Sri Aurobindo - some aspects of His Vision

APPENDIX

WHY THE WAY IS HIDDEN

" The World lost its proper course, and the course it took only led it further astray. The World and the Way, being thus lost to each other, how could the men of the Way bring it again to the World ? And how could the World rise to an appreciation of the Way ? Since the Way had no means to make itself conspicuous in the World, and the World had no- means of rising to an appreciation of the Way then, though sagely men might not keep to the hills and forests, their virtue was hidden - hidden, but not because they themselves sought to hide it. The sages were under the compulsion of their times. When these conditions shut them up entirely from such action as they could do, they struck their roots deeper in themselves, were perfectly stilly and they waited. It was thus they preserved the Way in their own persons.'"

" The hypothesis I propose is that the Rig-veda is itself the one considerable document that remains to us from the early period of human thought of which the historic Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries were the failing remnants, when the spiritual and psychological knowledge of the race was conceal- ed , for reasons now difficult to determine, in a veil of concrete and material figures and symbols which protected the sense from the profane and revealed it to the initiated. One of the leading principles of the mystics was the sacredness and secrecy of self-knowledge and the true knowledge of the God. This wisdom was, they thought, unfit, perhaps even dangerous - to the ordinary mind or in any case liable to perversion and misuse and loss of virtue if revealed to vulgar and un-purified spirits. Hence they favoured the existence of an outer

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¹ Chuang Tzu XVI, 3 Volume II No. 8, May 1957.

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worship, effective but imperfect, for the profane, and inner discipline for the initiate, and clothed their language in words I and image which had, equally, a spiritual sense for the elect a concrete sense for the mass of ordinary worshippers. The Vedic hymns were conceived and constructed on this principle. Their formulas and ceremonies are, overtly, the details of! an outward ritual devised for the Pantheistic Nature-Worship which was then the common religion, covertly the sacred words, the effective symbols of a spiritual experience and knowledge and a psychological discipline of self-culture which were then the highest achievement of the human race. The ritual recognised by Sayana may, in its externalities, stand the naturalistic sense discovered by European scholarship may, in its general conceptions, be accepted; but behind them there is always the true and still hidden secret of the Veda, the secret words Ninya Vacamsi, which were spoken for the purified in soul and the awakened in knowledge. To disengage this less obvious but more important sense by fixing the import of Vedic terms, the sense of Vedic symbols and the psychological functions of the Gods is thus a difficult but necessary task, for which these chapters and the translations that accompany them are only a preparation."²

" Their aim was illumination, not logical conviction, their ideal the inspired seer, not the accurate reasoner. Indian tradition has faithfully preserved this account of the origin of the Vedas. The Rishi was not the individual composer of the hymn, but the seer ( Drasta) of an eternal truth and an impersonal knowledge. The language of Veda itself is Sruti, a rhythm not composed by the intellect but heart, a divine Word that came vibrating out of the Infinite to the inner audience of the man who had previously made himself fit for the impersonal knowledge. The words themselves Dristi and Sruti, sight and hearing, arc Vedic expressions;

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²On the Veda, P. 89

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these and cognate words signify in the esoteric terminology of the hymns revelatory knowledge and the contents of inspiration."

''In the Vedic Idea of the revelation there is no suggestion of the miraculous or the supernatural. The Rishi, who employed these faculties, had acquired them by a progressive self-culture ".³

" We have at any rate, the same notions repeated from hymn to hymn with the same constant terms and figures and frequently in the same phrases with an entire indifference to any search for poetical originality or any demand for novelty of thought and freshness of language. No pursuit of aesthetic grace, richness or beauty induces these mystic poets to vary the consecrated from which had become for them a sort of divine algebra transmitting the eternal formulae of the Knowledge to the continuous succession of the initiates. "4

" It is even possible that its most ancient hymns are a comparatively modern development or version of a more ancient 5 lyric evangel couched in the freer and more pliable forms of a still earlier human speech. Or the whole voluminous mass of its litanies may be only a selection by Veda Vyasa out of more richly vocal Aryan past. Made, according to the common belief, by Krishna of the Isle, the great traditional sage, the colossal compiler ( Vyasa ), with his face turned towards the commencement of the Iron Age, towards the centuries of increasing twilight and final darkness, it is perhaps only the last testament of the Ages of Intuition, the luminous Dawns of the Forefathers, to their descendents,

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³ On the Veda, P. 11

4 Ibid P. 12

5 The Veda itself speaks constantly of " Ancient " and " Modem" Rishis, (Parva....Nutanah), the former remote enough to be regarded as a kind of demigods, the first founders of knowledge.

