The Gita and its Synthesis of Yoga - Part-One

and an enquiry into this question, if it is to be denied at all, has still to be defended philosophically and to the satisfaction of the demands that can legitimately be made by the intellect in its pure search for truth and truth alone. But the scope of our study here is limited to a primary effort to study the data of yogic experience as they are available to us in their original purity, and to underline those crucial data of yogic experiences which are related centrally to the synthesis of yoga. The synthesis of yoga that is contained in the Gita, however, falls in a period when the Age of Reason in the history of India had already begun and advanced considerably and certain philosophical systems were in a fairly advanced stage of development; philosophical climate had become so prominent that the leaders and increasing number of people representing the common mind had begun to share philosophical climate so dynamically that in every field of knowledge and action, ultimate questions of rational justification were being raised and sought to be answered. In that climate, we find the living-force of the Gita.

As a result, we find two distinguishing features of the text. First of all, the Gita deals with philosophical systems of thought which were at that time influencing the modes of the pursuit of knowledge and action, and while dealing with them, we find in the Gita, not only the spirit of philosophical enquiry but even the sharpness, clarity and subtlety in the development of the argument and in the method of the argument, even though it cannot be said that the Gita is a philosophical treatise. The very nature of the occasion in which the dialogue of the Gita is set does not permit any full or adequate philosophical enquiry. Secondly, the exposition of the yoga, which is the central subject of the Gita, follows critical, philosophical and scientific rigour of system-

building. As a result, the Gita has been rightly regarded as yoga-shastra, a systematic exposition of the principles and methods of yoga, an assured knowledge that can be stated on the basis of detailed scrutiny, constant questioning and repeated verification over a long period of the history of yoga starting from the Veda and Upanishads and subsequent periods during which there was decline and loss of the Yogic knowledge, which was, however, restudied in the light of yogic experiences and realizations of the Teacher, who is himself reputed to be the Master of Yoga (yogeshwara). Considering this rich background, the value of the Gita for the enquiry in which we are engaged is enormous.

The Gita is primarily a book of a practical system of yoga, and it brings in metaphysical ideas only as explanatory of its practical system; it does not merely declare Vedantic Knowledge, but it founds knowledge and devotion upon works even as it uplifts works to knowledge, their culmination, and informs them with devotion as the very heart and kernel of their spirit. Again, it founds its yoga upon the analytical philosophy of the Sankhya, takes that as a starting-point and always keeps it as a large element of its method and doctrine; but still it proceeds far beyond it, negatives even some of its characteristic tendencies; it manifests a radical spirit, both philosophical and spiritual, and it does not hesitate to question Vedavada that was being advocated in that age as a Vedic path of sacrifice and ritualistic worship of the Vedic gods for fulfillment of human desires; it questions even Brahmavada, which was being advocated in that age as the Vedanta, in order to reestablish the authentic truths of the yoga of the Veda and the Upanishads in a clear and systematic manner. The Gita finds the means of reconciling the lower analytical knowledge of

Sankhya with the higher synthetic truth, which underlines and reaffirms all that is to be known through the Veda (as distinguished from Vedavada), and all that represents the truths of Vedanta expounded in the Principal Upanishads. It is on account of these elements that the Gita is recognized as one of the three authorities for the Vedantic teaching, the other two being the Upanishads and Brahmasutra. And the Gita is so highly esteemed that it is ranked as almost the thirteenth Upanishad.

2. A Most Difficult Dilemma of Human Life and Gita's Solution

The greatest significance of the Gita lies in the fact that it proposes a solution to a central typical problem of human life that presents itself at a certain critical stage of development. We may say that Arjuna to whom the teaching is addressed is a representative man, and the problem that he faced arose at a certain height of ethical concern in the midst of an actual and symbolic battlefield (Kurukshetra, which is also Dharmakshetra). He had come to the battlefield motivated by the ideal of a fight for justice. But as he gazed at the armies and looked in the face of the myriads of the champions of unrighteousness whom he had to meet and conquer and slay, the revelation of the meaning of a civil and domestic war came to him. He was then overcome suddenly by a violent, sensational, physical and moral crisis. "What after all," he asked himself in effect, "is this fight for justice when reduced to its practical terms, but just a fight for the interest of oneself, one's brothers and one's party for possession and enjoyment and rule?"

The entire train of argument that Arjuna presents to Sri Krishna

is very instructive, and the premises and the conclusions of the argument lead to such a dilemma that the search for its solution necessitated a revolutionary change of perception and establishment in a new status of yogic knowledge in the widest and integral sweep.

Yoga has many gates of entry, and moral experience at an acute point of development throws up such a dilemma that the standards of conduct erected by human consciousness collide with each other so critically that one is obliged to enter into the gates of yoga in search of a true solution. When we examine the argument of Arjuna, we shall find that the crisis that confronted Arjuna was no ordinary crisis; it arose at a point where Arjuna had striven his very best to fulfill the demands of the standards of conduct or standards of dharma with his utmost sincerity, and even at that point of crisis, he was prepared for a quest which promised the possibility of fullness of action which was to be totally free from blemish. It is in that quest that Sri Krishna found it indispensable to provide that vast and integral knowledge of the workings of universe, of the deepest roots of those workings and of the relations of the divine consciousness with human will and human action; Sri Krishna went farther and showed the integral method of combining that integral knowledge with motivation of complete surrender to the divine consciousness, the surrender of human will and human action so that they may be uplifted, transformed and so divinized that the resultant would be fullness of spiritual action.

3. Arjuna's Argument

Let us state the argument of Arjuna: "I do not see any

good by slaying my own people in the fight. O Krishna! I do not long for victory, nor kingdom, nor pleasures. O Govinda ! Of what use is kingdom to us, or enjoyments, or even life? Those for whose sake we desire to gain kingdom, enjoyments and pleasures, they are arrayed in battle, not caring for their lives and riches...; even if they kill me, I do not want to kill them, even for the kingdom of the three worlds, — what then to speak of gaining this earth? What pleasures can be ours after we have killed the sons of Dhritarashtra? Sin will only accrue to us if we kill these evil ones. Even if they, whose minds are overpowered by greed, see no wrong in destruction of families and no crime in treachery to friends, why should we not have wisdom to refrain from this sin, — we who see the wrong in the destruction of the family? With the destruction of the families, the eternal family tradition of dharma is destroyed: with the destruction of dharma, the entire society is overcome by adharma, unrighteousness. When society is overcome by unrighteousness, the women of our entire tradition become impure. And as a result, perverse progeny is produced.... Those who destroy the dharma of the tradition will be responsible for the ruin of the race, the collapse of its high traditions and ethical degradation; hell for the authors of such a crime. Therefore, it is more for my welfare that the sons of Dhritarashtra armed should slay me unarmed and unresisting. I will not fight."²

If we analyze this argument, we shall find the following steps:

In the first place, Arjuna argued that he would like to reject that aim of life which seeks enjoyment and happiness, or, in other words, the hedonistic aim.

Secondly, he declared that he would reject the aim which seeks to attain victory and rule and power and government of men, — the aim that was prescribed in Indian dharma for the kshatriya, the man of power and action.

Thirdly, he rejected the ethical element that was the main spring of the entire preparation for the war. The arguments in this connection could be summarized as follows:

(a) What exactly is "justice" involved in fighting the war that was about to commence? Was it not, he asked, interest of himself, his brothers, and his party for possession, enjoyment and rule? And even if it be granted that these aims were justified, he raised the question as to what would be the means of securing that justice. Would it not mean, he asked, the sacrifice of right maintenance of social and national life which in person of the kin of race stood before him opposing him in the battlefield?

