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

~ T^e sig^iT oT^the man in g^adhi is not that he loses consciousness of objects an J surroundings and of his mental and physical self and cannot be recalled to it even by burning or torture of the body, — the ordinary idea of the matter ; trance is a particular intensity, not the essential sign. The test is the expulsion of all desires, their inability to get at the mind, and it is the inner state from which this freedom arises, the delight of the soul gathered within itself with the ipind equal and still” and high-poised above the attractions and repiflsions, the alternations of sunshine and storm and stress of the external life. It is drawn inward even when acting outwardly ; it is concentrated in self even when gazing out upon things ; it is directed wholly to the Divine even when to the outward vision of others busy and preoccupied with the affairs of the world. Arjuna, voicing the average human mind, asks for some outward, physical, practically discernible sign of this great Samadhi ; how does such a man speak, how sit, how walk? No such signs can be given, nor does the Teacher attempt to supply them ; for the only possible test of its possession is inward and that there are plenty of hostile psychological forces to apply. ,gg^li^is the ^eat stam^^ of jhe soul a nd ofldSt^quality exen_the^^^ ggm are_ still subjective. “A man witHT^ mind untroubled by sorrows, who has done with desire 2for pleasures, from whom liking and wrath and fear have passed away, such is the sage whose under- standing has become founded in stability/' “without the triple action of the (juaUties jot PmTf itir ^^uAlthe dual ities , ever based in his true being, without getting or having, possessed of his self." For what gettings and havings has the free soul? Once we are possessed of the Self, we are in possession of all things.