Essays on the Gita, First Series (Arya Publishing House, 1922)

• Dhiras tatra na muhyati, says the Gita; the strong and wise soul is not perplexed, troubled or moved by them. But still they are accepted only to be conquered, jard-marana- mokshdya yatanti. EQUALITY

But the Gita accepts this Stoic discipline, this heroic philosophy, on the same condition that it accepts the tamasic recoil, — it must have above it the sattwic vision of knowledge, at its root the aim at self-realisation and in its steps the ascent to the divine Nature. A Stoic discipline which merely crushed down the common affections of our human nature, — ^although less dangerous than a tamasic weariness of life, unfruitful pessimism and sterile inertia, because it would at least increase the power and self-mastery of the soul, — ^would still be no unmixed good, since it might lead to insensibility and an inhuman isolation without giving the true spiritual release. The Stoic equality is justified as an element in the discipline of the Gita because it can be associated with and can help to the realisation of the free immutable Self in the mobile human being, param drishtwd, and to status in that new selfrconsciousness, eshd brdhmi sthitih, ‘‘Awake- ning by the understanding to the Highest which is beyond even the discerning mind, put force on the self by the self to make it firm and still, and slay this enemy who is so hard to assail, Desire.'* Bo^' the ^masic recoil of escape and the rajasic movement of struggle and victory are only justified \dien they look beyond themselves through the sattwic piwciple to the self-knowledge which I^itimises both the recoil and the struggle.

The pure philosopher, the thinker, the' bom s ye n ot only relies upon the sattwic principle in him as his ultimate justification, but uses it from s 289