(b) Turning to another line of argument, Arjuna felt that even if happiness and life were desirable, they were so only if they were shared with all others, particularly with "our own people". But here Arjuna argued, "Our own people" are to be slain, and who would consent to slay them for the sake of all the earth and even for the kingdom of the three worlds?

(c) At this stage, Arjuna formulated even a more fundamental objection. He declared that slaughter is a heinous crime, in which there is no right and no justice. And further, the sin became graver when those who were to be slain were objects of love and reverence.

(d) Formulating this ethical argument, Arjuna conceded that

the sons of Dhritarashtra were guilty of great offences, of sins of greed, and selfish passion, but he argued that they were overpowered by ignorance and they had no sense of guilt. On the other hand, would it be right, he asked in effect, to enter into sinful act voluntarily with a clear knowledge that sin was to be committed?

(e) Once again, Arjuna brought in another ethical consideration. Even if a sin was to be committed and even if that could be justified because that was inevitable in the performance of the dharma of the kshatriya, how could it be justified if that leads to the destruction of family morality, social law, law of the nation? Arjuna declared that family itself could be corrupted, race would be sullied, law of race, morality, and family would be destroyed. And who would be responsible for these crimes? Indeed, those, in particular, who would enter into the war with a knowledge and sense of guilt and sin.

These arguments led Arjuna to declare that he would not fight.³

But even though he was categorical in his declaration, he betrayed, in response to a remark of disapproval from Sri Krishna, not only his indecisiveness but a complete bankruptcy of all his views and all the notions of the right and the good and the duty and dharma which were till that time the foundations of the guidelines of his life. He asked Sri Krishna: "Tell me, how I shall attack with arrows the most venerable Bhishma, the grandfathers, and guru Dronacharya in the battlefield? It is better to live in this world by begging rather than killing the most venerable elders. Even if I kill these elders for worldly gains, all my enjoyments would be smeared with their blood. We are not

sure who is stronger amongst us and who will win the war. Moreover, the sons of Dhritarashtra are arrayed against us, after killing whom we ourselves would not like to live any longer. I am confused about my dharma owing to the lapse of the grain of my nature. Therefore, I ask you to tell me what is certainly the best for me. I am your disciple, I have taken refuge in you. Do instruct me. Even if I were to attain undisputed sovereignty over the whole world and conquer even the gods, I do not see how I could remedy this grief which is consuming my senses."

Once again, Arjuna said, "O Krishna! I shall not fight." And he became silent.

The current standards of conduct were found by Arjuna in a hideous chaos where they were in violent conflict with each other and with themselves. No moral standing ground was left, nothing to lay hold of and walk by any dharma, — the law," the norm, the rule of nature, action and life. And for a moral agent like Arjuna, whose very soul was that of action, this can be regarded as a worst possible crisis, failure and overthrow.

4. Sri Krishna's Answer

The answer that Sri Krishna gives can be received and understood only if one realises that even at the summit of the ordinary mental level of consciousness, there is no solution to the problem of the kind that Arjuna was confronted with. The mental consciousness is limited and remains confined perpetually in the state of egoism and duality, and even at its highest level, the strain and stress of the stains of ego and dualities do not get diminished; on the contrary, the

acuteness of the strains is felt to be so drenched in grief that the only way in which one can cure that grief is to discover a higher level of consciousness, if such exists, and if in that state, a perfectly pure action devoid of any blemish can be possible. Sri Krishna, the Master of Yoga, has the key to that higher level of consciousness in the light of which a positive solution and a fully affirmative answer can be obtained. The entire statement of the answer that is expounded in the Gita is a gradual exposition in an ascending manner, even in a winding manner and often in a perplexing manner, which culminates in a living vision and experience of the Supreme Reality in action in the world, in every strand of which there is purity and divinity, and in attaining identity with which, one can share and one can be filled totally with that purity and divinity in every fiber of action that is demanded of human agency.

Gita is not a book of Practical Ethics but of the Spiritual life

But before we analyze Sri Krishna's answer in detail, it may be remarked that the upshot of this answer is that the Gita is not a book of practical ethics, but of the spiritual life which permits us to transcend the clash of all dharmas that the human mind can conceive, and to discover a new dharma, the law of divine action, divyam karma, by the attainment of divine freedom in which the nature of the individual transcends its limitations, the limitations of the nature subject to three gunas, — tamas, rajas, and sattva, — and attains to the divine nature (sādharmyam).

Gita's view of Duty for Duty's sake

Often this high pitch of the Gita is not grasped, and often the Gita is so interpreted as to teach us the disinterested performance of duty as the highest and all-sufficient law. It

has been argued that the crisis of Arjuna arose because he happened to forget his duty, and the whole teaching of Sri Krishna was to remind him of that duty. It is true that in the winding development of the argument, Sri Krishna does point out to Arjuna to follow the duty of the kshatriya in the war, but Sri Krishna knew that Arjuna was quite aware of his duty, and the latter's argument showed quite clearly his awareness of the duty of the kshyatriya. In the course of his argument, Arjuna had conceded the value of that duty, but he had become aware of an equally imperative duty, namely, to ensure the tradition of dharma of the family and of the society and of the nation, and he had become aware, too, that both the duties violently clashed with each other ending in the collapse of the whole useful intellectual and moral edifice erected by the human mind. Indeed, it was Arjuna's duty to fight. But that duty had now become to his mind a terrible sin. How does it help him or solve his difficulty to tell him that he must do his duty disinterestedly, dispassionately? For knowing the clash of duties, he would want to know which was his duty. Could it be his duty to destroy in a sanguinary massacre his kin, his race and the tradition of dharma that held the country in some kind of solidarity? Indeed, he was told that he had right on his side, but that does not and cannot satisfy him, because, as he argues, the justice of his legal claim does not justify him in supporting it by a pitiless massacre destructive of the future of his nation. Was it a solution for him to act dispassionately in the sense of not caring whether it is a sin and whether that sinful action will multiply sinfulness in the society?

We also need to take into account a very important element that was present but not explicitly stated in the course of the argument of Arjuna. That element referred to a

view which had become quite prominent, namely, the view of the Sankhya philosophy, which advocated that no action can be pure and devoid of the stain of the three gunas of nature, and that the highest good of the individual lay in sannyasa, in the renunciation of all motives of life and action and to seek liberation alone by renouncing action altogether. That this view had begun to guide him can be seen in his somewhat decisive declaration, "I shall not fight", and in the arguments that he advanced when Sri Krishna brought out in fullness the Sankhyan view of life and action and contrasted it with the view of yoga which, at that time, meant the Yoga of Action. In fact, the debate between Sankhya and Yoga occupies a prominent place in Sri Krishna's answer, and this prominence is due to the fact that the Sankhyan view, which aimed at lifting human consciousness from the ordinary mental consciousness to a spiritual level of consciousness, advocated the gospel of renunciation or sannyasa and advocated, therefore, the inferiority and dispensability of the concepts of human duties and human responsibilities, which were supposed to be the results of the operations of ignorance. It was against this background that the final answer of the Gita goes beyond the higher level of consciousness indicated by Sankhya. The call of the Gita is not to subordinate the higher plane to the lower, but it calls us to rise higher and even to higher than the higher and to ascend to a supreme poise above the mainly practical, above the purely ethical, and even above the inactive Brahmic consciousness. In ultimate terms, it is in the integral static and dynamic Brahmic consciousness that the soul becomes free from works and is yet able to determine works by the intervention of the supreme divine consciousness and the Divine Lord within and above us; — it is by reference to that integral Brahmic Consciousness that Sri Krishna provides

the final answer to Arjuna's question and demand for arriving at that action in which there is no stain of the ego, duality and conflict of the three gunas of our ordinary nature.