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to a human race already turning in spirit towards the lower¦ levels and the more easy and secure gains, secure perhaps only in appearance of the physical life and of the intellect and the logical reason."6

" The Rig Veda is one in all its parts. Whichever of its ten Mandalas we choose, we find the same substance, the , same ideas, the same images, the same phrases. The Rishis are the seers of a single truth and use in its expression a common language. They differ in temperament and personality; some are inclined to a more rich, subtle and profound use of Vedic symbolism; others give voice to their spiritual experience in a barer and simpler diction, with less fertility of thought, richness of poetical image or depth and fullness of suggestion. Often the songs of one seer vary in their manner, range from the utmost simplicity to the most curious richness. If there are rising and fallings in the same hymn, it proceeds from the most ordinary convention of- the general symbol of sacrifice to a movement of packed and complex thought. Some of the Suktas are plain and almost modern in their language; others baffle us at first by their semblance of antique unity of spiritual experience, nor are they complicated by any variation of the fixed terms and the common formulae. In the deep and mystic style of Dirghatamas Auchathya as in the melodious lucidity of Medhatithi Kanwa, in the puissant and energetic hymns of Vishwamitra as in Vashishtha's even harmony we have the same firm foundation of knowledge and the same scrupulous adherence to the sacred conventions of the initiates."7

" The internal evidence of the Riks themselves establishes that this significance is psychological, as otherwise the terms lose their fixed value, their precise sense, necessary connection and their constant recurrence in relation to each other has

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6.On the Veda, P. 13-14

7 Ibid, P. 67

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to be regarded as fortuitous and void of reason or purpose.

"We shall find that the whole of the Rig Veda is practically a constant variation of this double theme, the preparation of the human being in mind and body and the fulfilment of the godhead or immortality in him by his attainment and development of the Truth and the Beatitude."8

" The Rishi next passes to the Vishvadevas, all the gods or the all-gods. It has been disputed whether these Vishva- devas form a class by themselves or are simply the gods in their generality. I take it that the phrase means the universal collectivity of the divine powers; for this sense seems to me best to correspond to the actual expressions of the hymns in which they are invoked."9

" They are fosterers or increasers of man and upholders of his labour and effort in the work, the sacrifice " omasas carsanidhrtaW'. Sayana renders these words protectors and sustainers of men. I need not enter here into a full justification of the significances which I prefer to give them;

for I have already indicated the philological method which I follow. Sayana himself finds it impossible to attribute always the sense of protection to the words derived from the root "AV", "AVAS", "UTI", "UMA", etc. which are so common in the hymns, and is obliged to give to the same word in different passages the most diverse and unconnected significance".

"Similarly, while it is easy to attribute the sense of "Man" to the two kindred words ' Carsoni' and ' Kristi' when they stand by themselves, this meaning seems unaccountably to disappear in compound forms like vicarsani visvacarsani, visvasristi. Sayana himself is obliged to render visvacarsani, "all-seeing" and not" All-man". I do not admit the possi- bility of such abysmal variations in fixed Vedic terms. AV

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8 On the Veda, P. 90

9 Ibid, P. 99

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can mean to be, have, keep; contain, protect; become, create foster, increase, thrive, prosper, gladden, be glad; but it is the sense of increasing or fostering which seems to me to .prevail in the Veda. Cars and Krs were originally derivate roots from Car and Kr both meaning to do, and the sense of laborious action or movement still remains in Krs, to drag, to plough. Carsani and Kristi mean therefore effort, laborious action or work or else the doers of such action. They are two among the many words, Karma, Apas, Kara, Kri, Duvas etc. ) which are used to indicate the Vedic work, the sacrifice, the toil of aspiring humanity, the Arati of the Aryan."10

