal has to become the infinite source of our action, its mould, determinant and exemplar. To rise out of our lower personal egoism, to enter into the impersonal and equal calm of the immutable eternal all-pervading Akshara Purusha, to aspire from that calm by a perfect self-surrender of all one's nature and existence to that which is other and higher than the Akshara, is the first necessity of this Yoga. In the strength of that aspiration one can rise to the immortal Dharma. There, made one in being, consciousness and divine bliss with the greatest Uttama Purusha, made one with his supreme dynamic nature-force, svā prakṛtiḥ, the liberated spirit can know infinitely, love illimitably, act unfalteringly in the authentic power of a highest immortality and a perfect freedom. The rest of the Gita is written to throw a fuller light on this immortal Dharma.

For the Shastra in its ordinary aspect is not that spiritual law, although at its loftiest point, when it becomes a science and art of spiritual living, Adhyatma-shastra,—the Gita itself describes its own teaching as the highest and most secret Shastra,—it formulates a rule of the self-transcendence of the sattwic nature and develops the discipline which leads to spiritual transmutation. Yet all Shastra is built on a number of preparatory conditions, dharmas; it is a means, not an end. The supreme end is the freedom of the spirit when abandoning all dharmas the soul turns to God for its sole law of action, acts straight from the divine will and lives in the freedom of the divine nature, not in the Law, but in the Spirit. This is the development of the teaching which is prepared by the next question of Arjuna.

The Gita has not yet completed its analysis of action in the light of this fundamental idea of the three gunas and the transcendence of them by a self-exceeding culmination of the highest sattwic discipline. Faith, śraddhā, the will to believe and to be, know, live and enact the Truth that we have seen is the principal factor, the indispensable force behind a self-developing action, most of all behind the growth of the soul by works into its full spiritual stature. But there are also the mental powers, the instruments and the conditions which help to constitute the momentum, direction and character of the activity and are therefore of importance for a full understanding of this psychological discipline. The Gita enters into a summary psychological analysis of these things before it proceeds to its great18.66 finale, the culmination of all it teaches, the highest secret which is that of a spiritual exceeding of all dharmas, a divine transcendence. And we have to follow it in its brief descriptions, summarily, expanding just enough to seize fully the main idea; for these are secondary things, but yet each of great consequence in its own place and for its own purpose. It is their action cast in the type of the gunas that we have to bring out from the brief descriptions in the text; the nature of the culmination of any or each of them beyond the gunas will automatically follow from the character of the general transcendence.

And in the end to arrive at the divinest figure and most dynamic soul-power of this fourfold activity is a wide doorway to a swiftest and largest reality of the most high spiritual perfection. This we can do if we turn the action of the Swadharma into a worship of the inner Godhead, the universal Spirit, the transcendent Purushottama and, eventually, surrender the whole action into his hands, mayi sannyasya karmāṇi. Then as we get18.57 beyond the limitation of the three gunas, so also do we get beyond3.30 the division of the fourfold law and beyond the limitation of all distinctive dharmas, sarvadharmān parityajya. The Spirit18.66 takes up the individual into the universal Swabhava, perfects and unifies the fourfold soul of nature in us and does its self-determined works according to the divine will and the accomplished power of the godhead in the creature.

The teacher has completed all else that he needed to say, he has worked out all the central principles and the supporting suggestions and implications of his message and elucidated the principal doubts and questions that might rise around it, and now all that rests for him to do is to put into decisive phrase and penetrating formula the one last word, the heart itself of the message, the very core of his gospel. And we find that this decisive, last and crowning word is not merely the essence of what has been already said on the matter, not merely a concentrated description of the needed self-discipline, the Sadhana, and of that greater spiritual consciousness which is to be the result of all its effort and askesis; it sweeps out, as it were, yet farther, breaks down every limit and rule, canon and formula and opens into a wide and illimitable spiritual truth with an infinite potentiality of significance. And that is a sign of the profundity, the wide reach, the greatness of spirit of the Gita's teaching. An ordinary religious teaching or philosophical doctrine is well enough satisfied to seize on certain great and vital aspects of truth and turn them into utilisable dogma and instruction, method and practice for the guidance of man in his inner life and the law and form of his action; it does not go farther, it does not open doors out of the circle of its own system, does not lead us out into some widest freedom and unimprisoned largeness. This limitation is useful and indeed for a time indispensable. Man bounded by his mind and will has need of a law and rule, a fixed system, a definite practice selective of his thought and action; he asks for the single unmistakable hewn path hedged, fixed and secure to the tread, for the limited horizons, for the enclosed resting-places. It is only the strong and few who can move through freedom to freedom. And yet in the end the free soul ought to have an issue out of the forms and systems in which the mind finds its account and takes its limited pleasure. To exceed our ladder of ascent, not to stop short even on the topmost stair but move untrammelled and at large in the wideness of the spirit is a release important for our perfection; the spirit's absolute liberty is our perfect status. And this is how the Gita leads us: it lays down a firm and sure but very large way of ascent, a great Dharma, and then it takes us out beyond all that is laid down, beyond all dharmas, into infinitely open spaces, divulges18.66 to us the hope, lets us into the secret of an absolute perfection founded in an absolute spiritual liberty, and that secret, guhyatamam, is the substance of what it calls its supreme word, that the hidden thing, the inmost knowledge.