It is true that if one lays an almost exclusive stress on the first three or four chapters and on the idea of equality, and on the expression, Kartavyam Karma, the work that is to be done, and if one ignores the graduality of the exposition of the teaching, where the Teacher has to lead the disciple from one psychological level of understanding to a higher one — a process in which subtleties and complexities of the ultimate richness of the teaching are to be developed, keeping also in view the psychological resonances which arise in the mind when words like dharma, karma, Sankhya, sannyasa and yoga have to be used, — if all that is ignored, then one would feel justified to think that the Gita is a book of the Gospel of Duty, and one would read in it also the gospel of Kant's doctrine of duty for duty's sake.4 This sense is heightened when one refers to the phrase: "Thou hast a right to action, but none to the fruits of action", which is now popularly quoted as a great word, mahāvākya, of the Gita. One feels that one has grasped in this dictum in substance the entire teaching of the Gita. But when we read the Gita in all its complexity, one finds that the great gospel of Karma Yoga that we find in the Gita goes much farther than Kant. One has also to remember that Sri Krishna accepts the truth that lies behind the Sankhyan gospel of renunciation according to which all works have to be renounced, even though Sri Krishna's final answer transcends the Sankhyan solution. But both in Sankhyan doctrine and in the vision that Sri Krishna presents in which the Sankhyan doctrine is transcended, there is no place for Kant's doctrine or other doctrines which assign supreme importance to the idea of duty. Indeed, the idea of duty has

some relevance and appeal, and Sri Krishna himself refers to it, with justification, at the level at which that relevance has to be emphasized. But, then, we shall find also the counsel of Sri Krishna for hedonistic utilitarianism at a given stage of the development of the argument that Arjuna should fight for victory and for the enjoyment of the fruits of victory.

As Sri Krishna points out in 11.37:

"If you are killed, you will attain heaven, or if you attain victory, you will enjoy kingship over the earth. Therefore, get up with determination to fight, O son of Kunti!"

Thus, utilitarianism has also a place and justification and relevance at a certain stage of consciousness which rules man in his lower stages of ascent from the life of impulses to the life of reason, and from there to the life of higher and higher levels of consciousness. While evaluating the teaching of the Gita and, particularly, the doctrines of duty and utilitarianism, we have to note that Indian ethics respects gradations of consciousness and does not prescribe one law of conduct for all in any uniform manner. As one ascends from level to level, Indian ethics provides guidance appropriate to each level, so that one can securely advance towards higher steps of ascent. In Indian ethics, therefore, there is place for kama and artha, provided they are restrained within limits by dharma that is prescribed for a regulated balance between indulgence and restraint. At a still higher level, it prescribes dharma for its own sake, but even there the idea of dharma is not limited to one rigid concept of duty. If Buddha renounces the duties of a prince, of a husband and of a father, he is not to be judged as having done something that is not prescribed. For the idea of dharma takes into account the ideal of response that one should give

to a call, when that call issues from a level which is regarded as higher than what is restricted in a narrow scope of life and its activities. We can thus see towards the close of the teaching of the Gita a highest command that demands abandonment of all Dharmas, sarvadharmān parityajya, in order to take refuge in the Supreme alone. The teaching of the Gita is based upon a vision of the Supreme and of a law of the Action of the Supreme in obedience to which alone the secret of freedom of the right action is discovered and in which, again, the secret of freedom from all action is also discovered.

Equality (samatvam) in the Gita

We also need to note that the equality which the Gita preaches is not disinterestedness; it is a state of inner poise and wideness which is the foundation of spiritual freedom, which is not only freedom of action but also freedom from action, a state in which the Supreme Himself acts in the world in such a way that He is at once non-doer and all-doer. All work is volition applied to a result, and karma yoga does not teach neglect in the performance of work that aims at the results of work. Sri Krishna defines Karma Yoga as skill in works (yogah karmasu kauśalam),⁵ and thus he lays down a principle that a karmayogin does every work with every due care and with such efficiency that the work shoots like an arrow so as to reach the precise point of the target. What the Gita teaches, however, is that even when the action is performed well, one has no right to the fruits of action, which is quite a different matter. In fact, Gita's teaching is that of inner renunciation of desire in which not only the desire for the enjoyment of fruits of action is to be renounced, but it goes farther. For Sri Krishna explains that

even the sense of doership of action is a sign of ignorance of the entire machinery of action in the world and how ultimately action originates in the world. The aim of the teaching is to show that the real origin of action is in the Supreme Consciousness, which is at once immobile and mobile, as described often in the Upanishads (e.g. "It moves and It moves not"),⁶ and that all action originates from that state of consciousness which is entirely free from any necessity of action and which is for ever free from action even when from one ray of its consciousness the entire universe can be manifested. It is to lead the disciple to that state of consciousness by following a gradual and methodical process that Sri Krishna follows a tangled and difficult way.

5. Gita's Karma Yoga : Elimination of Desire from Action

The secret of Karma Yoga lies in the right dealing with the relationship between desire and action, and in eliminating from the psychological complex by pursuing a sustained method the operation of desire so that one can discover the real origin of all dynamism of action in that supreme will which is omnipotently free, and which is not only free to act or not to act but which at its origin remains permanently poised in the Inactive Brahman, even when, if it so wills, can constantly be engaged in full manifestation of action. Moreover, the seeker is enabled to discover and apply the methods by which the entire psychological complex can remain permanently united with that omnipotent will that is forever reposed in freedom from action.

In our ordinary psychological operation, all action appears to be tied up with desire, and if desire is eliminated,

action also ceases to operate. According to the yoga of the Gita, there is no such inevitable connection between desire and action, and action can be united with that omnipotent will which has in it no want or lacuna to fulfill which the machinery of desire would be required. If that Will acts, it is because it is free to act or not to act and to act without losing that status and poise in which there is no vibration of action. It is the discovery of that free will and of the method by which that will can be made operative through our individual consciousness that constitutes the methodology of Karma Yoga. It is because that operation is inconsistent with the vibration of desire that Karma Yoga proposes those steps by which desire can be eliminated from the human instrument which aspires to be free from the dualities and dilemmas of action and from the afflictions and disabilities for which there is no ordinary solution.

6. Significance of the Gita as a Synthesis of Yoga

The supreme significance of the Gita lies in the fact that in no text of yoga-shastra or the science of yoga do we find such a perfect system of karma yoga known to man in the past, and that it is the greatest gospel of spiritual works ever yet given to the race. The great basics of karma yoga are laid down in this text with an incomparable mastery and the infallible eye of an assured experience. It is true that at its close, we do find the possibilities of further development.

The yoga of the Gita is a synthesis of yoga, and although it aims at utilizing action as a constant method, and even though it leads to highest status of consciousness in which the perfection of action and fullness of spiritual action is attained, it synthesizes both in its methods and in its results

a progressive synthesis of action, knowledge and devotion; and this synthesis is so wide and flexible that although it works out the full course of yoga by establishing the path of works as the starting-point, it admits that even the path of knowledge or the path of devotion can also be an equally effective starting-point. In fact, as Sri Krishna points out in course of his teaching, every path of yoga which has been developed is His path, and that the old or new path, depending upon how the seeker seeks the highest union with the divine consciousness, the divine consciousness in response answers suitably and provides the right method of progression.

