Essays on the Gita, First Series (Arya Publishing House, 1922)
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So far then extends the determinism of Nature, and what it amounts to is this that the ego from which we act is itself an instrument of the action of Prakriti and cannot therefore be free from the control of Prakriti ; the will of the ego is a will ^termined by Prakriti, it is a part m tHe nature as it has been formed in us by the sum of its own past action an d self~modification. and by the nature in us so formed and the will in it so formed our present action also is determined. It is said by some that the fir^t initiating action is always free to our choice however much all that follows may be determined by that, and in this power of initiation and its effect on our future lies our responsibility. But where is that first action in Nature which has no determining past behind it, where that present condition of our nature which is not in sum and detail the result of the action of our past nature? We have that impression of a free initial act because we are livin g ^ every mo ment from ou r presen t on towards our future and we do not live back constantly tfWR oiir present info our past, so that what is strongly vivid to our minds is the present and its consequences while we have a much less vivid hold BEYOND THE MODES OF NATURE of our present as entirely the consequence of our past ; this latter we are apt to look on as if it were dead and done with. We speak and act as if we were perfectly free in the pure aftd virgin moment to do what we will with ourselves using an absolute inward independence of ^choice. But there is no such a ^olute l iberty, ou r choice has no siic h in dependenc e.
Certainly, the will in us has always to choose between a certain number of possibilities, for that is the way in which Nature always acts ; even our passivity, our refusal to will, is itself a choice, itself an act of the will of Nature in us ; even in the atom there is a will always at its work. The whole difference is the extent to which we associate our idea of self with the action of the will in Na ture ; when we so associate ourselves , we ^ink ^ it as ^pr will and say that it is a free will and t hat it is w e who are acting . And error or not, illusion or not7 this idea of our will, of our action is not a thing of no consequence, of no utility ; everything in Nature has a consequence and an utility. It is rather that process of our conscious being by which Nature in us becomes more and more aware of and responsive to the presence of the secret Purusha within her and opens by that increase of knowledge to a greater possibility of action ; it is by the aid of the ego-idea and the personal will that she raises herself to her own higher possibilities, rises otif df the sheer or else the predominant passivity of the tamasic nature into the passion and the struggle of
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