Essays on the Gita, First Series (Arya Publishing House, 1922)
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our nature, — even if this Shastric action is not, as it usually is, a mere cover for our desires, pre- judices, passions, egoisms, our personal, national, sectarian vanities, sentiments and preferences ; but even otherwise, even at the purest still we obey a choice of om- nature, and if our nature were different and the gunas acted on our intelligence and will in some other combination, we would not accept the Shastra, but live according to our pleasure or our intellectual notions or else break free from the social law to live the life of the solitary or the ascetic. We cannot become impersonal by obeying something outside ourselves, for we cannot so get outside our- selves ; we can only do it by rising to the highesiia ourselves,, into. Qur free. §pul and Self which is the ame and one in all and has therefore no personal interests, to the Divine in our being who possesses Himseif transcendent of cosmos and is therefore not bound by His cosmic works or His individual action. That is what the Gita teaches and desirelessn ess i s ojily a means to this end, not an aim in itself. Yes, iSut how is it to be brought about? By doing aU wotks_with sacrifice as the only object, is the reply of the divine Teacher. “By doing works otherwise than for sacrifice, this world of men is in ,bond,^e tp works ; for sacrifice practise works, O.son of Kunti, Becdming free from ,?ill attachment.” It is evident that all works and not merely sacrifice and social duties can be done in this spirit ; any actionJUay-hc done either from the egorsenae narrow oi^enlarged ^Ipr j|£ Mke of th^e Divine. AlL-bdog. and all
WORKS AND SACRIFICE action of Piakriti 9^ the Divine; from that it proce^^^ by ^t jt^ endures, to_^at it is directed.^ But so long as we are dominated by the ego-sense we cannot perceive or act in the spirit of this truth, but act for the satisfaction of the ego and in the spirit of the ego, otherwise than for sacrifice. Egoism is the knot of jdi^^e bonckge^ By acting^ Godwar^, without any "thought of ego, we loosen this knot and finally arrive at freedom. At first, however, the Gita takes up the Vedic statement of the idea of sacrifice and phrases the law of sacrifice in its current terms. This it does with a definite object. We have seen that the quarrel between renu nciation and works has two forms, the opposition of Sankhya and Yoga which is already in principle reconciled and the b^osition of Vedism and J^danrism which the Teacher has yet To reconcile. The first is a larger statement of the opposition in which the idea of works is general and wide. The Sankhya starts from the notion of the divine status as that of the immutable and inactive Purusha which each soul is in reality and makes an opposition between inactivity of Purusha and acjtiyity ofJbrakriti ; so its logical culmination is cessation o f all works.' sjajls fropi the notion of the Divine a^_Ishwax*a, lord of the operations of Prakriti and therefore supeiibr to them, and its logical culmination ,is not cessation of works but the ,iiQul’sL^£eriority to them and fr^om evOT 4h©ugt^ ^ing iir w^ the opposition of Vedism and Vedantism works, karm^ are restricted to Vedic worl^ and sometimes even to Vedic sacrifice and ritualised works, all else being exduded as not useful to salvation. Vedism of the Mimansakas insisted on them the^ inrans^ Vedantism taUng its ^and on the Upanis hads looked on^them as only a preliminary belonging to the state of igimmnce and in the end to.b^pver: pas^d and rejected, an obstacle to the seeker of liberation. Vedism worshiped the Deyjs, tl^ j^ods, with sacrifice and held them to be the powers who assist oiir salvation. Vedan tism was inclined to regard^them as ppiyeisjof Jjie mentaLaiiima world opposed to our salvation (men, says the Upanishad, are die cattle of the godsT who do not desire man* to know and be free) ; it saw the. Divine as the im mutable Brahman, who has to be attaine d not Jiy -Works of sacrifice and worship but by know- ledge. W^rks--enly.-Jea(^to ma^rmW^ and to an inferior Paradise ; therefore_ jthey haye_ tp _b^ r,gn(Mincedr^-
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