7. Relationship between Knowledge, Action and Devotion

At the root of the synthesis of the yoga of the Gita is a clear and indispensable relationship that exists between cognition, conation and affection. Knowledge, which is the fruit of cognition is always superior to mere action, since knowledge aims at the discovery of the ultimate foundation of all that is and all that becomes, and the attainment of knowledge is always foundational and nothing that vibrates in cognition, conation and affection can attain to perfection without the attainment of the foundation that can be seized by the processes of knowledge, jnāna. One of the basic truths of the karma yoga is, as Sri Krishna declares, that knowledge is far superior to works, and that all works culminate in knowledge:

"jyāyasī karmanah buddhih "⁷

"sarvam karmākhilam jnāne parisamāpyate”⁸

However, since all yoga is an endeavour and a mighty

effort, there has to be in the human consciousness that need, that all-conscious imperative need, which provides perennial force of seeking, which is indispensable as a motive force at all stages of development. And this need must have its root not in mere desire, which is required to be eliminated in due course from the psychological complex of the seeker, or curiosity or quest which can at one stage or the other is satisfied and therefore gets arrested, but in the unveiling of that urge of love which can continue to operate not up to the point of union with the object of love but even after that object is attained, since there is no end of the intensity and permanence that love unabatedly seeks. Indeed, considering the urge of love and its place in the totality of human psychology, that urge is the unfailing and perennially fresh motive force of yoga as also its crown, the sovereignty of which is immortal in its constant flow. This is the reason why in the synthesis of the yoga of the Gita, the motive force of self-surrender and love has been assigned that indispensable place with such an emphasis that the yoga of divine love and the yoga of self-surrender is woven in the synthesis right from the beginning in some degree or the other, but gradually increases and ultimately ends in the crowning achievements of this great, vast and synthetic yoga.

It is true that the first step in the Gita's yoga is karma yoga, and yet in the first six chapters where karma yoga is particularly worked out in its main stages, the foundations of jnana yoga are also laid down in these chapters, and a preliminary synthesis of karma yoga and jnana yoga is underlined. Even though the yoga of divine love is not distinctly marked out, still in these six chapters, there is sufficient hint that emphasizes not only the discovery of the immobile Self but also of the Lord of works, and even of

Him, who even being Impersonal is yet described in terms of Supreme Personality (mām)⁹ to whom one can approach with love and increasing surrender, culminating in intenser and completer self-surrender. In the next six chapters there is insistence on knowledge, and the states and contents of self-realization, and knowledge of the true nature of the self and the world are described, not only in terms of essence but also in terms of fullness of essential details (jnānam and vijnānam).₁₀ But the sacrifice of the works continues and the path of Works becomes one with but does not disappear into the path of Knowledge. In these six chapters (VII - XII), the yoga of divine love becomes more and more pronounced and the steps of Bhakti yoga are expounded with insistence on devotion, on adoration and seeking of the supreme Self as the Divine Lord. But the emphasis on the path of knowledge and the attainment of knowledge is not subordinated; only it is raised, vitalized and fulfilled; and still, the sacrifice of works continues; the path becomes the triune way of knowledge, works and devotion. The bhakta who is loved most is the bhakta who has true self-knowledge, God-knowledge and world-knowledge and who is engaged in works as an offering to the Master of self-energising and all-giving sacrifice. That is the path that leads to the state of immortality, the state of union with the divine Being, identity with the Self and oneness with the supreme dynamic divine Nature, and the state of transcendence of the three gunas of lower nature, — the state of trigunātīta, and the state of sādharmyam.

In the last six chapters (XIII - XVIII), the entire synthesis of yoga of the Gita is reviewed from a special standpoint, — the standpoint of the relationship between Purusha and Prakriti, and the precise relations between the supreme

Purusha (Purushottama),¹¹ the immutable Self (Akshara Purusha),¹² and the mobile Self (Kshara Purusha), as also the intimate relations between Purushottama and the higher nature, Para Prakriti, which manifests multiplicity of individual souls (parāprakrtir jīvabhūtā)¹³ This standpoint also clarifies the relationship between the Jiva (individual Soul) and lower Prakriti, aparā prakriti, and herGunas. Finally, these chapters show action of gunas of the lower Prakriti, and how they can be transcended into the state of trigunātīta or state beyond the three gunas. These chapters delineate the culminating method of the Gita's integral yoga, which is contained in the real mahāvākya of the Gita: "Become My-minded, My lover and adorer, a sacrificer to Me, bow thyself to Me, to Me thou shalt come, this is My pledge and promise to thee, for dear art thou to Me. Abandon all Dharmas and take refuge in Me alone. I will deliver thee from all sin and evil, do not grieve."¹⁴ In other words, the constant and culminating method of the synthesis of this Yoga is to progressively take refuge in the indwelling Lord of all Nature and turn to Him with one's whole being,— with the life and body and sense and mind and heart and understanding, — with one's whole dedicated knowledge and will and action, sarvabhāvena, in every way of conscious self and instrumental nature. For all other Dharmas or norms of action are only a preparation for that highest Dharma which is the law of divine nature and divine action, and all processes of Yoga are only a means by which we can come first to some kind of union, and finally, to an integral union with the Master and supreme Soul and Self of our existence and with the Supreme Nature of the Supreme Lord.

8. Primacy of Knowledge in the Synthesis

It is significant for the synthetic character of the teaching of the Gita that even though at the very outset when Arjuna declares, "I will not fight", and even though Sri Krishna begins his answer by appealing to him to act and to fight, the very first note that is sounded by Sri Krishna in his refutation of the argument of Arjuna is a note concerning the supremacy of knowledge. Sri Krishna points out that although Arjuna's argument had the appearance of a learned man and possessor of knowledge, the very first premise of knowledge was missing from his argument. Those who have knowledge, says Sri Krishna in effect, have at the root of their argument the knowledge of the self and of the immortality of the self, while in Arjuna's argument there was a constant refrain of death and of the consequences of killing those who had assembled in the battlefield. The entire argument of Arjuna, both in its root and in its development, was flawed and that the argument would take a completely different turn if it was to be based on true knowledge, knowledge of immortality of the self, and the knowledge of the right place of death in the cycle of development of man and his society, as also the knowledge of the place of work and highest law of work that would follow from the first premise of the stability and permanence of the self and its relationship with the world and with work. The very first part of Sri Krishna's answer consists of the distinction between that which is permanent and that which is phenomenal. In fact, Sri Krishna points out: "The soul, not the body is the reality. All these kings of men for whose approaching death thou hast the sorrow, have lived before, they will live again in the human body; for as a soul passes physically through childhood, youth and old age, so it passes on to the changing of the body. The wise man

looks beyond the apparent facts of the lives of the body and senses to the real fact of his being and rises beyond the emotional and physical desires of the ignorant nature to the true and only aim of the human existence. The occasion of the war which has been presented to Arjuna can be understood only when that highest aim of human life, individual and collective, can be known." It is towards that knowledge that Sri Krishna's answer leads Arjuna from step to step.