" The number 'seven' plays an exceedingly important part in the Yedic system, as in most ancient schools of thought. We find it recurring constantly—the seven delights, sapta ratnani; the seven flames, tongues of rays of Agni, sapta arcisah, sapta jvalah; the seven forms of the Thought- principle, sapta dhitayah; the seven Rays or Cows, forms of the Cow, unslayable, Aditi, mother of the gods, sapta gavah; the seven rivers, the seven mothers of fostering cows, septa matarah, sapta dhenavah, a term applied indifferently to the Rays and the Rivers. All these sets of seven depend, it seems to me, upon the Vedic classification of the fundamental principles, the tattvas, of existence. The enquiry into the number of these tattvas greatly interested the speculative mind of the ancients and in Indian philosophy we find various answers ranging from the One upwards and running into twenties. In Vedic thought the basis chosen was the number of the psychological principles, because all existence was conceived by the Rishis as a movement of conscious being. However merely curious or barren these specula- tions and classifications may seem to the modern mind, they were no mere dry metaphysical distinctions, but closely

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10 On the Veda, P. 100

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connected with a living psychological practice of which they were to a great extent the thought-basis, and in any case we must understand them clearly if we wish to form with any accuracy an idea of this ancient and far off system. "11

" The antique view of the world as a psycho-physical and not merely a material reality is at the root of the ancient ideas about the efficacy of the mantra and the relation of the gods to the external life of man; hence the force of prayer, worship, sacrifice for material ends; hence the use of them for worldly life and in so-called magic rites which come out prominently in the Atharva Veda and is behind much of the symbolism of the Brahmanas.12 But in man him- self the gods are conscious psychological powers. Will- powers, they do the works of will; they are the thinkings in our hearts; they are the lords of delight who take delight they travel in all the directions of the thought. Without them the soul of man cannot distinguish its right nor its left, what is in front of it nor what is behind, the things of foolishness or the things of wisdom; only if led by them can it reach and enjoy' the fearless Light' . For this reason Dawn is addressed ' O thou who art human and divine ' and the gods constantly described as the ' Men ' or human powers ( manushah, narah); they are our ' luminous seers ', ' our heroes ', ' our lords of plentitude '. They conduct the sacrifice in their human capacity ( manusvat ) as well as receive it in their high divine being. Agni is the priest of the oblation, Brihaspati the priest of the word. In this sense Agni is said to be born from the heart of man; all the gods are thus born by the sacrifice, grow, and out of their human action assume their divine bodies. Soma, the wine of the world-delight,

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11.On the VedaTp. 111-12

12 This is the real secret of the external sense of Veda which is all that the modern scholars have been and so imperfectly understood. Even the exoteric religion was much more than a mere Nature worship.

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rushing through the mind which is its 'luminous, wide- extended ' strainer of purification, cleansed there by the ten sisters pours forth giving birth to the gods. "13

" The Veda is a book of esoteric symbols, almost of, spiritual formulae, which masks itself as a collection of ritual poems. The inner sense is psychological, universal, .impersonal; the ostensible significance and the figures which were meant to reveal to the initiates what they concealed from the ignorant, are to all appearance crudely concrete, intimately personal, loosely occasional and allusive. To this lax outer garb the Vedic poets are sometimes careful to give a clear and coherent form quite other than the strenuous inner soul of their meaning; their language then becomes a cunningly woven mask for hidden truths. More often they are negligent of the disguise which they use, and when they thus rise above their instrument, a literal and external translation gives either a bizarre, unconnected sequence of sentences or a form of thought and speech strange and remote to the uninitiated intelligence. It is only when the figures and symbols are made to suggest their concealed equivalents that there emerges out of the obscurity a transparent and well-linked though close and subtle sequence of spiritual, psychological and religious ideas. It is this method of suggestion that I have attempted.'14

" Confronted with the stately hymns of the ancient dawn, we are conscious of a blank incomprehension. And we leave them as pray to the ingenuity of the scholar who gropes for forced meanings amid obscurities and incongruities where the ancients bathed their souls in harmony and light. '"15

" The Vedic language as a whole is a powerful and remarkable instrument, terse, knotted, virile, packed, and in its turns careful rather to follow the natural flight of the thought in

