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<font size="4">BENGALI ESSAYS AND POEMS OF</font><o:p></o:p></b></p>

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18.45pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><b><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>
<font size="4">&nbsp;</font></span><font size="4">SRI AUROBINDO</font><o:p></o:p></b></p><b>

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mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;</span><o:p></o:p></p>

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<font size="4">Asceticism and Renunciation</font><o:p></o:p></p>

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<span style='font-family:
Arial;'><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;</span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p></b>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='color:black'>T</span><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>HE</span><span style='color:black'>
Discipline (Dharma) spoken of in the Gita can be fol­lowed by everyone; it is
open to all. And yet the supreme status in this Discipline is not a whit less
than that of any other. The Discipline of the Gita is the Discipline of desire­less
works. In this country with the resurgence of Aryan Discipline a flood of
asceticism has spread everywhere. A man seeking Rajayoga cannot rest content
with the life or the work of a householder. For the practice of his yoga he
needs to make tremendously laborious efforts to be able to meditate and
concentrate. A slight mental disturbance or contact with the outside upsets the
poise of meditation or completely destroys it. Difficulties of this kind one
meets abundantly in home-life. Therefore it is quite natural for those who are
born with an urge for yoga, derived from past lives, to turn towards
asceticism. When such souls with an inborn yogic urge begin to increase in
number and by contagion to spread among the youthful generation a strong move­ment
to asceticism, the doors are opened indeed for the good of the country, in one
sense; but also along with the good there arise causes for apprehension. It is
said that the ascetic discipline is the very best, but very few are competent
to follow it. The incompetent who enter the path go a certain distance and then
in the midway stop short through a kind of satisfaction arising from lethargy
and inertia. One can in this way pass one's life upon earth in ease, but then
one does no good to the world and also it becomes very difficult for such it
one to rise to the higher reaches of the world.<b><i><o:p></o:p></i></b></span><b><i><span style='color:black'><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page-165<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='color:black'>The
time and the circumstances in which we are at present demand that we awaken the
qualities of dynamic energy (Rajas) and luminous poise (Sattwa), that is to
say, activity and knowledge, discarding the qualities of inertia and devote
ourselves to the service of the country and the world so that we may rejuvenate
the moral and spiritual strength of our land. This is our foremost duty today.
We have to recreate an Aryan people rich with knowledge and power and wide
catholicity, from out of the womb of this people weak and worn out, weighed
down with inertia, narrowed into self­ish bounds. It is for this reason that so
many souls, full of strength and yogic power, are being born in </span><st1:place><span
 style='color:black'>Bengal</span></st1:place><span style='color:black'>. If
such people attracted by the charm of asceticism abandon their true law of life
and their God-given work, then with the destruction of their true law the
nation too will perish. The younger generation seems to imagine that the stage
of the student (Brahmacharya) is the time fixed for the acquisi­tion of
education and character. The next stage as fixed is that of the householder.
And when one has assured the preservation of the family and the future building
of the Aryan race and thus freed oneself from the debts to the an­cestors and
also when one has paid off one's debts to society by the acquisition of wealth
and by useful service and when one has paid off one's debts to the world by
spreading know­ledge and beneficence and love and strength and finally when one
has been able to satisfy the Mother of the worlds by one's un stinted labour
and high service for the good of Mother India, then it will not be amiss to
retire from the world into the forest (Vanaprastha), and take to the ascetic
life. Otherwise there arises confusion of social values and growing dominance
of the wrong law. I do not speak of young ascetics who have been freed from all
debts in a pre­vious life; but it would be wrong for one who has not made
himself ready for asceticism to take to it. Great and magna­nimous Buddhism has
done no doubt immense good to the country, yet no less harm, because of
asceticism spreading</span><b><i><span
style='color:black'><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>