Sri Krishna reiterates the affirmations of the Upanishads in regard to immortality, which is not merely the survival of death, but the transcendence of life and death. Finite bodies have an end, but the soul is and cannot cease to be. It is not born nor does it die; it is not slain with the slaying of the body; who can slay the immortal spirit? Weapons cannot cleave it, nor the fire bum nor do the waters drench it nor the wind dry. All are that Self, that One, that Divine, whom we look on and speak and hear of as wonderful beyond our comprehension. One thing only is the truth in which we have to live, namely, the Eternal manifesting itself as the soul of man in the great cycle of its pilgrimage, where all the circumstances of life, happy or unhappy, are to be seen or used as a means of progress, and with immortality as a constant underlying fact and as the home to which the soul travels as it gradually unfolds and recovers from ignorance its knowledge of its true being, nature and aim.¹⁵

But should then one live by constant killing? How does this knowledge of the immortal Spirit justify the action demanded of Arjuna and the slaughter at Kurukshetra? The war is a result of the way and degree to which human life has progressed so far and is struggling to attain the aim that is placed before human life. The way in which the world has

progressed so far has been continuously a struggle between right and wrong, justice and injustice, the force that protects and the force that violates and oppresses. This process has been brought to the issue of physical strife, and the present stage of human society has not yet discovered a better arrangement than the instrumentality of war for the champion and standard bearer of the Right to ensure that the standard of Right and Justice is not allowed to trail in the dust and be trampled into mire by the blood-stained feat of the oppressor. A day may come, must surely come, Sri Krishna has already declared it by his unceasing effort to avoid the physical strife, when humanity will be ready, — spiritually, morally, socially for the reign of universal peace. But at the present stage, where Arjuna stands in the battlefield, that day has not yet come and the method of physical strife cannot yet be avoided. If humanity has to move forward for the eventual fulfillment of the highest aim of life in which the immortal Spirit will manifest fully, the present stage of physical strife has to be unavoidably accepted for the present, and Arjuna, given his background, his upbringing and his own path towards his own higher development and for the development of the human kind, has to stand out in battle and not permit the sliding back of the human civilization and allow the oppressor to trample upon the standards of Right and Justice. For the highest good, in that state of human progress, Arjuna must not abstain from battle.

But this is only a preliminary statement.

9. Sankhya and Yoga

In the meantime, the questions emerging from the gospel

of the path of knowledge, the path of Sankhya as was understood generally at that time, which excluded the path of yoga, the path of action and a larger path that was more intuitive, have to be answered, and it is to those questions that Sri Krishna turns. First, Sri Krishna shows how in reality Sankhya and Yoga are not exclusive of each other, and although the path of Sankhya can lead to a state of liberation from the clutches of perplexities connected with works, the path of Yoga, the path of works, is preferable. The path of Karma Yoga, which Sri Krishna was going to expound, regards Sankhya as of foundational importance, since in that path works culminate in knowledge, and only on the foundation of that knowledge, one can remain liberated even while performing works, which, again on that foundation, can grow and culminate in divine works (divyam karma)¹⁶

Sankhyan Philosophy and Yoga

Hence, Sri Krishna expounds the Sankhyan path of buddhi yoga, the yoga by which buddhi, intelligent will, becomes fixed in that status of Purusha which is forever free from Prakriti and its activities. But what is buddhi, what is Purusha and what is Prakriti? What is their interrelationship? How was it understood and how was the gospel of renunciation valid, and yet why, from a larger point of view of the path of Yoga, was it to be expanded? This is a vast subject, and whatever is stated in the Gita in regard to Sankhya needs to be brought out in fuller detail, even though the exposition of the fuller detail has to be extremely brief.

In the fourth chapter, Sri Krishna declares that the yoga that he was expounding to Arjuna was that imperishable yoga which was extremely ancient, and although it was handed to successive generations, that yoga had been lost

since a long time. Reference to that ancient yoga was evidently to the yoga that was developed in the Veda and later recovered and restated in the Upanishads, the early Vedanta. That had once again been lost, but Sri Krishna was once again to expound it to Arjuna. It is for this reason that the yoga of the Gita is basically a restatement of the yoga of the Veda and of the Upanishads, although in that restatement the method of exposition has been largely philosophical, — a method which was not present in the Veda and the Upanishads, — and in many respects the statement is richer and more systematic, since systematic study of all disciplines of knowledge had become quite common in the Age of Reason at the head of which the dialogue of Sri Krishna and Arjuna had taken place.

By way of comment, we may say that there is no doubt that both in the Veda and in the Upanishads, the spiritual experiences on which the Sankhya philosophy was based was stated in symbolic language. We may refer to an important verse in this connection which occurs in Rig Veda,¹⁷ and this verse is repeated in the Mundaka Upanishad with two more verses.¹⁸ These verses are also to be found in Svetasvatara Upanishad to some extent. The three verses of the Mundaka Upanishad are as follows:

"Two birds, beautiful of wing, close companions, cling to one common tree: of the two one eats the sweet fruit of the tree, the other eats not but watches its fellow."

"The soul is the bird that sits immersed on the one common tree; but because he is not lord he is bewildered and has sorrow. But when he sees the other who is Lord and beloved, he knows that all is His greatness and his sorrow Passes away from him."

"When, a seer, he sees the Golden-hued, the maker, the Lord, the Spirit who is the source of Brahman, (or whose source is Brahman), then he becomes the knower and shakes from his wings sin and virtue; pure of all stain he reaches the supreme identity."

In Svetasvatara Upanishad the above mentioned two verses are the same,¹⁹ but the last one is not repeated. But the two verses which are repeated are preceded by the following:

"There is one Unborn Mother; she is white, she is black, she is blood-red of hue; having taken shape, lo, how she giveth birth to many kinds of creatures; for One of the two Unborn taketh delight in her and lieth with her, but Other hath exhausted all her sweets and casteth her from him."²⁰

The following verse of Svetasvatara Upanishad is also relevant: "Know Nature for the Illusion and Maheshwara, the almighty, for the lord of the Illusion: this whole moving world is filled in with created things as with His members."²¹

Similarly, the following verse from Mundaka Upanishad is also relevant:

"He, the divine, the formless Purusha, even He is the outward and the inward and He the Unborn; He is beyond life, beyond mind, luminous, Supreme beyond the immutable."²²

It appears that the Sankhya philosophy was derived from the authority of the yogic realizations which were expressed in a symbolical language in the above mentioned verses; but, appropriate to the method of Reason, which normally tends to follow the principle of parsimony, it omitted the integral richness of the nature of Purusha and Prakriti that one can

find in the above verses, and it retained only two principles to be ultimate and unborn, namely, Purusha and Prakriti.

The intellectual exposition of the Sankhya begins with the statement of two ultimate principles of existence, — Purusha, the inactive being, and Prakriti, the active force of action. Purusha is a pure conscious Being, immobile, immutable and self-luminous. Prakriti is Energy and its process. Purusha does nothing, but it reflects the action of Energy and its processes; Prakriti is mechanical, but by being reflected in Purusha, it assumes the appearance of consciousness in its activities. When Purusha glances at Prakriti, Prakriti which, to begin with, is in a state of the equilibrium of its three gunas (sattwa, rajas and tamas) is triggered from its avyakta (unmanifested) condition into the condition of vyakta (manifestation). Purusha under the influence of Prakriti attributes to itself the activities of Prakriti, although they belong not at all to itself but to the actions or movements of Prakriti alone.

In its true nature, Purusha is witness of Prakriti by virtue of reflection, and he is the giver of the sanction, even though his giving of sanction is passive, and later on, when he withdraws the sanction, his withdrawing of sanction is also another passivity. It is the interrelationship between Purusha and Prakriti which is the cause of the universe, — the relationship between the passive Consciousness and the active Energy.

