Essays on the Gita, First Series (Arya Publishing House, 1922)
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pression, ni^raha, and control with right use and right guicBnce; sanyama . The former is a violence done to the nature by the will, which in the end depresses the natural powers of the being, dtmdnam avasddayet ; the latter is the contro l o f th e lower the' higher self, which successfully gives to those powers their right action and their maximum efficiency , — yogah karmasu kau^alam. This nature of sanyama IS made very clear by the Gita in the opening of its sixth chapter, “ By the s elf thou ^ ^ouldst deliver Hhe self , thou shouldst not depress and cast down the self (whether by self-indulgence or suppression) ; f or the self is the friend of the self and the self is the enemy . To the man is his s3f a friend in who m the (lower) self has been conquered by the (higher) self , but to him who is not in possession of his (higher) self, the (lower) self is as if an enemy and it acts as an enemy/* When one has conquered one’s self and attained to the calm of a perfect self-mastery and self-possession, then is the supreme self in a man founded and poised even in his outwardly conscious human being, mmdhita. In other words, to master the lower self 1^ the higher, the natural self b y the s piritual is the way of man’s perfection and Tiberatio n.
Here then is a very great quaKficatioh of the determinism of Nature, a precise limitation of its meaning and scope. How the passage from subjection to mastery works out is best seen if we observe the working of the gunas in the scale of Nature from the bottom to the top. At the bqjteni THE DETERMINISM OF NATURE are the existences in which the principle of tam as is supreme, the beings who have not yerattamed to the light of self-consciousness and are utterly driven by the current of Nature. Thesis a will ev en in the atom, bm we see clearly enough ^t fTls not tree-w ill, because it is mechanical and the atom does not possess the will, but is possessed by it. Here the the element of intelligence and will i n PrakRt i. is actually and plainly what the.Sankhya asserts it to he, Jada. a mechanica l, even an inconscient principle in which the light of the conscious Soul nas not at all struggled to the surface: the atom is not conscious of an intelligent will ; tamas, the inert and ignorant principle, has its grip on it, contains rajas, conceals sattwa within itself and holds a high holiday of mastery. Nature compelling this form of existence to act with a stupendous force indeed, but as a mechanical instrument, '^antrdrudham mdy ayd. Next, in the plant the principle of rajas has struggled to the surface, with its power of life, with its capacity of the nervous reactions which in us are recognisable as pleasure and suffering, but sattwa is quite involved, has not yet emerged to awaken the light of a conscious intelligent will ; all is still mechanical, subconscient or half-conscient, tamas stronger than rajas, both gaolers of the imprisoned sattwa. In the animal, though tamas is still strong, though we may still describe him as belonging to the tamasic creation, idmasa sars a, yet rajas prevails much more against tamas, brings with it its
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