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

infinitesimal, so much is it mixed up with , other determining elements. Its strongest power, does not amount to mastery. It cannot be relied upon to resist the strong wave of circumstance or of other nature which either overbears or modifies or mixes up with it or at the best subtly deceives and circum- vents it. Even the most sattwic will is so overborne or mixed up with or circumvented by the rajasic and tamasic gunas as to be only in part sattwic, and thence arises that sufficiently strong element of self- deception, of a quite involuntary and even innocent make-believe and hiding from oneself which the merciless eye of the psychologist detects even in the best human action. When we think that we are acting quite freely, power s "are cohceare d" T)~ehind diir acti6ri'~~whic h es c ape the most careful self- introspection ; when we think that we are 5^e B-om eg^ the ego IS there, concealed, in the mind o f the sa mt as in that of the sinner . When our eyes are really opened on our action and its springs, we are obliged to say with the Gita * *s[und gru neshu vartante **, *'i t was the modes of Natu re tKirwere acting upon the modes.''

f or this reasoiT^en a high predominance of the sattwic pri nciple, does not co nstitut e For,'^as the Gita points out, the sattwa binds, as much as the other gunas, and binds just in the same way, by desire, by ego ; a nobler desire, a purer ego, — but s o long as in any form these two hold the being, th ere is no freedo m. The man of virtue, of knowledge,' has his ego of the virtuoCis man, his ego of knowledge, and it is that sattwic ego which he seeks to satisfy ; for his own sake he seeks virtue and knowledge. Only when we cease to satisfy the ego, to think and to will from the ego, the limited *T' in us, then is there a real freedom. In other words, freedom, highest self-mastery begin when above the natural self we see and hold the supreme ^28 THE DETERMINISM OF NATURE

Self of which the ego is an obstructing veil and a blinding shadow. And that can only be when we see the one Self i n us seated above#. Natu re and ifTake ouT inoiyidual be ing one with it m bejng and consciousness and in its individual nature of action only a n instrument of a supreme WilL t he one Will that is really free. For that we ihust ri se hi^h above the th ree gunas . become trifrundtita ;'1 ot t hat Self fs beyon d, even the sattw i ^p rinciple. We have to cimiB to it through the sattwa, but we attain to it only when we get beyond sattwa ; we reach out to it fr om the ego r^But onlyT reach it by l eaving th e ego. We are drawn towards it by the highest, most passionate, most stupendous and ecstatic of all desires ; but we can securely live in it only when a ll desire drops a way from us . We have at a certain stage to liberate ourselves even from the desire o f our liberation, ^