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13.On the veda, P. 548-549

14. Ibid, P. 415

15.Ibid, P. 416

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the mind than to achieve the smooth and careful constructions and the clear transitions of a logical and rhetorical syntax. But translated without modification into English, such a language would become harsh, abrupt and obscure, a dead and heavy movement with nothing in it of the morning vigour and puissant stride of the original. I have, therefore, preferred to throw it in translation into a mould more plastic and natural to the English tongue, using the construction and devices of transition which best suit a modern speech while preserving the logic of the original thought; and I have never hesitated to reject the bald dictionary equivalent of the Vedic word for an ampler phrase in the English where that was necessary to bring out the full sense and associations. Throughout I have kept my eye fixed on my primary object—to make the inner sense of the Veda seizable by the cultured intelligence of today. "16

"Who in this age of Iron shall have the strength to recover the light of the Forefathers or soar above the two enclosing firmaments of mind and body into their luminous empyrean of the infinite Truth? The Rishis sought to conceal their knowledge from the unfit, believing perhaps that the corruption of the best might lead to the worst and fearing to give the potent wine of the Soma to the child and the weakling. But whether their spirits still move among us looking for the rare Aryan soul in a mortality that is content to leave the radiant herds of the Sun for ever imprisoned in the darkling cave of the Lords of the sense-life or whether they await in their luminous world the hour when the Marut shall again drive abroad and the Hound of Heaven shall once again speed down to us from beyond the rivers or Paradise and the seals of the heavenly waters be broken and the cavern shall be rent and the immortalising wine shall be pressed out in the body of man by the electric thunder-stones, their

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16.On the Veda, P. 420.

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secret remains safe to them. "17

" Our life is a horse that neighing and galloping bears us onward and upward; its forces are swift-hoved steed; the liberated powers of the mind are wide-winging birds; this mental being or this soul is the upsoaring Swan or the Falcon that breaks out from a hundred iron walls and wrests from the jealous guardians of felicity the wine of the Soma. Every shining godward Thought that arises from the secret abysses of the heart is a priest and a creator and chants a divine hymn of luminous realisation and puissant fulfilment. . We seek for the shining gold of the Truth; we lust after a heavenly treasure.

"The soul of man is a world full of beings, a kingdom in which armies clash to help or hinder a supreme conquest, a house where the gods are our guests and which the demons strive to possess; the fullness of its energies and wideness of its being make a seat of sacrifice spread, arranged and purified for a celestial session.'"8

"The Rig-veda arises out of the ancient Dawn a thousand voiced hymn lifted from the soul of man to an all-creative Truth and an all-illumining Light. Truth and Light are synonymous or equivalent words in the thought of the Vedic seers even as are their opposites. Darkness and Ignorance. The battle of the Vedic Gods and Titans is a perpetual conflict between Day and Night for the possession of the triple world of heaven, mid-air and earth and for the liberation or bondage of the mind, life and body of the human being, his mortality or his immortality. It is waged by the Powers of a supreme Truth and Lords of supreme light against other dark Powers who struggle to maintain the foundations of this falsehood in which we dwell and the iron walls of these hundred fortified cities of the Ignorance. "'19

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17.On the Veda P. 421

18 Ibid P. 349

19.Ibid. P. 525.

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THE UPANISHADS

Sri Aurobindo's approach to the Upanishads is not merely intellectual; he used them and the Gita as treasures of spiritual experience during the early period of his sadhana. To him they are not repositories of intellectual philosophies to be used in metaphysical discussions, but are inspired and intuitive- expressions of the seers continuing the spiritual tradition of the Veda.

He has given detailed interpretation of the Isha and Kena. An early translation of the eight Upanishad as also a revised one of the Mandukya is available. In his interpretation of the Upanishad he follows the same line that he does in that of the Veda relying on the straightforward meaning of words and internal evidence of the text. This is what he says about them: " Here the intuitive mind and intimate psychological- experience of the Vedic seers passes into a supreme culmination in which the Spirit, as is laid in a phrase of the Katha Upanishad, discloses its own very body, reveals the very word of its self-expression and discovers to the mind the- vibration of rhythms which repeating themselves within in the spiritual hearing seems to bind up the Soul and set it satisfied and complete on the heights of self-knowledge. "

He says further: "These works are not philosophical speculations of the intellectual kind, a metaphysical analysis which- labours to define notions, to select ideas and discriminate those that are true, to logicise truth or else to support the mind in its intellectual preferences by dialectical reasoning and is content to put forward an exclusive solution of existence in the light of this or that idea of the reason and see all things from that viewpoint, in that focus and determining perspective.'"