For after giving out all the laws, the dharmas, and the deepest essence of its Yoga, after saying that beyond all the first secrets revealed to the mind of man by the transforming light of spiritual knowledge, guhyāt, this is a still deeper more18.63 secret truth, guhyataram, the Gita suddenly declares that there is yet a supreme word that it has to speak, paramaṁ vacaḥ, and a most secret truth of all, sarva-guhyatamam. This secret of secrets18.64 the Teacher will tell to Arjuna as his highest good because he is the chosen and beloved soul, iṣṭa. For evidently, as had already been declared by the Upanishad, it is only the rare soul chosen by the Spirit for the revelation of his very body, tanuṁ svām, who can be admitted to this mystery, because he alone is near enough in heart and mind and life to the Godhead to respond truly to it in all his being and to make it a living practice. The last, the closing supreme word of the Gita expressing the highest mystery is spoken in two brief, direct and simple slokas and these are left without farther comment or enlargement to sink into the mind and reveal their own fullness of meaning in the soul's experience. For it is alone this inner incessantly extending experience that can make evident the infinite deal of meaning with which are for ever pregnant these words in themselves apparently so slight and simple. And we feel, as they are being uttered, that it was this for which the soul of the disciple was being prepared all the time and the rest was only an enlightening and enabling discipline and doctrine. Thus runs this secret of secrets, the highest most direct message of the Ishwara. "Become my-minded,18.65-66 my lover and adorer, a sacrificer to me, bow thyself to me, to9.34 me thou shalt come, this is my pledge and promise to thee, for dear art thou to me. Abandon all dharmas and take refuge in me alone. I will deliver thee from all sin and evil, do not grieve."

All must be given as material of that transmutation. An omniscient consciousness will take up our knowledge and our ignorance, our truth and our error, cast away their forms of insufficiency, sarva-dharmān parityajya, and transform all into its infinite light. An almighty Power will take up our virtue and sin, our right and wrong, our strength and our weakness, cast away their tangled figures, sarva-dharmān parityajya, and transform all into its transcendent purity and universal good and infallible force. An ineffable Ananda will take up our petty joy and sorrow, our struggling pleasure and pain, cast away their discordances and imperfect rhythms, sarva-dharmān parityajya, and transform all into its transcendent and universal unimaginable delight. All that all the Yogas can do will be done and more; but it will be done in a greater seeing way, with a greater wisdom and truth than any human teacher, saint or sage can give us. The inner spiritual state to which this supreme Yoga will take us, will be above all that is here and yet comprehensive of all things in this and other worlds, but with a spiritual transformation of all, without limitation, without bondage, sarva-dharmān parityajya. The infinite existence, consciousness and delight of the Godhead in its calm silence and bright boundless activity will be there, will be its essential, fundamental, universal stuff, mould and character. And in that mould of infinity the Divine made manifest will overtly dwell, no longer concealed by his Yogamaya, and whenever and as he wills build in us whatever shapes of the Infinite, translucent forms of knowledge, thought, love, spiritual joy, power and action according to his self-fulfilling will and immortal pleasure. And there will be no binding effect on the free soul and the unaffected nature, no unescapable crystallising into this or that inferior formula. For all the action will be executed by the power of the Spirit in a divine freedom, sarva-dharmān parityajya. An unfallen abiding in the transcendent Spirit, paraṁ dhāma, will be the foundation and the assurance of this spiritual state. An intimate understanding oneness with universal being and all creatures, released from the evil and suffering of the separative mind but wisely regardful of true distinctions, will be the conditioning power. A constant delight, oneness and harmony of the eternal individual here with the Divine and all that he is will be the effect of this integral liberation. The baffling problems of our human existence of which Arjuna's difficulty stands as an acute example, are created by our separative personality in the Ignorance. This Yoga because it puts the soul of man into its right relation with God and world-existence and makes our action God's, the knowledge and will shaping and moving it his and our life the harmony of a divine self-expression, is the way to their total disappearance.

"This triune way is the means by which you can rise entirely out of your lower into your supreme spiritual nature. That is the hidden superconscient nature in which the Jiva, a portion of the high Infinite and Divine and intimately one in law of being with him, dwells in his Truth and not any longer in an externalised Maya. This perfection, this unity can be enjoyed in its own native status, aloof in a supreme supracosmic existence: but here also you may and should realise it, here in the human body and physical world. It is not enough for this end to be calm, inactive and free from the gunas in the inner self and to watch and allow indifferently their mechanical action in the outer members. For the active nature as well as the self has to be given to the Divine and to become divine. All that you are must grow into one law of being with the Purushottama, sādharmya; all must be changed into my conscious spiritual becoming, mad-bhāva. A completest surrender must be there. Take refuge with Me in all the many ways and along18.62 all the living lines of your nature; for that alone will bring about this great change and perfection.

“And when you are once able to do that sincerely, that will be the moment to renounce the initiation of your acts without exception into the hands of the supreme Godhead within you. Then you will be released from all laws of conduct, liberated from18.66 all dharmas. The Divine Power and Presence within you will free you from sin and evil and lift you far above human standards of virtue. For you will live and act in the absolute and spontaneous right and purity of the spiritual being and the immaculate force of the divine nature. The Divine and not you will enact his own will and works through you, not for your lower personal pleasure and desire, but for the world-purpose and for your divine good and the manifest or secret good of all. Inundated with light, you will see the form of the Godhead in the world and in the works of Time, know his purpose and hear his command. Your nature will receive as an instrument his will only whatever it may be and do it without question, because there will come with each initiation of your acts from above and within you an imperative knowledge and an illumined assent to the divine wisdom and its significance. The battle will be his, his the victory, his the empire.

