Written after Sri Aurobindo’s Essays on the Gita, whose words they quote exactly and whose light they follow. Each opens one movement of the teaching, draws its shape as a figure, and closes in a contemplation.
Ascent I
The Field and the Charioteer
The crisis of the human soul in action, the Teacher who takes it up, the nature of the disciple and the questions by which he climbs.
Ascent II
The Yoga of Divine Works
Action lifted from desire to sacrifice and from sacrifice to the Divine; the ascending law; the ego unseated; the modes of Nature exceeded.
Ascent III
The Lord of All Existence
Self, Nature and the Lord; one yoga of works, knowledge and love; the unfolding of the doctrine; the vision of the World-Spirit.
Ascent IV
The Supreme Secret
The Gita as a science of consciousness, the living drama of the Charioteer, the great verses given back their movement, and the living words.
16 companion essays
- iThe Crisis of the Human Soul in ActionKurukshetra, the chariot between the armies, and the dejection that becomes a Yoga
- iiThe Divine TeacherHow the Friend in the chariot takes up the human soul part by part and reveals himself as the truth he teaches
- iiiThe Nature of the DiscipleArjuna, the rajasic Kshatriya with a sattwic ideal, and the taking up of his whole nature into the divine man
- ivThe Questions of the Seeker and the Answers of the MasterHow each question of Arjuna rises from a deeper plane of his being, and how the Teacher answers the questioner more than the question
- vFrom Desireful Works to Divine WorksHow the Gita takes up the whole labour of man and returns it to him as the work of God
- viThe Ascending LawFrom the dharma of family and order to the Divine who is the source of every law and is bound by none
- viiThe Doer and the InstrumentHow the knot of the ego is loosed and the human nature becomes the conscious bow of the divine Archer
- viiiThe Three Modes of Nature and Their TranscendenceTamas, rajas and sattwa: the triple cord of the lower nature, and the love that carries the soul beyond it into the being of the Purushottama
- ixSelf, Nature and the LordHow each truth of the Gita’s metaphysics rises to meet a necessity of the soul in action, until all are gathered in the Purushottama
- xThe One Yoga of Works, Knowledge and LoveNot three roads set side by side, but a single cord of three strands drawn upward to the Purushottama
- xiThe Unfolding of the DoctrineHow the eighteen chapters rise, each answering the next necessity of the soul, from a broken will to the secret of self-giving
- xiiThe Vision of the World-SpiritWhy the soul must behold Time the Destroyer before it can act, and the love that waits behind the terror
- xiiiThe Gita as a Science of ConsciousnessThe senses, the mind, the intelligent will, and He who is beyond: the soul’s instruments given back to their Master
- xivThe Drama of the Divine CharioteerFrom the clamour of the conches to the rapture of the witness: the Gita as a living drama of the soul’s deliverance
- xvThe Great Verses Restored to Their MovementThe Gita’s most quoted lines, lifted out of the living argument, harden into maxims; returned to it, they become again the Charioteer’s speech to the soul
- xviThe Living WordsThe Gita’s great Sanskrit terms followed from their roots through their verses into the powers of consciousness they name