"The Upanishads are epic hymns of self-knowledge and?

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The Foundation of Indian Culture,?. 305-306.

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world-knowledge and God-knowledge. "²²

Some writers have advanced the contention that the Upanishads represent the Jnana Kanda in opposition to KarmaKanda of the Veda: the Vedas stand for the rituals and Upanishads for knowledge. They even assert that the Upanishads are a revolt against the Vedic ritualism. Those opinions are not supported by proper study of the Riks or of the Upanishads. The core of the effort, both of the Veda and the Upanishads, is the attainment of a spiritual state which can lift man out of ignorance. Only, the Upanishads speak of the experience in intuitive, inspired and revelatory speech which is different from that of the Veda. The Veda speaks in the language of symbols and is written at a time when Sanskrit speech was plastic and the words retained the memory of their origins. The Rishis speak out boldly about the visions they saw as concrete spiritual realities related to outer ceremonials of the sacrifice which was their mystic symbol of man's communication with the divine powers that surround him outwardly as well as inwardly. The difference in the language of the Veda and that of the Upanishads is marked: where we have Agni, Indra, Aditi, Surya etc. in the Veda, in the latter we have Jnana, Satya, Brahma, Prakriti, Atma, but still as Sri Aurobindo has pointed out in his foreword to the " Hymns to the Mystic Fire, " there are passages wherein the two types of expression meet. The Upanishad, like the Veda, aimed at attaining a secret knowledge: Artabhaga is asked by Yagnavalkya to retire into secrecy to speak about the problem of condition of the Soul after death.

There is hardly an Upanishad which does not include some Vedic hymns in its body, very often in a different context from that in the Veda. It shows the profound reverence in which the Vedas were held by the seers of the Upanishads.

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2. ibid.

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For example, when Satyakama Jabala delays in imparting spiritual instruction to the young disciple his wife chides him and says:

" Let not the Fires instruct the seeker before you do. " Fire as a God was worshipped by the seers of the Upanishads. In Kathopanishad Nachiketa-Fire is mentioned as the deity that can help the aspirant to realise the Higher consciousness.

The Upanishads accepted the Vedic symbols in their psychological significance; for instance, Dhenu ' the fostering cow is spoken as'

" The fostering cow, the speech, must be worshipped; she has four udders. " ( Brihad 5. 5. 8.) This has clear reference to Sukta 164 of the I Mandala.

That the sacrifice - Yagna - was symbolic to the seers of the Upanishads - as it was later to the writer of the Gita also is clear from texts like (VI. 1. 9. Brihad) and then

" The Sun is the offering holy wood for the sacrifice, so also " the year is the offering wood." Also Chhando 1.4 )" That Sun - the son of Aditi - is the honey of the Gods " where the Sun and Honey both are openly symbolic.

The opening verse of the Brihadaranyaka shows not only that sacrifice was symbolic but that the universe itself is symbolised as the Horse-Sacrifice, Ashwamedha. This is the Ashwamedha in which Samudra is spoken as related to the Ashwa and to Usha, the goddess Dawn, who is the head of the sacrificial horse

Thus the symbolism of the Veda is woven in these ancient Upanishads. Long ago I collected a list of Vedic words used in the Upanishads almost in the same sense : Ex. Vama : meaning 'delight'. That sacrifice is symbolic hardly admits of any doubt in face of Upanishadic texts like

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( Chhando 3. 16. 1. ) " The Purusha is, indeed, the sacrifice" which is followed by the text dividing man's life into three parts, symbolically represented by the rhythms like Gayatri, Trishtubha, and Jagati, corresponding to the morning, afternoon and evening sacrifice lasting 24, 44 and 48 years of life respectively, according to the number of .