In the lower existence the order is automatic, the binding of Nature complete, her groove firm and imperative: the cosmic Consciousness-Force evolves a pattern of Nature and its habitual mould or fixed round of action and obliges the infrarational being to live and act according to the pattern and in the mould or round made for it. Mind in man starts with this prearranged pattern and routine, but, as it evolves, it enlarges the design and expands the mould and tries to replace this fixed unconscious or half-conscious law of automatism by an order based on ideas and significances and accepted life-motives, or it attempts an intelligent standardisation and a framework determined by rational purpose, utility and convenience. There is nothing really binding or permanent in man's knowledge structures or his life-structures; but still he cannot but create standards of thought, knowledge, personality, life, conduct and, more or less consciously and completely, base his existence on them or, at least, try his best to frame his life in the ideative cadre of his chosen or accepted dharmas. In the passage to the spiritual life the supreme ideal held up is, on the contrary, not law, but liberty in the spirit; the spirit breaks through all formulas to find its self and, if it has still to be concerned with expression, it must arrive at the liberty of a free and true instead of an artificial expression, a true and spontaneous spiritual order. "Abandon all dharmas, all standards and rules of being and action, and take refuge in Me alone", is the summit rule of the highest existence held up by the Divine Being to the seeker. In the seeking for this freedom, in the liberation from constructed law into law of self and spirit, in the casting away of the mental control in order to substitute for it the control of the spiritual Reality, an abandonment of the lower constructed truth of mind for the higher essential truth of being, it is possible to pass through a stage in which there is an inner freedom but a lack of outer order,—an action in the flux of nature childlike or inert like a leaf lying passive or driven by the wind or even incoherent or extravagant in outer semblance. It is possible also to arrive at a temporary ordered spiritual expression of the self which is sufficient for the stage one can reach for a time or in this life; or it may be a personal order of self-expression valid according to the norm of what one has already realised of the spiritual truth but afterwards changing freely by the force of spirituality to express the yet larger truth that one goes on to realise. But the supramental gnostic being stands in a consciousness in which knowledge is self-existent and manifests itself according to the order self-determined by the Will of the Infinite in the supernature. This self-determination according to a self-existent knowledge replaces the automatism of Nature and the standards of Mind by the spontaneity of a Truth self-aware and self-active in the very grain of the existence.

In the light of this progressive manifestation of the Spirit, first apparently bound in the Ignorance, then free in the power and wisdom of the Infinite, we can better understand the great and crowning injunction of the Gita to the Karmayogin, "Abandoning all dharmas, all principles and laws and rules of conduct, take refuge in me alone." All standards and rules are temporary constructions founded upon the needs of the ego in its transition from Matter to Spirit. These makeshifts have a relative imperativeness so long as we rest satisfied in the stages of transition, content with the physical and vital life, attached to the mental movement, or even fixed in the ranges of the mental plane that are touched by the spiritual lustres. But beyond is the unwalled wideness of a supramental infinite consciousness and there all temporary structures cease. It is not possible to enter utterly into the spiritual truth of the Eternal and Infinite if we have not the faith and courage to trust ourselves into the hands of the Lord of all things and the Friend of all creatures and leave utterly behind us our mental limits and measures. At one moment we must plunge without hesitation, reserve, fear or scruple into the ocean of the free, the infinite, the Absolute. After the Law, Liberty; after the personal, after the general, after the universal standards there is something greater, the impersonal plasticity, the divine freedom, the transcendent force and the supernal impulse. After the strait path of the ascent the wide plateaus on the summit.

If one has walked long and steadily in the path, the faith of the heart will remain under the fiercest adverse pressure; even if it is concealed or apparently overborne, it will take the first opportunity to re-emerge. For something higher than either heart or intellect upholds it in spite of the worst stumblings and through the most prolonged failure. But even to the experienced sadhaka such falterings or overcloudings bring a retardation of his progress and they are exceedingly dangerous to the novice. It is therefore necessary from the beginning to understand and accept the arduous difficulty of the path and to feel the need of a faith which to the intellect may seem blind, but yet is wiser than our reasoning intelligence. For this faith is a support from above; it is the brilliant shadow thrown by a secret light that exceeds the intellect and its data; it is the heart of a hidden knowledge that is not at the mercy of immediate appearances. Our faith, persevering, will be justified in its works and will be lifted and transfigured at last into the self-revelation of a divine knowledge. Always we must adhere to the injunction of the Gita, "Yoga must be continually applied with a heart free from despondent sinking." Always we must repeat to the doubting intellect the promise of the Master, "I will surely deliver thee from all sin and evil; do not grieve." At the end, the flickerings of faith will cease; for we shall see his face and feel always the Divine Presence.

We cannot, however, easily distinguish this true inner law of our being; it is kept screened from us so long as the heart and intellect remain unpurified from egoism: till then we follow superficial and impermanent ideas, impulses, desires, suggestions and impositions of all kinds from our environment or work out formations of our temporary mental, vital, physical personality—that passing experimental and structural self which has been made for us by an interaction between our being and the pressure of a lower cosmic Nature. In proportion as we are purified, the true being within declares itself more clearly; our will is less entangled in suggestions from outside or shut up in our own superficial mental constructions. Egoism renounced, the nature purified, action will come from the soul's dictates, from the depths or the heights of the spirit, or it will be openly governed by the Lord who was all the time seated secretly within our hearts. The supreme and final word of the Gita for the Yogin is that he should leave all conventional formulas of belief and action, all fixed and external rules of conduct, all constructions of the outward or surface Nature, dharmas, and take refuge in the Divine alone. Free from desire and attachment, one with all beings, living in the infinite Truth and Purity and acting out of the profoundest deeps of his inner consciousness, governed by his immortal, divine and highest Self, all his works will be directed by the Power within through that essential spirit and nature in us which, knowing, warring, working, loving, serving, is always divine, towards the fulfilment of God in the world, an expression of the Eternal in Time.

