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

being , and ^then th e error of o ur egoistic free-wil l must fall away froqi qs . The rejection of the idea o'f^goistic free-will does not imply a cessation of action, because Nature is the doer and carries out her actidil after this machinery is dispensed » with even as she did before it came into usage in the process of her evolution. In the man who has rejected it, it may even be possible for her to develop a greater action ; for his mind may be more aware of all that his nature is by the self-creation of the past, more aware of the powers that environ and 2are working upon it to help or to hinder its growth, more aware too of the latent greater possibilities which it contains by virtue of all in it that is unexpressed, yet capable of expression ; and this mind m ay be a freer c hannel for t he sanction of the Purus ha to the' greater possibilities that il s<^s and freer instrument for the response of Nature, for her resultant attempt at their development and realisation. jBut xhe rejecti on of free-will must no t be a mere fatalism or idea of natural determinism ih the understanding without any vision of the real Self in us ; for then the ego still remains as our sole idea of Self and, as that is always the instrument of Prakriti, we still act by the ego and with our will as her instrument, and the idea in us brings no real change, but only a modification of our intellectual attitude. We shall have accepted the phenomenal truth of the determination of our egoistic being and action by Nature, we shall have seen our subjection: but we shall not have seen the unborn Self within which is above the action of the gunas ; we shall not have seen wherein lies our gate of freedom. Nature and ego ar e not all we are ; there is the free “soul. tnlT Purusha T^