Essays on the Gita, First Series (Arya Publishing House, 1922)
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But here there are two difficulties. First, there seems to be an antinomy between this tranquil and immutable Self and the action of Nature. How then does the action at all exist or how can it continue once we have entered into the immutable Self- existence? Where in that is the will to works which would make the action of our nature possible? we say with the Sankhya that the will is in NaUire and not in the Self, still there must be a motive in Nature and the power in her to draw the soul into its workings by interest, ego and attachment, and when these things cease to reflect themselves in the soul consciousness, her power ceases and the motive of works ceases with it. But the Gita does not accept this view, which seems indeed to necessitate the existence of many purushas and not one universal Purusha, otherwise the separate experience of the soul and its separate liberation while millions of others are still involved, would not 37B THE GIST OF THE KARMAYOGA be intelligible. Nature is not a separate princij)le, but the power of the Supreme going forth in cosmic cre ation. But if the Supreme is only this imihutable Self and the individual is only something that has gone forth from him in the Power, then the moment it returns and takes its poise in the self, everything must cease except the supreme unity and the supreme calm. Secondly, even if in some mysterious way action still continues, yet since the Self is equal to all things, it cannot matter whether works are done or, if they are done, it cannot matter what work is done. then this insistence on the mostjyiqlent and disastrous form of action, this chariot, this battle, this warrior, this divine charioteer?
The G ita a nswers by presenting the Supreme as something greater even than the immutable Self, more c omprehensive, one who is at once this Self and ihe Master of works in Nature. Bm he directs the works of Nature with the . eternal calm, the equality, the superiority to works and personality imichnbeldng^ tp the immutable. This, we may say, is the poise of being from which he directs works, and by growing into this we are growing into ^lis being and into the poise of divine works. From this he goes forth as the Will and Power of his being in Nature, manifests himself in all existences, is born as Man in the world, is there in the heart of air men, reveals himself as the Avatar, the divi ne bi rt h in man ; and as man grows into his being, it is into the divine Tfrth that he grows. Works must
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