The same equality must be brought into the rest of our being. Our whole dynamic being is acting under the influence of unequal impulses, the manifestations of the lower ignorant nature. These urgings we obey or partially control or place on them the changing and modifying influence of our reason, our refining aesthetic sense and mind and regulating ethical notions. A tangled strain of right and wrong, of useful and harmful, harmonious or disordered activity is the mixed result of our endeavour, a shifting standard of human reason and unreason, virtue and vice, honour and dishonour, the noble and the ignoble, things approved and things disapproved of men, much trouble of self-approbation and disapprobation or of self-righteousness and disgust, remorse, shame and moral depression. These things are no doubt very necessary at present for our spiritual evolution. But the seeker of a greater perfection will draw back from all these dualities, regard them with an equal eye and arrive through equality at an impartial and universal action of the dynamic Tapas, spiritual force, in which his own force and will are turned into pure and just instruments of a greater calm secret of divine working. The ordinary mental standards will be exceeded on the basis of this dynamic equality. The eye of his will must look beyond to a purity of divine being, a motive of divine will-power guided by divine knowledge of which his perfected nature will be the engine, yantra. That must remain impossible in entirety as long as the dynamic ego with its subservience to the emotional and vital impulses and the preferences of the personal judgment interferes in his action. A perfect equality of the will is the power which dissolves these knots of the lower impulsion to works. This equality will not respond to the lower impulses, but watch for a greater seeing impulsion from the Light above the mind, and will not judge and govern with the intellectual judgment, but wait for enlightenment and direction from a superior plane of vision. As it mounts upward to the supramental being and widens inward to the spiritual largeness, the dynamic nature will be transformed, spiritualised like the emotional and pranic, and grow into a power of the divine nature. There will be plenty of stumblings and errors and imperfections of adjustment of the instruments to their new working, but the increasingly equal soul will not be troubled overmuch or grieve at these things, since, delivered to the guidance of the Light and Power within self and above mind, it will proceed on its way with a firm assurance and await with growing calm the vicissitudes and completion of the process of transformation. The promise of the Divine Being in the Gita will be the anchor of its resolution, "Abandon all dharmas and take refuge in Me alone; I will deliver thee from all sin and evil; do not grieve."

Yoga means freedom from dwandwa. The Yogin is free from the bondage of pleasure and pain, of anger and hatred and attachment, of liking and disliking, because he looks with equal eyes on all. He does not shrink from misfortune or misery, happiness or unhappiness. He rises above the bondage of the body, because no man can give him pleasure or pain, because he has his own source of strength, of delight and happiness. This is the freedom which the Gita says the yoga gives, the freedom which we ordinarily mean by mukti. This is the freedom which the Gita promises. He says if you act in yoga, you rise above grief and pain, even above all things. You are free from fear or sin, because you do not act for yourself. You do not act because you will get pleasure, but for the sake of God; that is how you are to reach yoga. If you wish to be happy, you must give up all your works to God. You must do all your work for His sake, and therefore sin does not touch you. It is only because of selfishness that sin touches you. If you realise that Narayana is in all, it follows that you lose the smaller, the individual limited self. You look to wider things. You see yourself in the family, in the community, race, humanity, and all things in the world. You forget yourself altogether. You work for the race and others, for mankind. It is not God's work when you follow after your selfishness. The Gita says: "Your welfare is God's business." If you work for Him you have no fear, because God stretches out His hand of mercy to you. It is to that which the yoga leads. The teaching of the Gita, if it is followed, delivers you from all possibility of sin, of sorrow. He says: "Take refuge in me. I shall free you from all evil. Do everything as a sacrifice to me." That is the goal towards which you move. The name of Hari will free you from all evil.

280) If thy heart is troubled within thee, if for long seasons thou makest no progress, if thy strength faint and repine, remember always the eternal word of our Lover and Master, "I will free thee from all sin and evil; do not grieve."