Aditya, generally identified with the Sun, is said to be the Brahman: (Chhando III. 19)

If we examine some of the passages in which the Upanishads employ the Vedic words in the same sense we find that the symbolic sense is also accepted by them. "The name of That is that Delight ". " As that Delight one should seek it - follow after it. " :

The Upanishad employing its own terminology suddenly brings in the Vedic symbol as in:

(Katha I.3.9}

" That man who uses the mind for reins and the knowledge for the driver, reaches the end of his road—the highest seat of Vishnu." The " highest seat of Vishnu " is a Vedic phrase.³ So also,

Of the Katha is the same as Rig-veda IV.40.5. "Lo, the Swan whose dwelling is in the purity. He is Vasu in the inner regions, the Sacrificer at the altar, the Guest in the vessel of the drinking: he is in man, in the great Ones, and his home is in the Law ( of the Truth), his dwelling is in the firmament: he is all that is born of the water, and all that is born of earth,

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³ This is related to 1.22.20; 1.154.5

Taittiriya I.A.3 v. 9.

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and all that is born on the mountains. He is the Truth, He is the mighty one." (Katha A.2. Valli. 5)

" Falsehood is embraced on both sides by Truth-partakes the nature of truth itself. " ( Brihad. 5. 5' 1.) This can be compared to V. 5. 7. of the Rigveda.

Here the universal manifestation is spoken of as the Ashwattha tree: "This eternal Ashwattha tree has its root above and branches stretching below; that is the brilliant pure, that is the Brahman, that is what is called Immortal. "

(Katha 2. Valli 6. 1. )

The tendency to turn spiritual experience into symbols seems almost inevitable because that .seems to be the only way to concretise it.

The Vedic Rik 1.164. 12 is literally repeated in the Prashnopanishad.

Sometimes even the original text of the Upanishad runs into the language of the Rig Veda: take the Taittiriya text in which Indra plainly appears as the power and godhead of the divine mind.

( Taittiriya I. V. 4)

"He who is the Bull of the Vedas of the universal form, he who was born in the sacred rhythms from the Immortal - may Indra satisfy me through the intelligence. O God, may I become a vessel of the Immortal. "

And a kindred passage may also be cited from the Isha, in which Surya the Sun-God is invoked as the godhead of knowledge whose supreme form of effulgence is the oneness of the Spirit and his rays dispersed here on the mental level are the shining diffusion of the thought mind and conceal his own infinite Supramental truth, the body and self of this

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Sun, the truth of the spirit and the Eternal

.

(Isha 16.)

" The face of the Truth is covered with a golden lid: 0 fostering Sun, that uncover for the law of the truth, for Sight. 0 fosterer, O Sole Rishi, O controlling Yama, Surya, O Son of the Father of creatures, marshal and mass thy rays: , the Lustre that is thy most blessed form of all, that I see, He who is this, this Purusha, He am I. " (Isha 16.)

The kinship in difference of these passages with the imagery and style of the Veda is evident and the last indeed paraphrases or translates into a later and more open style a Vedic verse of Atris.V. 62. 1:

"Hidden by your truth is the Truth that is constant for ever where they unyoke the horses of the Sun. There the ten thousands stand together, That is the One; I have seen the Supreme Godhead of the embodied gods. "

In this text is expressed the aspiration of the human Soul:

" From non-being lead me to Being, from darkness lead me to Light, from death lead me to Immortality. "

This finds expression in the Riks:

The symbolic nature of the sacrifice was very well-known to the Upanishads, for it says : Aditya is the Samit,

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the holy wood for offering. The Sun is the holy wood offered; " The rays of the Sun are the smoke " :

" In it the gods offer Faith. "

Even some Vedic words find a symbolic meaning in the Upanishads ( Ayasya is one of the seers of the Rig Veda ). One who sits in the inner being is Ayasya.

" Likewise, of that Mind sky is the body. Its light form is you Sun. As far as Mind extends, so far extends the sky, so far Sun. " I. 5. 12.

These two, Sun and Fire entered into a sexual union,. there from was born breath. He is Indra,,.he is without a rival.. " These are all alike , all Infinite " ( Brih. 1. 5. 13.)

