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

But still there is an essential difficulty unsolved. Desire is the ordinary motive of all human actions^. and if the soul is free _frpm desire, then there i^np farther rationale for action. We may be compelled to do certain works for the maintenance of the body, but even that is a subjection to the desire of the body which we ought to get rid of if we are to attain perfection. But granting that this cannot be done, the only way is to fix a rule for action outside ourselves, not dictated by anything in our subjectivity, the nityakarma of the Vedic rule, the routine of ceremonial sacrifice, daily conduct and social duty, which the man who seeks liberation may do simply because it is enjoined upon him, withou^any personal purpose or jubjcctiye inter est in them, with^an absolute indifference to the doings not because he is. compelle.d- by his natme bm because^ it is enjoined by the Shastra. But if the principle of the action is not to be external to the nature but subjective, if the actions even of the liberated and the sage are to be controlled and determined by his nature, swabhdva-niyatam, then tbe only subjective principle of action is desire of whatever kind, lust of the flesh or emotion of the heart or base or noble aim of the mind, but all i6o WORKS AND SACRIFICE 2subject to the gunas of Prakriti. Let us then interpret the niyata karma of the Gita as the nitya- karma of the Vedic rule, its kartavya karma or work that has to be done as the Aryan rule of social duty and let us take too its work done as a sacrifice to mean simply these Vedic sacrifices and this fixed social duty performed disinterestedly and without any personal object. This is how the Gita's doctnne of desireless wo rk is o ften interpreted. But it seems to^me that the Gita’s teaching is not so crude and simple, not so local and temporal and narrow as all that. It is larg^ free, subtle and profound ; it is for all time and for all men, not for a particular age and country. Especially, it is always breaking free from external forms, details, dogmatic notions and ^oing. back_to jrindples^and the great f^t^ of our nature and our being. ^ It is a work of large ^ilosophicjruth and spirituaL practicality, not of constrained religious and philosophical formulas and stereotyped dogmas.