Saṁyama is unseasonable and would be fruitless when a force, quality or tendency is in its infancy or vigour, before it has had the enjoyment and full activity which is its due. When once a thing is born it must have its youth, growth, enjoyment, life and final decay and death; when once an impetus has been given by Prakriti to her creation, she insists that the velocity shall spend itself by natural exhaustion before it shall cease. To arrest the growth or speed unseasonably by force is nigraha, which can be effective for a time but not in perpetuity. It is said in the Gita that all things are ruled by their nature, to their nature they return and nigraha or repression is fruitless. What happens then is that the thing untimely slain by violence is not really dead, but withdraws for a time into the Prakriti which sent it forth, gathers an immense force and returns with extraordinary violence ravening for the rightful enjoyment which it was denied. We see this in the attempts we make to get rid of our evil saṁskāras or associations when we first tread the path of Yoga. If anger is a powerful element in our nature, we may put it down for a time by sheer force and call it self-control, but eventually unsatisfied Nature will get the better of us and the passion return upon us with astonishing force at an unexpected moment. There are only two ways by which we can effectively get the better of the passion which seeks to enslave us. One is by substitution, replacing it whenever it rises by the opposite quality, anger by thoughts of forgiveness, love or forbearance, lust by meditation on purity, pride by thoughts of humility and our own defects or nothingness; this is the method of Rajayoga, but it is a difficult, slow and uncertain method; for both the ancient traditions and the modern experience of Yoga show that men who had attained for long years the highest self-mastery have been suddenly surprised by a violent return of the thing they thought dead or for ever subject. Still this substitution, slow though it be, is one of the commonest methods of Nature and it is largely by this means, often unconsciously or half-consciously used, that the character of a man changes and develops from life to life or even in the bounds of a single lifetime. It does not destroy things in their seed and the seed which is not reduced to ashes by Yoga is always capable of sprouting again and growing into the complete and mighty tree. The second method is to give bhoga or enjoyment to the passion so as to get rid of it quickly. When it is satiated and surfeited by excessive enjoyment, it becomes weak and spent and a reaction ensues which establishes for a time the opposite force, tendency or quality. If that moment is seized by the Yogin for nigraha, the nigraha so repeated at every suitable opportunity becomes so far effective as to reduce the strength and vitality of the vṛtti sufficiently for the application of the final saṁyama. This method of enjoyment and reaction is also a favourite and universal method of Nature, but it is never complete in itself and, if applied to permanent forces or qualities, tends to establish a see-saw of opposite tendencies, extremely useful to the operations of Prakriti but from the point of view of self-mastery useless and inconclusive. It is only when this method is followed up by the use of saṁyama that it becomes effective. The Yogin regards the vṛtti merely as a play of Nature with which he is not concerned and of which he is merely the spectator; the anger, lust or pride is not his, it is the universal Mother's and she works it and stills it for her own purposes. When, however, the vṛtti is strong, mastering and unspent, this attitude cannot be maintained in sincerity and to try to hold it intellectually without sincerely feeling it is mithyācāra, false discipline or hypocrisy. It is only when it is somewhat exhausted by repeated enjoyment and coercion that Prakriti or Nature at the command of the soul or Purusha can really deal with her own creation. She deals with it first by vairāgya in its crudest form of disgust, but this is too violent a feeling to be permanent; yet it leaves its mark behind in a deep-seated wish to be rid of its cause, which survives the return and temporary reign of the passion. Afterwards its return is viewed with impatience but without any acute feeling of intolerance. Finally supreme indifference or udāsīnatā is gained and the final going out of the tendency by the ordinary process of Nature is watched in the true spirit of the saṁyamī who has the knowledge that he is the witnessing soul and has only to dissociate himself from a phenomenon for it to cease. The highest stage leads either to mukti in the form of laya or disappearance, the vṛtti vanishing altogether and for good, or else to another kind of freedom when the soul knows that it is God's līlā and leaves it to Him whether He shall throw out the tendency or use it for His own purposes. This is the attitude of the Karmayogin who puts himself in God's hands and does work for His sake only, knowing that it is God's force that works in him. The result of that attitude of self-surrender is that the Lord of all takes charge and according to the promise of the Gita delivers His servant and lover from all sin and evil, the vṛttis working in the bodily machine without affecting the soul and working only when He raises them up for His purposes. This is nirliptatā, the state of absolute freedom within the līlā.

सर्वधर्मान् परित्यज्य मामेकं शरणं व्रज । अहं त्वा सर्वपापेभ्यो मोक्षयिष्यामि मा शुचः ।।

"Abandon all dharmas (all law, rule, means and codes of every kind whether formed by previous habit and belief or imposed from outside) and take refuge in Me alone; I will deliver thee from all sin and evil,—do not grieve." "I will deliver",—you have not to be troubled or struggle yourself as if the responsibility were yours or the result depended on your efforts, a mightier than you is busy with the matter. Neither disease nor calamity nor the rising of sin and impurity in you should cause any alarm. Hold fast only to him. "I will deliver thee from all sin and evil." But the release does not come by a sudden miracle, it comes by a process of purification and these things are a part of the process. They are like the dust that rises in clouds when a room long uncleaned is at last swept out. Though the dust seem to choke you, yet persevere, mā śucaḥ.

manmanā bhava madbhakto madyājī māṃ namaskuru
māmevaiṣyasi satyaṃ te pratijāne priyo'si me
sarvadharmānparityajya māmekaṃ śaraṇaṃ vraja
ahaṃ tvāṃ sarvapāpebhyo mokṣyayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ

(Become My-minded, My lover and adorer, a sacrificer to Me, bow thyself to Me, to Me thou shalt come, this is My pledge and promise to thee, for dear art thou to Me. Abandon all dharmas and take refuge in Me alone. I will deliver thee from all sin and evil, do not grieve).

In brief, the meaning of these two slokas is self-surrender. To the extent that one can make his surrender to Krishna, the Divine Force comes down into his body by the grace of the All-Merciful, delivering him from sin and conferring on him a divine nature. This self-surrender has been described in the first half of the sloka. One has to be tanmanā, tadbhakta, and tadyājī. Tanmanā means to see Him in every being, to remember Him at all times, to remain in perfect felicity, being aware of the play of His power, knowledge and love in all works and events. Tadbhakta signifies union with Him founded on an entire faith and love. Tadyājī means offering of all works big and small as a sacrifice to Krishna and being engaged in doing rightly regulated action to that end, by giving up egoistic interests and the fruits of work.

শরীর সাধন সেই কালের যুগধর্ম্ম, অন্য ধর্ম্মকে খাট করিয়াও তখন শরীর সাধন করা শ্রেয়ঃ পথ ছিল। কারণ, তাহা না হইলে শরীর, যে শরীর ধর্ম্মসাধনের উপায় ও প্রতিষ্ঠা, উৎকর্ষ লাভ করিত না। সেইরূপ আর-এক যুগে স্ত্রী-পরিবার, আর-এক যুগে কুল, আর-এক যুগে — যেমন আধুনিক যুগে — জাতিই সাধ্য। সর্ব্বোচ্চ পরাৎপর সাধ্য পরমেশ্বর, ভগবান। ভগবানই সকলের প্রকৃত ও পরম আত্মা, অতএব প্রকৃত ও পরম সাধ্য। সেইজন্য গীতায় বলে, সকল ধর্ম্ম পরিত্যাগ কর, আমাকেই শরণ কর। ভগবানের মধ্যে সকল ধর্ম্মের সমন্বয় হয়, তাঁহাকে সাধন করিলে তিনিই আমাদের ভার লইয়া আমাদিগকে যন্ত্র করিয়া স্ত্রী, পরিবার, কুল, জাতি, মানবসমষ্টির পরম তুষ্টি ও পরম কল্যাণ সাধন করিবেন।