The Vedic symbolism finds place in the Brihadaranyak in the following : (Brihad 2. 5. 18 )

" Citadels with two feet he made, citadels with four feet he did make; in the citadels he, having become a bird-into- the citadels he Purusha-the person-entered. "

Brihad. 2. 5. 19. comp: VI. 47. 18. Rig Veda :

" Indra by his magic powers-powers of formation-goes. about in many forms, yoked are his ten hundred steeds." He, the Soul, verily, is the steeds ". (Compare R. VI. 47.18)

THE GITA

The Gita differs from all the scriptures of the world in that it is not a book of philosophy seeking for setting forth.

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an explanation of the cosmos, neither is it a book of revealed religion. It is a book that addresses itself to a life-situation. It is not written in the cell of the philosopher or in the forest groves to answer the why and wherefore of the world and life. It answers the question: how to act in life in a critical situation 'created by conflicting values. In this regard the Gita agrees perfectly with Sri Aurobindo's vision of the Reality, for he insists that life, and therefore all action, should be molded by the Divine dwelling in the heart of man - he wants human life to become divine.

Gita tells us that the value of action depends not upon its outer form but on the psychological basis from which it proceeds. It points a practical path to reach the basis, the true source of action. In this respect Gita is value-centric. It shows that normally man acts under the pressure of desires,emotions, greed, ambition-in short on the basis of ego. This is not the right basis. It is, or should be accepted as, only a temporary basis which serves some preliminary purpose of the growth of man towards the Light. The right basis of action, the Gita says, is not even social morality or ethical idealism. The true source of action is the Divine Will in the individual discoverable by him.

Gita teaches that Life and action are not to be renounced but their ignorant-egoistic - basis has to be rejected and it has to be changed into the true basis. It declares that a Divine Will is actively at work and can, and does, intervene. in a critical life-situation in the case of an individual or a collectivity. When the individual gives up his egoistic initiation of action then an impersonal and even a Divine Will can be discovered and obeyed. This great truth is crucial because it has a direct bearing on the goal of life, the highest fulfilment of man on earth.

The difficulty is that of discovering the Divine Will; for men have so many ideas, ideals, values etc. in life by which they seek to govern, partially through their conduct. Gita

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is catholic in its scope and accepts all lesser ideals and values as a preparatory stage, as steps on the way to the discovery of the Divine Will. But it insists again and again upon the necessity of making the discovery. Though in a certain sense everything happens by the sanction of the Divine Will discoverable. This is the problem set before Arjuna in the Gita. One may equate the Divine Will to a principle, to an idea, an ideal, a value - which one follows but over and above - independent of all such intermediate, permissible standards, there is a Divine Will which is to be discovered. A divine purpose is at work in the universe in the individual's life and in that of the collectivity.

Gita points out psychological processes and methods by which one can gradually progress towards the discovery of the Divine Will. It can be arranged in the form of a graded rise with methodical steps. One has to begin by. doing action without desire for the result, with an attitude of equality- samata-in which neither good nor adverse result affects the inner balance and the fundamental attitude of detachment. In fact the establishment of ornate, equality, in the consciousness under all conditions is the sign that one has succeeded in giving up the desire or attachment for the fruit of action.

Gita suggests a further step. On the basis of the Sankhya realisation it speaks of the two parts of human consciousness, a realisable dichotomy in the inner being. There is in each individual a part that can separate itself from his nature, from the mind and all its ideas, suggestions, movements, from the emotions, feelings and their actions and reactions, from the desires, impulses and passions of the vital, and from the body, and remain unaffected by it. It is the Purusha as the Sakshi, the witness consciousness. Gita says that by practising this separation of Purusha and Prakriti man would be able to control his nature more effectively and it would serve as the initial step in the process of transformation of nature.

Gita points out the distinction between Tyaga and Sannyasa

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external and true renunciation. There was an excessive otherworldly stress in the spiritual ideals of India for centuries, though renunciation of life as an indispensable condition for spiritual realisation was not accepted in the Vedic age. Nor was it accepted in the Upanishads.

