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

Stat ed between jui ideal and a pfacticS morality, between * *sQur-force~ '' and the recognition of the troublesome fact that life is not yet at least all soul and that to take up arms for the right in a physical struggle is sometimes inevitable. AU th ese solutions are , howev er^ inte llec tual, t emperamenta l, ^Qtion ^ ; :hey depend upon the individual stand- point and are at the best our own proper way of meeting the difficulty offered to us, proper because suitable to our nature and the stage of our ethical and intellectual evolution, the best we can, with the light we have, see and do ; it leads t o no final solutiom And this is so becausT^ it proceeds from Qie normal min d which is alwayTa tahgre oTvarious tendencies of our being and can only arrive at a choice or an accommodation between them, between our reason, our ethical being, our dynamic needs, our life-instincts, our emotional being and those rarer mov^en^ which we may perhaps call ^ul- instincts or psychicaj preferences. The Gita recognises That from this standpoint there can be no absolute, only an immediate practical solution and, after offering to Arjuna from the highest ideals of his age just such a practical solution, which he is in no mood to accept and indeed is evidently not intended to accept, it proceeds to quite a different standpoint and to quite another answer.

Gita*s so lution is t o ris;e abo ve our natural being and normaj. mind^ ^oye our int ellectuaT and ethical pe rplexit ies into another consciousness with an othe r law of'Xcing and therefore another stand- point for our action ; where personal desire and personal emotions no longer govern it ; where the dualities^fall away ; where the ^ion i^^no longer ouFown and where therefore the sense of personal yfftue^ and personal sin_ is exc^ ded ; where the univers al, the impersonal, the divine spfrit works out though us its, purpose in the wqrld ; where we are ourselves by a new and divine birth changed into being of that Being, consciousness of that Consciousness, power of that Power, bliss of that Bliss, and, living no longer in our lower nature, have no works to do of our own, no personal aim to pursue of our own, but if we do works at all, — and that is the one real problem and difficulty left, THE GIST OF THE KARMAYOGA

— do only the divine works^ those of which our outward nature is o nly a pas s ive instrumeru and no longer the cause, no longer provides the motive ; for the motive-power is above us in the will of the Master of our works. And thi s is presented to us as the t^rue solutio n, because it goes back to the real truth of our bmng and to five according to tlie feaFlrl^ of our being is ev idently the highest solution ajnd the sole entirely true solution of the problems of our existence. Our mental and vital personality is a t ruth of our ng^tural e xisten ce, but a truth of the ignorance, and all that attaches itself to it is also truth of that order, practically valid for the works of the ignorance, but no longer valid when we get back to the real truth of our being. But how can we actually be sure that this is the truth? We cannot so long as we remain satisfied with our ordinary mental experience ; for our normal mental experience is wholly that of this lower nature full of the ignorance. Wc can onl y know this greater truth by living jt^ that is to say, by passing beyond the menta l int o the spiritua l expefienceT'by Yoga. For the living out of spiritual experience lihtiP we cease to be mind and becjome spirit, until, liberate^ftpm the imperfections of our present nature, we are able to live entirely in our true and divi ne be ing is wh at i n the end we mean by_^^a7