মন্মনা ভব মদ্ভক্তো মদ্যাজী মাং নমস্কুরু।
মামেবৈষ্যসি সত্যং তে প্রতিজানে প্রিয়োহসি মে॥
সর্ব্বধর্ম্মান্ পরিত্যজ্য মামেকং শরণং ব্রজ।
অহং ত্বাং সর্ব্বপাপেভ্যো মোক্ষয়িষ্যামি মা শুচঃ॥

ভগবানের নিকট সম্পূর্ণভাবে শরণাগত হওয়া গীতোক্ত যোগের পন্থা। ইহাকে আত্মসমর্পণ বা আত্মনিবেদন বলে। যিনি ভগবানকে গুরু, প্রভু, সখা, পথপ্রদর্শক বলিয়া আর সকল ধর্ম্মকে জলাঞ্জলি দিতে প্রস্তুত, পাপ পুণ্য, কর্ত্তব্য অকর্ত্তব্য, ধর্ম্ম অধর্ম্ম, সত্য অসত্য, মঙ্গল অমঙ্গল বিচার না করিয়া নিজ জ্ঞান কর্ম্ম ও সাধনার সমস্ত ভাব শ্রীকৃষ্ণকে অর্পণ করেন, তিনিই গীতোক্ত যোগের অধিকারী। অর্জ্জুন শ্রীকৃষ্ণকে বলিলেন, তুমি যদি গুরুহত্যাও করিতে বল, ইহাকে ধর্ম্ম ও কর্ত্তব্যকর্ম্ম বলিয়া বুঝাইয়া দাও, আমি তাহাই করিব। এই গভীর শ্রদ্ধার বলে অর্জ্জুন সমসাময়িক সকল মহাপুরুষকে অতিক্রম করিয়া গীতোক্ত শিক্ষার শ্রেষ্ঠ পাত্র বলিয়া গৃহীত হইলেন।

प्रयासेन हि दीर्घकालादल्पैव सिद्धिः क्षिप्रकारी तु वासुदेवप्रसादः सुखं बन्धात्प्रमुच्यत इति । उक्तञ्च श्रुतौ यमेवैष वृणुते तेन लभ्यस्तस्यैष आत्मा विवृणुते तनूं स्वां । तथा च गीतायामहं त्वा सर्वपापेभ्यो मोक्षयिष्यामि मा शुचः । सर्वपापं व्यपोहति विद्वान् सर्वपापेभ्यो मुक्तो भवति । दुःखं तु पापं दुःखात्प्रमुच्यत अनृतं पाप्मनृतात्प्रमुच्यते दुःखं ह्यनृतं कामप्रसूतं कामस्त्वज्ञानप्रसूतोऽहंकाराश्रितश्च । तस्मादहंकारं मनसो विधूय व्यपोह्य तदहंकारविगमादहं कर्ता पापी पुण्यकृत् फलभोक्तेत्यज्ञानं मनसो विधूय तदज्ञानविगमात्कामं मनसो विधूय तत्कामविगमाद् दुःखमनृतमिति मनसो विधूय तद्दुःखविगमात्सुखमपि मनसो विधूय पूर्णज्ञानी पूर्णानन्दभुक् केवलो निरञ्जनो भवति सर्वपापमुक्तः । पूर्णज्ञानात्पूर्णानन्दात् शुद्धसत्त्वात् परात्परं पुरुषमुपेतुं समर्थो भवति । कः स पुरुषः पुरुषोत्तमो वासुदेव इति । यो हि पुरु महदधिकृत्य शेते स पुरुषः । पुरु हि महदव्यक्तं विज्ञानरूपं तस्मिन्नानन्दभुगात्मा शेते । पुनश्च जगद्व्यापी यः स पुरुषस्तं सर्ववस्तुनिहित इति वासुदेवं वदन्ति । प्रपञ्चस्तु वसु या रयिरुच्यते प्रश्नोपनिषदि रयिर्हि वसु विज्ञानोपकरणं प्रधानं वसु तस्मिन् प्रधाने यः शेते स पुरुषः । पुनश्च या भूतयोनिर्यस्यांशो जीवो यस्य शरीरं जगत्स पुरुषस्तत्परं ब्रह्म स उत्तमः पुरुषः वासुदेवनामा कृष्णः । स पुरुषः परात्परः । तुरीयं तु परं सर्वं हि तस्मिँल्लीनं भवति न कश्चित्तमतिक्रामति अतएव परम । अतिक्रामति हि वैश्वानरं जाग्रदवस्थमतिक्रामति तैजसं स्वप्नदर्शिनमतिक्रामति प्राज्ञं सुषुप्तिशायिनं तुरीयं तु प्राप्य न कश्चिदतिक्रामति विलीनो भवति जीवस्तदद्वैतं परमं सच्चिदानन्दं ब्रह्म । सगुणे वा ब्रह्मणि निवसति निर्गुणे वानिर्देश्ये । तस्मात्तुरीयादपि परः पुरुषोत्तमः । उक्तं हि माण्डूक्ये प्रपञ्चोपशमं शान्तं शिवमद्वैतं चतुर्थं मन्यन्ते । परात्परस्तु न शिवं नाशिवं शिवाशिवे तस्मिन् श्रिते न शान्तं न कलिलं शान्तकलिले तस्मिन् श्रिते नाद्वैतं न द्वैतं द्वैताद्वैते तस्मिन् श्रिते न प्रथमं न द्वितीयं न तृतीयं न चतुर्थं विराड्धिरण्यगर्भप्राज्ञतुरीयास्तस्मिन् श्रिताः । स पुरुषोत्तमस्तत्परात्परं ब्रह्म । न निर्गुणो न सगुणः पुरुषोत्तमो गुणातीतः निर्गुणसगुणौ तस्मिन् श्रितौ । न पुमान् न स्त्री नालिङ्गः पुरुषोत्तमो लिङ्गातीतः पुमान्स्त्री चालिङ्गञ्च तस्मिन् श्रितं । न सन्न चिन्नानन्दं पुरुषोत्तमः सच्चिदानन्दं तस्मिन् श्रितमिति । तुरीयं नातिवर्तते कश्चित्कथं तुरीयादपि परं यातीति सन्देहे नैवं । यो हि तुरीयं याति स लीनो भवति नातिवर्तते यस्तु वासुदेवं याति प्रधानपुरुषं सगुणब्रह्मनिर्गुणब्रह्मरूपं न स लीनो भवति न जायते न म्रियते स ह्यावृत्तिमनावृत्तिञ्चातिवर्तते केवलो भवति जीवन्मुक्तो भवति मोक्षमतिवर्तते बन्धमतिवर्तते शाश्वतो भवति सनातनो भवति लीलामयो भवति ब्रह्मीभूतो भवत्यनन्तगुणे रमति निवसति कृष्णे । तस्मात्सगुणादुत्थाय स परब्रह्मणि लीनो भवति तस्मिन्निवसति तदेतद्धर्म्यं धाम ॥