	</i></b>

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<span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page-166<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='color:black'>everywhere
and the warrior class (Kshatriya) renouncing their appointed function; and in
the end, itself was banished from the country. In the new age the new
dispensation must not admit this error.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='color:black'>In the Gita, Sri Krishna has time and again directed Arjuna
not to follow asceticism. Why? He admits the virtue of Sannyasa and yet, in
spite of the repeated questionings of Arjuna overwhelmed as he was with the
spirit of asce­ticism, abnegation and altruism, Sri Krishna never withdrew his
injunctions with regard to the path of action. Arjuna asked, &quot;If
desireless Intelligence, founded in Yoga, is greater than karma, then why do
you engage me in this terrible work of slaying my elders?&quot; Many have
repeated the question of Arjuna, some even have not hesitated to call him the
worst Teacher, one who shows the wrong way. In answer, Sri Krishna has
explained that renunciation is greater than asceticism, to remember God and do
one's appointed work without desire is far greater than freedom to do as one
likes. Renunciation means renunciation of desire, renunciation of selfishness.
And to learn that renunciation one need not take refuge in solitude. That
lesson has to be learnt through work in the field of work; work is the means to
climb upon the path of yoga. This world of varied play has been created for the
purpose .of bringing delight to its creatures. It is not God's purpose that
this game of delight should cease. He wants the creatures to become his
comrades and playmates, to flood the world with delight. We are in the darkness
of ignorance; that is because, for the sake of the play the Lord has kept
himself aloof and thus surrounded himself with obscurity. Many are the ways
fixed by him which, if followed would take one out of the darkness, bring him
into God's company. If anyone is not interested in the play and desires rest,
God will fulfil his desire. But if one follows His way for His sake, then God
chooses him, in this world or elsewhere as His fit playmate. Arjuna was </span><st1:place><span
 style='color:black'>Krishna</span></st1:place><span style='color:black'>'s
dearest comrade and playmate, therefore he received the</span><b><i><span style='color:black'><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page-167<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoBodyText style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:black'>teaching of the
Gita's supreme secret. What that supreme secret is I tried to explain in a
previous context. The Divine said to Arjuna, &quot;It is harmful to the world
to give up work, to give up work is the spirit of asceticism. And an asceticism
without renunciation is meaningless. What one gains by asceticism one gains
also by renunciation, that is to say, the freedom from Ignorance, equanimity,
power, delight, union with Sri Krishna. Whatever the man worshipped by all
does, people take that as the ideal and follow it. Therefore, if you give up
work through asceticism, all will follow that path and bring about the
confusion of social values, and the reign of the wrong law. If you give up the
desire for the fruit of action and pursue man's normal law of life, inspire men
to follow each his own line of activity, then you will unite with my Law of
life and become my intimate friend.&quot; Sri Krishna explains furthermore that
the rule is to follow the right path through works and finally at the end of
the path attain quietude, that is to say, renounce all sense of being the doer.
But this is not renunciation of work through asceticism, this is to give up all
vital urge to action involving immense labour and effort through the rejection
of egoism and through union with the Divine - and transcending all gun as, to
do works as an instrument impelled by His force. In that state it is the
permanent consciousness of the soul that he is not the doer, he is the witness,
part of the Divine; it is the Divine Power that works through his body created
for action by his own inner law of being. The soul is the witness and enjoyer,
Nature is the doer, the Divine is the giver of sanction. The being so illumined
does not seek to help or hinder any work that the Divine Power under­takes.
Submitted to the Shakti, the body and mind and intellect engage themselves in
the work appointed by God. Even a terrible massacre like that of Kurukshetra
cannot stain a soul with sin if it is sanctioned by God, if it occurs in the
course of the fulfilment of one's own dharma (Inner Law), but only a few can
attain to this knowledge and this</span><b><i><span style='color:black'><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>

	</i></b>

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<span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page-168<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='color:black'>goal.
It cannot be the law of life for the common man. What then is the duty for the
common wayfarers? Even for them the knowledge that He is the Lord, I am
the instrument is to a certain extent within their reach. Through this
knowledge to remember always the Divine and follow one's inner law of life is
the direction that has been given.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='color:black'>&quot;Better is one's own law of works, swadharma, though
in itself faulty, than an alien law well wrought out; death in one's own law of
being is better, perilous is it to follow an alien law.&quot;¹<b><i><o:p></o:p></i></b></span></p>

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150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='color:black'>One's own law of life (swadharma) means the work governed
by one's own nature (swabhava); one's own na­ture evolves and develops in the
course of time. In the process of Time man develops a general nature of his
own; the works determined by this formulation of nature embody the law of that
age. In the process of a nation's life-movement the nation's own nature is
built up and the works determined by that nature are the nation's law of life.
And in the course of the life-movement of an individual, the special nature he
develops, determines the work that becomes the individual's law of life. These
various laws of life are united together, organised in a com on ideal which is
that of the Eternal Law. This law is one's own law for all who seek to follow
the true law. As a spiritual student (brahmachari) one fol­lows this law to
gather knowledge and strength. As a house­holder also one follows this law. And
when one has com­pletely fulfilled this law, then one becomes eligible for the
final stages, Vanaprastha or Sannyasa. Such is the eternal movement of the
eternal law.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<b>

<i>

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style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>

	</i></b>

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mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>¹ Gita, III.35.</span><b><i><span
style='color:black'><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;</span><span
style='color:blue'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>

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<span
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