Essays on the Gita, First Series (Arya Publishing House, 1922)
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Is this the last state, the utmost possibility, the highest secret? It cannot be, since this is a mixed or divided, not a perfectly harmonised status, a double, not a unified being, a freedom in the soul, an imperfection in the Nature. It can 'only be a stage. What then is there beyond it? One solution is that of the Sannyasin who rejects the nature^ the action altogether, so far at least as action can be rejected, so that there may be an unmixed undivided freedom ; but this solution, though admitted, is not preferred by the Gita. The Gita also insists o n the jiving up of actions, sarva-karmdni sannyasya^hut rhwardly to the ferahmam Brahman in ttie ' Kshara mppbftS wholly the action of Prakriti, Brahman in the Aksjjara, even while supporting, dissociates itself from the action, preserves its freedo m ; the individual soul, unified with the Brahman in th e \ksTiafa, is free and diskx r iated,' yet, unifi ed with iie grahma n in the Kshara r^Pfyr ts~T)ut Ts not iffecte J. ThisTF can do best when it sees that BSth >r^ nf one Punishottama. The Purushot- BEYOND TJIE MODES OF NATURE tama, inhabiting all existences as the secret Ishwara, controls the Nature and by his will, now no longer distorted and disfigured by the ego-sense, the Nature works out the actions by the swabhava ; the in dividua r soul makes the divinised natural being an instrument oF :he "di^ne mdtram . He remains even TiT action trigundtita, beyond the gunas, tree from the gunas, mstraiguriya, he fulfils entirely at last the early injunctioflTTJf the Gita, nistraigunyo bhavdrjuna . He is indeed sti ll the eniover ot th e j^unasras is the Brahman, though not limited by them, nir^unam gunahhoktr*i cha, unaUaghed, yet all-supporting, even as is that Brahman, asaktam sarva-bhr'it : but the action of the gunas within-him is quite changed ; it is lifted above their egoistic character and reactions. For he has unified h is whole being in the Purusho t- tama, has a ssunied t he divine being and the hi gher divine nature of becoming, madbhdva. has unified even his mind and hafuTal C6tt^iousness with the Divine, manm and machchittah. This cha ^e is the final ^evolution ~ of the natlire and the co nsum mation of the divine birth, rahasyqm uttafna m. When it is accomplished, the soul is a ware of itself as the master of its patu re and, grown a light of the di ^e Ligh t a no^^ of the (j[ ^vine Will, is able to change its natural workings into a divine actio n.
The union of t he soul with the. . P urush ottang. by a Yo ga of the whole being is the ^mplete teaching of the Gita and not only the union with the immutable Self as in the narrower doctrine which follows the exclusive way of knowledge. That is why the Gita subsequently, after it has effected the reconciliation of knowledge and works, is able to develop the idea of love and devotion, unifiejd^with both wor^ and lyxo wl edge, as the highest height of the way to the supreme secret. For if the union with the immutable Self were the sole secret or the highest secret, that would not at all be possible ; for then at a given point our inner basis for love and devotion, no less than our inner foundation of works, would crumble away and collapse. Union utter and exclusive with the immutable Self alone means the abolition of the whole point of view of the mutable being, not on ly in its ordinary and inferior action but in roots, in all that makes its existence possible, not only in the works of its ignorance, but in the works of its knowledge. It would mean the abolition of all that difference in conscious poise and activity between the human soul and the Divine which makes possible the play of the Kshara ; for NIRVANA AND WORKS IN THE WORLD
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