Ahaṁ tvā sarvapāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ

"I will deliver thee from all sin and evil, do not grieve."

There is no real contradiction; the two passages^* indicate in the Gita's system two different movements of its Yoga, the complete surrender being the crowning movement. One has first to conquer the lower nature, deliver the self involved in the lower movement by means of the higher Self which rises into the divine nature; at the same time one offers all one's actions including the inner action of the Yoga as a sacrifice to the Purushottama, the transcendent and immanent Divine. When one has risen into the higher Self, has the knowledge and is free, one makes the complete surrender to the Divine, abandoning all other dharmas, living only by the divine Consciousness, the divine Will and Force, the divine Ananda.

1. The correspondent asked how to reconcile two passages in the Gita: "Deliver the self by means of the Self" and "Abandon all dharmas, take refuge in Me alone" (Gita 6.5 and 18.66).—Ed.

Next, you speak of leading a higher life in order to fit yourself for service to others. But leading a higher life is a vague mental phrase and the object of Yoga is not service to others. The object of Yoga is to enter into an entirely new consciousness in which you live no longer in the mind and the ego but in the divine consciousness and grow into the true inmost truth of your being above mind and life and body. The aim in most ways of Yoga is to draw back altogether from life into this greater existence. In Sri Aurobindo's Yoga, the aim is to transform mind, life and body into an expression of this divine Truth and to make the outward as well as the inward life embody it—a much more difficult endeavour. To act out of this greater consciousness becomes the only rule of life, abandoning all other dharmas. Not to serve either one's own ego or others, but to serve the Divine Shakti and be the instrument of her works is the law of this life.

Aham tvā sarvapāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ.

What Krishna says in the Gita: _sarvadharmān parityajya_ — abandoning all laws of conduct, is said at the end of the Gita and not in the beginning. And then that is not alone; there is also _māmekam sharanam vraja_ — take refuge in Me alone. But before one finds within oneself the guidance of the dynamic Divine, one has to have some rule to guide himself. Most people have to pass through the Sattwic stage and the moral rule is true so far as these people are concerned. It is only a very few that can start above it.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course all can’t go beyond the dualities. The ethical standpoint is true in its own field. It follows a mental rule and so long as one cannot come into contact with the dynamic divine source of action in oneself, one has to be guided by a mental law of conduct. Otherwise one may take up the attitude, “There is no virtue, no sin. So let us indulge ourselves merrily!” What Krishna says in the Gita – “Abandon all dharmas” – is at the end of the Gita, not the beginning. And he does not say this only; he also says, “Take refuge in me.” The stage at which the ethicists are is the sattwic. Most people have to pass through it. Only a very few can start from the beginning without the dualities.

If you go above the vital and mental planes you come to a point where the Gita's _Sarva dharmān parityajya_ becomes the principle. But there if you leave out the last portion, _māmekam śaraṇam vraja_ — take refuge in Me alone — then you follow your ego and you fall, and become either an Asura or a lunatic or an animal. But even the animals have a sense of right and wrong. That is very well shown in Kipling's _Jungle Book._ Have you read it?

If you go above the vital and mental planes, you come to a point where the Gita’s “_Sarvadharman parityajya_”, “Abandon all dharmas”, becomes the principle. But there if you leave out the last portion of the sloka – _“Mamekam saranam vraja_”, “Take refuge in me” – then you follow your ego and you fall; you become either an Asura or a lunatic or an animal. Even the animals have some sense of right and wrong. That is very well shown in Kipling’s _Jungle Book._ Have you read it?

Purani: Yes. Sisir Maitra concludes in his article that the Gita preaches: “Leaving all other dharmas, take refuge in Me.” I don’t see then why there should be any controversy between Anilbaran and him. I was wondering if this sloka, “Be my-minded, my devotee,” would do for a quotation for your chapter “The Triple Transformation”. Though it is more related to Bhakti, I thought it could as well be applied to psychic transformation because Bhakti may lead to it.

Sri Aurobindo: “Sarvadharman parityajya.” (“Abandon all dharmas, all standards.”) _(Laughter)_

Dr. Manilal: When the Gita says “I shall deliver you from all papa”, does papa mean sin, Sir?

