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

anticipates. No, he says, such renunciation, far from being indispensable, is not even possible. "Tor none stands even for a moment not doing work ; ev^yone is made, to do action „helplesslyjby the modes born of Prakriri^' The strong perception of the great cosmic action and the eternal activity and power of the cosmic energy which was so much emphasised afterwards by the teaching of the Tantric Shaktas who even made Prakriti or Shakti superior to Purusha, is a very remarkable feature of the Gita. Although here an undertone, it is still strong enough, coupled with what we might call the theistic and devotional elements of its thought, to bring in that activism which so strongly modifies in its scheme of Yoga the quietistic tendencies of the old metaphysical Vedanta. Man embodied in the natural world cannot^cease Irom aTc Eiotiriior f oF a momCTt^~not for a second ; yery_existenceTierej£a^^ wfioIiTumverse WORKS AND SACRIFICE is an act of God, mere living even is His movement.

DuF physical life, its maintenance, its conti- nuance is a journey, a pilgrimage of the body, sh arira-yd trd, and that cannot be effected without action. But even if a man could leave his body unmaintained, otiose, if he could stand still always like a tree or sit inert like a stone, tisthati, that vegetable or material immobility would not save him from the hands of Nature ; he would not be liberated from her workings. For it js_not our p hysical movements and activities alone which are meant by woxJ^hy_^_karma; our mentaLexistence. alsQ,i§..a^eat complex actipa, it is even the greater and more important part of the works of the un- resting energy, — subjective cause and determinant of the physical. We have gained nothing if we repress the effect but retain the activity of the subjective cause. The objects of sense are only an occasion for our bondage, the mind's insistence on them is the means, the instrumental cause. A man may control his organs of action and refuse to give them their natural play, but he has gained nothing if his mind continues to remember and dwell upon the objects of sense. Such a man has bewildered him- self with false notions of self-discipline ; he has not understood its object or its truth, nor the first principles of his subjective existence ; therefore all his methods of self-discipline are false and null.*

•I cannot think that mithydchdra means a hypocrite. How is a man a hypocrite who inflicts on himself so severe complete a privation ? He is mistaken and delnded, IS7 The body’s actions, even the mind’s actions are nothing in themselves, neither a bond^e, nor the first cause of bondage. What is vital is the mighty en ergy of Nature which will have her way and "her ^ay in hjsf_great field of^ mini and life an d b odyj wiiatls dangerous in her, is the powexof her thKe gunas, modes or qualities to confuse and bewilder tii^ intelligence and so obscure the soul. That, as we shall see later, is the whole crux of action and liberation for the Gita,_ Be^ free from obscui^ ti w and be wilderment by th e thf^Hgunfts_and action jmn continu^ as it must continue, and even die largest^ richest or most enormous and v iolent acuon_: it docs not matter, for nqdiijng-then. touches die Punisha, the_ soul has naishkarmya.