The conception of the Divine in the Gita is not that of a static being, it is dynamic. Gita may be said to be unique in emphasising this aspect and relating it to life. This Omnipresent Reality has a purpose, a divine purpose, and life is meant to be the field for the working out of that purpose and even the battle-field of Kurukshetra is not exempted from it. By implication, and even by open declaration, Gita says that life is not altogether governed by the ego - either individual or collective. In fact Sri Aurobindo suggests that Kurukshetra can be taken as the symbol of the battle of life in which forces of Light and Darkness are constantly clashing. As regards the dilemma of Arjuna, Sri Krishna assures him that the Divine Will shall be fulfilled as far as the battle of Kurukshetra is concerned, even if Arjuna does not participate in it as its instrument. Krishna says to Arjuna in effect :Kurukshetra is not your battle only though each participant has joined it for his own purpose it is mine and I have a purpose to carry out and it would be carried out at any cost. We might note that the Gita teaches that collective life has a divine purpose to fulfil.

The world we live in wears the appearance of an inert, in- conscient creation, and the human life is full of the play of ignorant forces and is undivine. Many religious and philosophical systems have given great prominence e. g.. Buddhism to this aspect. To Gita the world is not altogether undivine. It devotes four chapters to the Vibhuti Yoga and shows how the world is beautiful, magnificent and divine. Even Matter which is regarded as inert can be sublime-the Himalayas are the sublime in Matter. In fact these four chapters of the Gita may be regarded as a detailed Bhashya—exegesis-

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the opening verse of the Ishopanishad : Isha Vasyamidam Sarvam yat Kincha Jagatyam Jagat, "All this (Universe here manifested ) is for habitation by the Lord-whatever is moving in the universal movement." Sri Krishna points out in effect that the Divine is not absent from the world. He is here flowing in the rivers and in the vegetable kingdom. Gita makes us feel the divine Presence in the world, for the world is not merely what our senses represent it to be, the Divine is there even though unperceived.

One of the basic ideas of the Vedanta - derived from the Sankhya system is that Purusha-the self, is eternally free- Nitya mukta-but Prakriti, Nature, is and is condemned to remain, bound - it is eternally ignorant and imperfect. Gita points out that as the Purusha, the Self is eternally free so is Prakriti also a claimant not only to freedom but even to perfection. This can be seen by studying the implications of some aspects of the Gita. Even though the essential divinity is the same in the Saint and the Sinner, still the Saint- Sadhu has to be protected and saved and the wicked destroyed. The distinction between ' Sadhu '-the Saint, the Mahatma, the great Soul, or the Sreshta and the ordinary man is due to what they express in their Nature, in their Prakriti. That may be regarded as the first step of the movement of Prakriti towards freedom and perfection.

Next, the Gita speaks of the Vibhuti special becoming. The Vibhuti embodies not merely the nature of a Sadhu, not merely heightened human perfection but some quality, some aspect of the Divine and his power. That may be regarded as the second step in nature's ascent to freedom and perfection. In the Vibhuti nature rises to far greater heights' than even the highest attainment reached by man. For example, the non-violence practised by Mahatma Gandhi far surpasses the ordinary practice of it by man. In that sense he can be called the Vibhuti of Ahimsa.

In the Avatar, the incarnation, nature attains its highest

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perfection. The Avatar aspect is an important part of Indian conception of the Divine and it has been brought into prominence by Gita, which points out the evolutionary significance of the phenomenon of Avatarhood. The Divine is not some absentee land-lord away from life, it can take up human nature and a human form. Some religions, like Christianity, accept one and only one incarnation of the Divine. They practically limit the Omnipotence to one single act-but to the Hindu view Omnipotence of God cannot be limited to one incarnation and therefore the Hindu admits many in- carnations including that of Christ. Sri Krishna says : "I have accepted human birth and action; one who knows my birth and action as divine really knows me."

Gita points out that divine action by the human being is possible; it is possible by a gradual development of the human consciousness. This is made clear in the Vibhuti Yoga chapters by Sri Krishna declaring: " I am Arjuna among the Pandavas " and Arjuna would be carrying the Divine Will and therefore doing divine action if he participated in the battle. To act in life from a divine poise is possible and even a Five Year Plan, Tibetan situation and some disturbing incident can seek guidance from it.

Sri Aurobindo's last chapter in the "Essays on the Gita" is not merely a brilliant summary of its teaching but is the most inspired message in modern writings on the Gita.

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