According to Sankhya, when Prakriti begins to manifest, there is first the unequal vibration of her three gunas, — sattwa, the seed of intelligence, which conserves the workings of energy, rajas, the seed of force and action which creates the workings of energy, and tamas, the seed of inertia

and non-intelligence, the denial of sattwa and rajas, which dissolves what they create and conserve. Because of the disequilibrium of the three gunas, and because of the preponderance of rajas, activity is generated under the heavy limitations imposed on it by sattwa and tamas. Out of the activity of Prakriti are evolved successively five elemental conditions of Energy, — ether, air, fire, water and earth. All objects are created by the combinations of these five elements which are originally in subtle conditions. Again, each of these is the base of one of the five subtle properties of Energy or Matter, — sound, touch, form, taste and smell which constitute the ways in which the mind-sense perceives objects. The five elements and the five sense-relations through which Matter is known constitute the objective aspect of cosmic existence. Thirteen other principles constitute the subjective aspect of the cosmic Energy, — Buddhi or Mahat, Ahankara, Manas and its ten sense functions, — five of knowledge and five of action. Manas, mind, is the original sense which perceives all objects and reacts upon them. Buddhi is the principle of discrimination, and it is that power in Nature which discriminates and coordinates, and it is that which is seen in human consciousness as at once intelligence and will, that which understands through discrimination and which wills one thing or the other. Ahankara, the ego-sense is the subjective principle in Buddhi by which the Purusha is induced to identify himself with Prakriti and her activities. But these subjective principles are themselves as mechanical and as much a part of the inconscient energy as those which constitute her objective operations. Thus even in the mechanical action of the atom, one can perceive the operations of discrimination and coordination, and therefore the operations of order and obedience of law, which seem

mysterious. According to the Sankhya, this mystery can be explained as the reflection of Prakriti in Purusha; the light of consciousness of the Purusha is attributed to the workings of the mechanical energy, and it is this reflection of Prakriti in Purusha that explains how Purusha, which is only a witness comes to be induced to forget himself and to be identified with ego-sense, generated by Prakriti, and thus the Purusha is deluded that it is he who thinks, feels, wills, acts, while all the time the operations of thinking, feeling, willing, acting are conducted really by Prakriti and her three modes or gunas and not by himself at all. To get rid of this delusion is the first step towards liberation of the soul from Nature or Prakriti and her works.

It is evident that there are plenty of things which the Sankhya does not explain at all or does not explain satisfactorily. But the yogic method which has been developed by the Sankhya on the basis of its scheme, is effective, and both the method and the result of the yoga of Sankhya, or the yoga of knowledge as it has been called, can be verified and can be affirmed as a valid method and a valid result in which the complete silence of the state of Purusha is attained. One experiences abiding realization of the Purusha as liberated from the perplexities and complexities of the dualities of happiness and sorrow and of the pride and humiliation of the ego-sense, which are all operations of Prakriti and which, again, on account of the proximity of the liberated Purusha, fall quiet in a state of equilibrium. The prescriptions of Sankhya in regard to yoga are effective and can be methodically and systematically employed to attain a sure state of the liberation of Purusha from Prakriti.

The instrument on which the yoga of Sankhya lays stress

is Buddhi, the principle of discrimination. The method is that of concentration on the intellectual knowledge that Purusha and Prakriti are distinct from each other, and yet Purusha, in a state of forgetfulness is deluded to link himself with ego- sense, the product of Prakriti, and to become identified with the operations of Prakriti, which in true truth are not his. By the constant pressure of this knowledge, buddhi becomes stabilized (sthita), and the stabilized buddhi distinguishes clearly between Purusha and Prakriti; and by the aid of this discrimination, the Purusha who had given consent to the operations of Prakriti is now able to withdraw that consent, and with that withdrawal, Purusha comes back to his original condition of complete immobility and ever-free witness of Prakriti and therefore liberated from Prakriti.

This effective method of Sankhya is accepted by Sri Krishna; this method is the method of Buddhi yoga, the yoga of Intelligent-will. It acknowledges the process of arriving at the stabilized buddhi and the process by which all activities of Prakriti can be effectively renounced. Sri Krishna acknowledges that renunciation advocated by the Sankhya results in the state of liberated Purusha and complete immobility and freedom from any obligation and connection with works.

10. Buddhi Yoga

The buddhi yoga as described in the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita can be stated in terms of two possibilities of the action of the buddhi, intelligent-will. The buddhi may take a downward and outward orientation in which it becomes subject to the triple play of Prakriti; or it may take its upward and inward orientation towards a settled peace and equality in the calm and immutable purity of the

conscious silent Purusha no longer subject to the distractions of Nature. (The psychological account which is given here in the Gita can be compared to that given in the Katha Upanishad.)²³

In the former alternative, buddhi and the psychological complex of the being is at the mercy of the objects of sense, and it lives in the outward contacts of things. The resultant life is a life of desire. In that state of the life of desire,

(a) Senses can normally get excited by their objects;

(b) A restless or often violent disturbance is created;

(c) A strong or even headlong outward movement takes place towards the seizure of objects and their enjoyment;

(d) These objects carry away the sense-mind, as the winds carry away a ship upon the sea;

(e) The mind subjected to the emotions, passions, longings, and impulsions awakened by these outward movements of the senses carry away similarly the intelligent-will;

(f) The intelligent-will loses therefore its power of calm discrimination and mastery. The result of this movement is enslavement to grief, wrath, attachment and passion.

But if the buddhi is oriented upward and inward, one can be led to a state of self-delight independent of objects and of the high and wide poise of peace and liberation. But for this to happen, one can and one must resolutely choose, with a settled concentration and perseverance, vyavasaya, to fix the intelligent-will firmly in the calm self-knowledge of the Purusha. Here, too, the following stages can be observed:

(a) One must draw senses back when they are inclined to rush out, draw them away from their objects; just as the

tortoise draws its limbs into the shell, even so these senses are drawn into their source; the result is increasing quiescence in the mind, increasing quiescence in intelligence, and increasing quiescence in the soul and its self-knowledge.

(b) Thus the cause of desire, the rushing out of the senses to seize and enjoy their objects is controlled, and by repeated practice, one can control the movement of desire to enjoy anything which the objective life can give;

(c) It is not the physical renunciation of the objects of senses, and it is not external ascetism that is meant; that kind of renunciation, the Sankhyan renunciation, is not meant;

(d) The key to the real control and conquest does not lie merely in abstinence from food and sleep and from the right use of objects of senses;

(e) The removal of physical contact with the objects of sense can be effected by abstinence, but this does not get rid of the relation which makes that contact hurtful; one must, therefore, be capable of enduring the physical contact without suffering inwardly the results of sensuous reactions;

(f) The secret of control and mastery requires a more difficult and more psychological self-discipline, — it consists of inner withdrawal, inner renunciation of desire;

g) Even this is not sufficient; the effort of the renunciation of desire should be accompanied by fixing the intelligent-will on the Purusha, which is there behind one's psychological vibrations.

Purusha has, by its very nature and in its very being, no desire, since the Purusha has complete immobility on account of potency in its absoluteness to manifest in complete freedom from the need to manifest, and a potency that is not diminished in any way even when illimitable energy is put forth in manifestation. That immobile Purusha remains always as a base of all movement, and in his transcendence of all movement, he remains undivided indivisibly and can be experienced as such, if the buddhi is fixed on that immobile poise of the Purusha. As a result, Purusha realizes his distinction from Prakriti as that distinction is clearly visioned in the transparency of the buddhi. That transparency is affected when buddhi is fixed and stabilized in the Purusha. As a consequence of this realization, the Purusha, who never needs to work and is immovably above all work, becomes free from all works. This is the truth of Sankhya and the truth of the method of Sankhya, and both this truth and the method of Sankhya are verifiable and valid.

