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<title>Sri Aurobindo's Gita</title>
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<span
lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;
layout-grid-mode:line'><font size="4">Sri Aurobindo's Gita</font><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><b><i><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;
layout-grid-mode:line'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></i></b></p>

<p class=MsoBodyText style='text-indent:27.0pt; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>THE supreme secret of the
Gita, <i>rahasyam uttamam, </i>has presented itself to diverse minds in diverse
forms. All these however fall, roughly speaking, into two broad groups of which
one may be termed the <i>orthodox </i>school and the other the <i>modem </i>school.
The orthodox school as represented, for example, by Shankara or Sridhara,
viewed the Gita in the light of the spiritual discipline more or less current
in those ages, when the purpose of life was held out to be <i>emancipation </i>from
life, whether through desireless work or knowledge or devotion or even a
combination of the three. The </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceName><span
  lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Modern</span></st1:PlaceName><span
 lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'> </span><st1:PlaceType><span
  lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>School</span></st1:PlaceType></st1:place><span
lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>, on the other
hand, re­presented by Bankim in </span><st1:place><span lang=EN-GB
 style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Bengal</span></st1:place><span
lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'> and more
thoroughly developed and systematised in recent times by Tilak, is inspired by
its own Time-Spirit and finds in the Gita a gospel of life-fulfilment. The
older interpretation laid stress upon a spiritual and religious, which meant
therefore in the end an <i>other-worldly </i>discipline; the newer
interpretation seeks to dynamise the more or less quietistic spirituality which
held the ground in India of later ages, to set a premium upon action, upon duty
that is to be done in our workaday life, though with a spiritual intent and
motive.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>This neo-spirituality which
might claim its sanction and authority from the real old-world Indian
discipline – say, of Janaka and Yajnavalkya – labours, however, in reality,
under the influence of European <i>activism </i>and <i>ethicism. </i>It was
this which served as the immediate incentive to our spiritual revival and
revaluation and its impress has not been thoroughly obliterated even in the
best of our modern exponents. The bias of the vital urge and of the moral
imperative is apparent enough in the modernist conception of a dynamic
spirituality. Fundamentally the dynamism is made to reside in the <i>élan </i>of
the ethical man, – the spiritual element, as a consciousness of 
<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<span lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page - 21</span><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;
layout-grid-mode:line'><o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>supreme unity in the Absolute (Brahman) or of love
and delight in God, serving only as an atmosphere for the mortal activity.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Sri Aurobindo has raised action completely
out of the mental and moral plane and has given it an absolute spiritual life.
Action has been spiritualised by being carried back to its very source and
origin, for it is the expression in life of God's own Consciousness-Energy
(Chit-Shakti).<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>The Supreme Spirit,
Purushottama, who holds in himself the dual reality of Brahman and the world,
is the master of action who acts but in actionlessness, the Lord in whom and
through whom the universes and their creatures live and move and have their
being. Karmayoga is union in mind and soul and body with the Lord of action in
the execution of his cosmic purpose. And this union is effected through a trans­formation
of the human nature, through the revelation of the Divine Prakriti and its
descent upon and possession of the inferior human vehicle.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:.15in;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Arrived so far, we now find, if
we look back, a change in the whole perspective. Karma and even Karmayoga,
which hitherto seemed to be the pivot of the Gita's teaching, retire somewhat
into the background and present a diminished stature and value. The centre of
gravity has shifted to the conception of the Divine Nature, to the Lord's own
status, to the consciousness above the three Gunas, to absolute con­secration
of each limb of man's humanity to the Supreme Purusha for his descent and
incarnation and play in and upon this human world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:11.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>The higher secret of the Gita lies really in the
later chapters, the earlier chapters being a preparation and passage to it or<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>partial and practical application. This has to be
pointed out, since there is a notion current which seeks to limit the Gita's
effective teaching to the earlier part, neglecting or even discarding the later
portion.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>The style and manner of Sri
Aurobindo's interpretation¹ is also supremely characteristic: it does not carry
the impress of a mere metaphysical dissertation-although in matter it clothes
throughout a profound philosophy; it is throbbing with the luminous life of a
prophet's message, it is instinct with something of the Gita's own <i>mantrasakti.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;
padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;
mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>¹ <i>Essays on the Gita, </i>Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
</span><st1:City><st1:place><span lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;
  layout-grid-mode:line'>Pondicherry</span></st1:place></st1:City><span lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<span lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page – 22<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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