And now there comes the supreme word and most secret thing of all, guhyatamam, that the Spirit and Godhead is an Infinite free from all dharmas and though he conducts the world according to fixed laws and leads man through his dharmas of ignorance and knowledge, sin and virtue, right and wrong, liking and disliking and indifference, pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow and the rejection of these opposites, through his physical and vital, intellectual, emotional, ethical and spiritual forms and rules and standards, yet the Spirit and Godhead transcends all these things, and if we too can cast away all dependence on dharmas, surrender ourselves to this free and eternal Spirit and, taking care only to keep ourselves absolutely and exclusively open to him, trust to the light and power and delight of the Divine in us and, unafraid and ungrieving, accept only his guidance, then that is the truest, the greatest release and that brings the absolute and inevitable perfection of our self and nature.

It will be a perfection developed by an all-seeing Wisdom according to the whole truth, first indeed of our human swabhava, but afterwards of a greater thing into which it will open, a spirit and power illimitable, immortal, free and all-transmuting, the light and splendour of a divine and infinite nature. All must be given as material of that transmutation. An omniscient consciousness will take up our knowledge and our ignorance, our truth and our error, cast away their forms of insufficiency, sarvadharmānparityajya, and transform all into its infinite light. An almighty Power will take up our virtue and sin, our right and wrong, our strength and our weakness, cast away their tangled figures, sarvadharmānparityajya, and transform all into its transcendent purity and universal good and infallible force. An ineffable Ananda will take up our petty joy and sorrow, our struggling pleasure and pain, cast away their discordances and imperfect rhythms, sarvadharmānparityajya, and transform all into its transcendent and universal unimaginable delight. All that all the Yogas can do will be done and more; but it will be done in a greater seeing way, with a greater wisdom and truth than any human teacher, saint or sage can give us. The inner spiritual state to which this supreme Yoga will take us, will be above all that is here and yet comprehensive of all things in this and other worlds, but with a spiritual transformation of all, without limitation, without bondage, sarvadharmānparityajya. The infinite existence, consciousness and delight of the Godhead in its calm silence and bright boundless activity will be there, will be its essential, fundamental, universal stuff, mould and character. And in that mould of infinity the Divine made manifest will overtly dwell, no longer concealed by his Yogamaya, and whenever and as he wills build in us whatever shapes of the Infinite, translucent forms of knowledge, thought, love, spiritual joy, power and action according to his self-fulfilling will and immortal pleasure. And there will be no binding effect on the free soul and the unaffected nature, no unescapable crystallising into this or that inferior formula. For all the action will be executed by the power of the Spirit in a divine freedom, sarvadharmānparityajya. An unfallen abiding in the transcendent Spirit, paramam dhāma , will be the foundation and the assurance of this spiritual state. An intimate understanding oneness with universal being and all creatures, released from the evil and suffering of the separative mind but wisely regardful of true distinctions, will be the conditioning power. A constant delight, oneness and harmony of the eternal individual here with the Divine and all that he is will be the effect of this integral liberation.

The language of the Gita in many matters seems sometimes contradictory because it admits two apparently opposite truths and tries to reconcile them. It admits the ideal of departure from sansara into the Brahman as one possibility; also it affirms the possibility of living free in the Divine (in Me, it says) and acting in the world as the Jivanmukta. It is this latter kind of salvation on which it lays the greatest emphasis. So Ramakrishna put the "divine souls" (Ishwarakoti) who can descend the ladder as well as ascend it higher than the ordinary Jivas (Jivakoti) who, once having ascended, have not the strength to descend again for divine work. The full truth lies in the supramental consciousness and the power to work from there on life and matter. * * * There is no real contradiction; the two passages indicate in the Gita's system two different movements of its Yoga, the complete surrender being the crowning movement. One has first to conquer the lower nature, deliver the self involved in the lower movement by means of the higher Self which rises into the divine nature; at the same time one offers all one's actions including the inner action of the Yoga as a sacrifice to the Purushottama, the transcendent and immanent Divine.When one has risen into the higher Self, has the knowledge and is free, one makes the complete surrender to the Divine, abandoning all other dharmas, living only by the divine Consciousness, the divine Will and Force, the divine Ananda. Our Yoga is not identical with the Yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is essential in the Gita's Yoga. In our Yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore unreal surrender, making no effort, no tapas and therefore no progress; or else we may make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine but to some self-made false idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic ego or something still worse. * * * It was not your account of the inconsistencies of the Gita, but those that have been urged against the combining of sadhanas of which the Gita is the finest example that I was speaking of. Your objection to Krishna's pouring contradictory sadhanas on Arjuna was, I said, akin to these and not more sustainable. All the other side questions I consider irrelevant and of no importance. The setting of the Gita is poetic and legendary and I consider it an admirable setting, but if you consider it a bad one, that does not matter. It makes no difference, even if you are right, to the spiritual excellence of the Gita. I care nothing whether Sanjaya and Krishna and Arjuna of the Mahabharat were myths or real persons. The only thing that is important is that the sadhana of the Gita is a real thing and can be lived and that if spiritually lived, its so-called inconsistencies are no inconsistencies but many well-related aspects of a single Divine Truth—the vision seen by Arjuna included. The rest is a matter of opinion and, as I say, of no spiritual importance. * * * The Gita was not meant by the writer to be an allegory—you can say, if you like, that now we should dismiss the ancient war element by interpreting it as if it were an allegory. The Gita is Yoga, spiritual truth applied to external life and action—but it may be any action and not necessarily an action resembling that of the Gita. The principle of the spiritual consciousness applied to action has to be kept; the particular example used by the Gita may be treated as a thing belonging to a past world. 1. The correspondent asked how to reconcile two passages in the Gita: "Deliver the self by means of the Self" and "Abandon all dharmas, take refuge in Me alone" (Gita 6.5 and 18.66).—Ed.