But the yoga of the Gita, while recognizing and utilizing the yoga of Sankhya, takes its stand on a larger and a more synthetic possibility of yogic realization in which the immobility of the Purusha and mobility of Prakriti are not antagonistic to each other, but in which the mobility of Prakriti is reconciled with the immobility of Purusha. Since Arjuna's quest was connected with the demand for that knowledge by the application of which the highest good can be accomplished, Sri Krishna provides that wider knowledge and leads Arjuna towards the portals of that wider knowledge and even to the highest knowledge of the Ultimate Reality as also the knowledge of the methods by which that knowledge can be attained as a basis for the highest Good.

In the meantime, however, Sri Krishna explains to Arjuna the difficulties that one encounters in the attainment of the realization of the immobile Purusha by following the path of fixing the intelligent-will, buddhi, in the poise of the immobile. The yoga of Sankhya requires complete renunciation of desire, and although outward movements of desire can be more visibly renounced, one cannot succeed without an inner withdrawal, and renunciation of the inmost roots of desire. A great deal of self-discipline and self-control has to be achieved. Ordinarily, self-control is practised imperfectly in the most limited and insufficient fashion. The reason is that the mind naturally lends itself to the senses; and there is a psychological chain of tendencies that arise when the mind is carried away by senses. Sri Krishna analyses the chain of these tendencies as follows:

1.The mind, which is attached to the senses, becomes separated from buddhi, the power of discrimination;

2. The mind observes the objects of sense with an inner interest;

3. It settles upon objects of senses and makes them the object of absorbing thought;

4. This creates in the intelligence a strong interest for the will;

5. This results in attachment to the objects of desire (āsakti);

6. Attachment generates desire;

7. Desire aims at enjoyment of the objects on which desire is fixed and all effort is directed towards the satisfaction of desire;

8. This effort, goaded by desire, leads to distress, passion and anger when the desire is not satisfied or is thwarted or opposed;

9. By passion, the entire being is obscured, the intelligence and will forget to see and to be seated in the calm observing and immobile Purusha;

10. There is then a fall from the memory of one's true self;

11. And by that lapse the intelligent-will is also obscured and even destroyed;

12. One becomes so identified with that outward movement that one becomes passion, wrath, and grief;

13. One ceases to be self and intelligence and will.²⁴

Hence, this entire movement must be prevented and all the senses must be brought utterly under control. The difficulty of this task is so great that even the sage, the man of clear, wise and discerning soul, who really labours to acquire complete self-mastery, finds himself hurried and carried away by the senses.

This difficulty can be overcome to a great extent by repeated effort and by a great inner renunciation, not by any outer renunciation, sannyasa, but by tyaga, inner renunciation; for a mere mental self-discipline or merely by the act of intelligence itself self-control cannot be made perfect. The immobile Purusha, if he can come forward, a stable basis for self-control can be created. But there is also another way, a surer and better way, and it is that way, which Sri Krishna now declares to be a preferable way. This way is the way of Yoga.

11. The Way of Yoga (Karma Yoga synthesized with Buddhi Yoga)

The word Yoga is used in the Gita so as to distinguish it from Sankhya. Although the Sankhyan way is described as buddhi yoga, the word Yoga is primarily used for indicating the Yoga of works, karma yoga. At the same time, in the new exposition of karma yoga, buddhi yoga is also synthesized with it. Sri Krishna even explains that there is basically no opposition between the yoga of Sankhya and karma yoga, and that the path of knowledge and the path of action both need to be synthesized for the attainment of the highest Good. In other words, buddhi yoga is seen to be the foundation of karma yoga and the path of knowledge and the path of works are both synthesized in a synthetic framework, which is, according to Sri Krishna, the preferable way, since by the pursuit of buddhi yoga or the path of knowledge, although one can attain to the status of Purusha and freedom from action, one cannot yet attain the highest good and freedom of action. The synthesis of the path of knowledge and the path of works is achievable because there is inherent compatibility between knowledge and action, and that compatibility consists in recognizing that knowledge is always the foundation of action and that action attains its perfection only when it culminates in knowledge. At the same time, knowledge being the source and foundation of action, the highest good and the perfectly right action takes place when action proceeds from knowledge. The yoga which combines knowledge and action in this relationship is the synthesis by which one can attain to the realization of the immobile Purusha, even while one is enabled to perform perfectly right actions for the attainment of the highest good. In this path, there is no need to renounce works, even though

renunciation of desire is indispensable. It is to that synthesis of yoga where knowledge and action are synthesized that Sri Krishna now leads Arjuna.

Yoga in the Gita to be distinguished from Yoga of Patanjali's Sutras

The word Yoga as used in the Gita has to be distinguished from the same word that is used to describe the system of yoga attributed to Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras do not contain karma yoga, and they largely concentrate on the methods of concentration which lead to the realization of the immobile Purusha and the state of Samadhi in which one can attain to the state of absorption in identity with the immobile Purusha. In that sense, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras constitute very largely the path of knowledge. On the other hand, the word yoga in the Gita is primarily used to mean karma yoga, although this word is used throughout the Gita to indicate a larger synthesis of yoga in which karma yoga, jnana yoga and bhakti yoga become united and reconciled with each other in perfect harmony. In the attainment of this harmony, the Gita affirms not only the truth of the immobile Purusha but also the truth of Ishwara and still larger concept of Purushottama which unites the immobile Purusha and Ishwara. It is true that in the yoga of Patanjali, the concept of Ishwara is admitted, but while in the yoga of the Gita the concept of Ishwara connotes the inalienability of Ishwara from Purushottama, who unites both the immobile Purusha and the mobile Purusha, in the yoga sutras of Patanjali, Ishwara does not occupy that position, and, again, while in the Gita surrender to Purushottama is indispensable for the perfection of yoga, in the yoga sutras of Patanjali, surrender to Ishwara (Iśwara-

pran idhāna) is only an optional method. Still again, while both the yoga of the Gita and the yoga of the yoga sutras of Patanjali speak of Samadhi, the latter connotes a state of complete immobility, and the former conceives of Samadhi as a status in which one can live and dynamically act even while completely fixed in the consciousness of Purushottama, who synthesizes both the immobile Purusha and the mobile Purusha.

Yoga is Preferable to Sankhya

It is this path of yoga as understood in its large and synthetic sense which Sri Krishna regards to be preferable to the path of Sankhya or the path of knowledge; for in this yoga, one can attain to self-discipline and self-control with complete mastery, since in this yoga, the path leads not only to the fixing of buddhi in the immobile Purusha, but the entire being is fixed by devotion and consecration to the supreme Divine, the Purushottama. It is true that the full exposition of the concept of the supreme Divine is developed gradually through several stages of exposition and finally and explicitly stated in the fifteenth chapter, but it is that concept that we find pervading the entire teaching of the Gita. This is the sense of the phrase that is used by Sri Krishna which is stated at an early stage when he refers to the highest state of yogic realization where the seeker "must sit firm in Yoga, wholly given up to Me" (yukta āsīta mat parah).²⁵

In that state, it becomes possible for the seeker to move among the objects of sense, in contact with them, acting on them, but with the senses entirely under one's control. In that state, one is free from reactions, and even the senses are delivered from the afflictions of liking and disliking, and one

escapes the duality of positive and negative desire. In that state, calm, peace, clearness, happy tranquility, (ātmaprasāda) will settle upon the seeker. And yet the seeker does not cease from work and action.

