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

We speak of the soul being subject to Nature but on the other hand the Gita i n distinguishing the properties of the soul and Nature affirms tha t while N ^re is ^he executrix , the soul is, always the lord. It speaks here of the self being bewildered by egoism, but the real Self to the Ve^ntin is the divine, eternally free and self-aware. What then is this self that is bewildered by Nature, this soul that is subject to her? The answer is that we are speak- ing here in the common parlance of our lower or mental view of things ; \ ye are speaking of t he apparent sgff ,^ o r the apparent soul, not of the rea l self, not ^ the true Purush a" It is really the ^o k subject to Nature , inevitably, because it is itself part of Nature, one functioning of her THE DETERMINISM OF NATURE 2machinery ; but when the self-awareness in the j ^jnd-consciousnes s ide ntifies its elf with the^ ^o, Oj Cates the appearance of_^ Jo werjelf, an ego-self , ^nd so to6~ what we think of ordinarily as the soul is really the natural personality, not the true Person, the Purusha, but the desire-soul in us which is ^ reflection of the con^iousness ol th e ?urusha in the i^rkirigs of Prakritf: it is, in fact, itself only an action ^ the~ thre^ modes and therefore a part of Nature. Th us^here are , we may say, two souls in us,_t he apparent or desire-soul , which change s with the^ mutations of th e gr^s and is entirely constituted and determined by them, and the free and eternal Purusha not limited by Nature and h^ gurias. We have two sel ves, the apparent self, which is only the ego, tRat mental centre in us which takes up this mutable action of Prakriti, this mutable personality, and which says “I am this personality, I am this natural being who am doing these works,*' — but t^ie natural being is simply Nature, a co m- p osite o f t he gu nas, — ^and the true sell whietT is, inffeed, the upnolder, the posse^or and th e lord o f Nature and figured in her , but is not itself the mutable natural personality. The way to be free must then be to get rid of the desire s of this desire - s^ul and the false self-view of this ego. “Having become free from desire and egoism," cries the Teacher, "fight with all the fever of thy soul passed away from thee ." — nirdshir nirmamo bhutwd.