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

which proceeds from that peace ; these two made one syi^esise divine works a nd Go d-knowledge.^ We see at once what a profound extension we get here for the ideas which otherwise the Gita has in common with other systems of philosophic, ethical or religious living. Endur^ce, philosophic i ndifference , res igna tion are, we Have said, Ithe foundatioiTof three kinds oT equality ; but the^Gita’s truth of knowledge not only gathers them all up together, but gives them an jnfimtely profound, a magnificently ample significance . t|The Stoic know- ledge ^ that of the soul’s power of self- ma^efy 15y fortitude, an equality attained by a stru^ fe with one’s nature, maintained by a constant vigilance and control against its natural rebellions: it gives a noble peace, an austere happiness, but not the supreme joy of the liberated self living not by a rule, but in the pure, easy, spontaneous perfection of its divine being, so that “however it may act and live, it acts and lives in the Divine,K because here perfection is not only attained but possessed in its own right and has no longer to be maintained by effort, for it has become the very natu re of the soul’s being . The Gita accepts the endurance and fortitude of our stru gg le I^IT t he lower natuie^s a preliminary movement^ but if a certain mastery 'Sollics^'hy our individual strength, th^ ireedom of mastery only comes by our unio n with God , by a meigihg^or dwelling of the personality in the ojge divine Person and th^ joss of the personal will in the divine Will. There is a dmng MasteiLof Nature

EQUALITY AND KNOWLEDGE

and her works, above her though inhabiting her, who is our highest being and our universal self ; to be” one with him is to make ourselves divine. By uniori with God we enter into a supreme freedom and a supreme mastery. The ideal of the §toic, the sage- who is king because by self-rule he becomes master also of outward conditions, resembles superficially the Vedantic idea of the self-ruler and all-ruler, swardt samrdt ; but it is on a lower plane. The Stoic kingship is maintained by a force put upon self and environment ; the entirely liberated kingship of the Yogin exists naturally by the eternal royalty of the divine nature, a union with its unfettered universality, a finally unforced dwelling in its superiority to the instrumental nature through which it acts. His mastery over things is because he has become ^ one soul_ wit^ all things. To take an image from Roman institutions7the Stoic freed om is ^at of the lihertusj th^freedm^, ‘wRo" IS stiTP really iT depe hden t on th e pow er that once held him enslaved ; his is a freedom allowed by Nature because he has merited it. The freedom of the Gita is that of the freeman, the true freedom of the birth intojtK e~ Highe r nat ure, self-exist enT in Tts diyinit^" Whatever he does and however he lives, the free soul lives in the Divine ; he is the privileged child of the mansion, bdlavat, who cannot err or fall because all he is and does is full of the Perfect, the All-blissful, the All-loving, the All-beautiful. The kingdom which he enjoys rdjyam samfiddham, is a sweet and happy dominion of which it may