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

This to ward transfer ence o f our centre of bein g and the consequent transformation of our whole existence and consciousness, with a resultant change X 2in the whole spirit and motive of our action, the action often remaining precisely the same in all its outward appearances, makes the gist of the Gita's Karmayoga. Change your being, be reborn into tlie spirft and by that new birth proceed with the actio n Jo which the Spirit within has appointed jou, may be said to be the heart of its message. Or again, put otherwise, with a deeper and more spiritual import, — make the work you have to do here your means of fhrier spiritual rebirth, the divine Rrffi, and, having Jiecome divine, do still di^dhe works as anjnstrument of jthe_DiviM for t he le ading of the peoples. Therefore there are here two things wKichT have to be clearly laid down and clearly grasped, the way to the change, to this upward transference, this new divine binli, and the nature of the work or rather the spirit in which it has to be done, since the outward form of it need not at all change, although really its scope and aim become quite different. But these two things are practically the same, for the elucidation of one elucidates the other. The ^irit of our action arises from the nature of our being and the inner foundation it has taken, but aIso”fHis nature is itself affected by the trend and spiritual efFect of our action ; jl ver y great change in the spirit of our works Ranges the nature our l^ng and altim the foui^aTion it has taken ; it shifts the centre of conscious force from which we act. If life and action were entirely illusory, as some would have it, if the Spirit had nothing to do with works or life, this would not be so ; but the soul in