The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 3

NOTES AND COMMENTS

I

Here or Otherwhere

A question is often asked of us whether it is possible to do Yoga while remaining in the world. Some declare outright that it is not possible: world and Yoga are, like oil and water, absolutely different things, they do not go together. World means, to put it plainly, earning money and raising family. Well, these two are the very opposite of Yoga, for they involve, at their best, desire and attachment and, at their worst, dishonesty and deceit, lust and libertinage. There is the other school, on the contrary, that pronounces that a Yogic life must be lived in the world if it is not our intention to leave the world altogether and seek and merge in the Beyond, the otherwhere, the immutable transcendent Brahman. It is quite possible for one to be in the very midst of the worldly forces and yet remain unshaken by them. Therefore it has been said: When the

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causes of disturbances are there and still the mind is not disturbed—that indeed is the sign of a wise steadiness.

It can however be asked, what then is meant by being in the world ? If it means merely sitting quiet, suffering and observing nonchalantly the impacts of the world—something in the manner described by Matthew Arnold in his famous lines on the East—, well, that stoic way, the way of indifference is a way of being in the world which is not very much unlike not being in the world; for it means simply erecting a wall of separation or isolation within one's consciousness without moving away physically. It is a psychological escapism. But if by living in the world we should mean participating in the movements of the world—not only being but becoming, not merely standing as a witness but moving out as a doer—then the problem becomes different. For the question we have to ask in that case is what happens to our duties—life in the world being a series of duties, duty to oneself (self-preservation), duty to the family (race-preservation), duty to the country, to humanity and, finally, duty to God (which

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last belongs properly to the life in Yoga). Now, can all these duties dwell and flourish together? The Christ is categorical on the point. He says, in effect: Leave aside all else and follow Me and look not back. Christ's God seems to be a jealous God who does not tolerate any other god to share in his sovereign exclusiveness. You have to give up, if you wish to gain. They who lose life shall find it and they who stick to life shall as surely lose it.

But is not Gita's solution somewhat different ? Sri Krishna urges Arjuna to be in the very thick of a deadly fight, not a theoretical or abstract combat, but take a hand in the direst manslaughter, to "do the deed" (even like Macbeth) but Yogically. Yes, Gita's position seems to be that—to accept all life integrally, to undertake all necessary work (kartavyam karma) and turn them Godward. Gita seeks to do it in its own way whichconsists of two major principles: (I) to do the work, whatever it may be, unattached-without any desire for the fruit, simply as a thing that has to be done, and (2) to do it as a sacrifice, as an offering to the supreme Master of works.

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The question naturally turns upon the nature and the kind of work whether there is a choice and selection in it. Gita speaks indeed of all works, kritsna-karmakrit, but does that really mean any and every work that an ignorant man, an ordinary man steeped in the three Gunas does or can do? It cannot be so. For, although all activity, all energy has its source and impetus in the higher consciousness of the Divine, it assumes on the lower ranges indirect, diverted or even perverted formulations and expressions, not because, indeed, of the inherent falsity of these so-called inferior strata, the instruments, but because of their temporary impurity and obscurity. There are evidently activities and impulsions born exclusively of desire, of attachment and egoism. There are habits of the body, urges of the vital, notions of the mind, there are individual and social functions that have no place in the spiritual scheme, they have to be rigorously eschewed and eliminated. Has not the Gita said, this is desire, this is passion born of the quality of Rajas?... There is not much meaning in trying to do these works unattached or to turn them towards the

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Divine. When you are unattached, when you turn to the Divine, these simply drop away of themselves. Yes, there are social duties and activities and relations that inevitably dissolve and disappear as you move into the life divine. Some are perhaps tolerated for a period, some are occasions for the consciousness to battle and surmount, grow strong and pass beyond. You have to learn to go beyond and new-create your environment.

It was Danton who said, one carries not his country with him at the sole of his shoe. Even so you cannot hope to shift bodily your present social ensemble, place it wholesale in the divine life on the plea that it will be purified and transformed in the process. Purification is there indeed, but one must remember purification literally means burning and not a little of the past and present has to be burnt down to ashes.

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