12. State of Sthitaprajna

That state is described by the Gita as a state of sthitaprajna, the state of fixed stability of the intelligent- will, or the state of samādhistha, the state of one who is constantly settled in the state of Samadhi.

In answer to a question by Arjuna as to what are the signs of the one who is settled in Samadhi or one whose intelligent-will is fixed, Sri Krishna gives the following description, which is extremely important as a statement of the highest state of yogic realization as conceived in the synthetic yoga of the Gita:

"When a man thoroughly renounces all the desires of mental origination and is content in the self by the self, he is called sthitaprajna, one who has steady wisdom. He who is not perturbed in mind in the midst of sorrowful conditions and who is devoid of any craving in the midst of happiness, who is .free from attachment, fear and anger, such a one is called a sage of steady wisdom. He who is without attachment and who neither rejoices nor hates in whatever good and evil that may come upon him; his wisdom is firm. When one is able to withdraw his senses from the sense- objects as a tortoise withdraws its limbs from all sides, his wisdom is firm. When the embodied self abstains from sense-enjoyment, the objects turn away from him but the flavour for sense-objects continues to linger on; but even this flavour turns away from him when the Supreme Self is

realized. The strong turbulent senses forcibly carry away even the mind of a man of discrimination who is endeavouring to control it, but having controlled his senses, when one fixes the entire being in devotion and consecration upon Me (Purushottama) then his senses are under his mastery, and his wisdom or intelligent-will becomes steady... When the self-controlled man, although moving among the sensory objects, is able to restrain his senses and becomes free from likes and dislikes, then he obtains that delight of the self that results from self-mastery. In that state of delight, all sorrows end, and the intelligent-will imbued with delight is soon established and remains permanently steady. .... Therefore, one whose senses are completely detached from their objects, his intelligent-will is firmly established.... Just as waters from different rivers enter into the ocean from all sides, yet the ocean continues to be stable, in the same way, a person who is not perturbed by the incessant flow of desire, he alone attains peace and not the desirer of sense-objects. One who gives up all desires and one who acts without any craving, and one who is devoid of attachment and of ego, he attains the supreme peace. Such is the state of Brahmic consciousness, having attained which one is not deluded..."²⁶

13. Karma Yoga: Inner Renunciation of Desire:

The Kernel of the Path

But despite all these statements and these explanations, the path of works is not yet sufficiently clear and precise. Sri Krishna has insisted on renunciation, but in the path of knowledge, there is overwhelming emphasis on renunciation, including renunciation of all works, — if not of all works at the beginning of the path but maximum possible renunciation of works at every stage of ascent, and ultimately

of all works; — for then alone can there be identity with immobile Purusha which is forever devoid of any desire, will or works. In the path of yoga or in the path of works, where it is identical with Sankhya, the path of knowledge, the emphasis is upon renunciation of that essential element, which renders all works unfit for the attainment of the highest Good, namely, the root of desire. The secret of karma yoga lies in the assertion that the element of desire can be eliminated from works, — a statement which has been repeatedly emphasized in Sri Krishna's exposition of karma yoga. It is this statement which perplexes Arjuna, and in reply to that perplexity, Sri Krishna explains and analyses action, inaction and wrong action.

Action, Inaction, Wrong Action

What is normally called inaction is merely a state of cessation from action; but what is called action is a state that is subject to the workings of Nature and her qualities; the mind that takes refuge in physical inactivity is still under the delusion that it can decide not to work and that by refraining from work, works will stop. But that is not what really happens. For all activities as we see them in the world are activities of Nature, of Prakriti. And by refraining from work, Nature does not stop functioning, since the very nature of Nature is to be an engine of works; even its quality of tamas, inertia, is an activity of obstruction, an activity that is the engagement of energy in arresting the action of energy. This is the reason why the Gita states that he who sees action in inaction is the man of true reason and discernment among men. On the other hand, there is a status of consciousness "where, on account of cessation by inner renunciation of desire, one attains the true immobility of Purusha, which is

truly inactive because there is no impulsion and no necessity of action, even though there is still fullness of consciousness and potency of such a nature that it is not obliged or necessitated to remain devoid of work; and in that status there is no desire to act, but there is a free will,— not obliged to work but capable of working and therefore expressive of work. Work that proceeds from that plane, — work that is not necessitated as in Prakriti, but work that proceeds from fullness of potency of the Purusha, and therefore, above all necessity of action and necessity of any disturbance in the immobility, — that work or action has behind it the status of the inactivity. The discerning sage discerns inactivity even when there is activity in the outer consciousness. It is that action behind which one sees inaction that has to be discovered and allowed to be carried out. Action that is not in consonance with the highest state of consciousness and which is not conducive to that highest state of consciousness is action that is coloured with blemish. That action is wrong action. That there is a status of consciousness from which action proceeds, not from desire and from the tribulations of Prakriti of three Gunas, is a capital affirmation of Yoga of the Gita, and this affirmation runs constantly throughout the eighteen chapters of the Gita. The Ultimate Reality is, according to the Gita, Purushottama, the Purusha who is at once immobile, akshara, and mobile, kshara, and who is simultaneously both and beyond them. The real work, according to the Gita, is the work that proceeds from the will of the Purushottama, the will that is not obliged to act, the will that does not seek fulfillment which it does not possess, but a will that proceeds from fullness and therefore in no need of anything, but also in no need to remain without a free expression of that fullness. Again, it is that consciousness, which is so potent that even when it issues from

fullness and expresses that fullness, it is so free that it retains constantly the status of immobility. That such is the ultimate reality is the yogic realization that one meets also in the statements of the Veda and the Upanishads, and this is also confirmed by the yogic realization of Sri Krishna, the teacher of the Gita.

Inner Renunciation of Desire: Method of Sacrifice

Normally, human beings are activated by desire, and when desire is absent, activity too, appears to cease. Hence, the practical question is as to how one should continue to work even when desire is renounced. It is in answer to this question that the method of Karma yoga is expounded by Sri Krishna, particularly in the first six chapters of the Gita. What is that method?

In one word, the method is that of sacrifice.

Sacrifice and Vedavada

But the moment the word 'sacrifice' is used, the meaning that comes up in the mind in regard to that word, is connected with Vedic karmakanda or the ritualistic sacrifice contained in the Vedavada. The great psychological sense of sacrifice that was emphasized in the yoga of the Veda and the Upanishads was greatly lost in course of time, and the word sacrifice had come to mean, at the time of the Mahabharata, the practice of ritual sacrifices which was propagated as the effective means for securing the fulfillment of desires. Hence, Sri Krishna, as a revolutionary teacher opposed the current sway of Vedavada, and sharply criticized that Vedavada in the Gita. He distinguished the idea of the sacrifice that he intended in the Gita from the ritualistic interpretation of sacrifice. Sri Krishna, while repudiating

Vedavada states: "Unwise men speak flowery words and declare themselves followers of the Vedas but they are devoted to various activities of desire for the sake of enjoyment of their fruits. There is, according to them, nothing else than ritualistic sacrifices inspired by desires and directed towards the fruits of the sacrifices. Indulging in desires, considering heaven to be the highest goal, they engage themselves in works only for the sake of prosperity and enjoyment. Thus, they create a basis for bondage in future embodiments."²⁷

The ritualistic teaching of the Vedavada did not represent the deeper and yogic view of progression towards the highest possible realization of the God-knowledge, world-knowledge and soul-knowledge; the esoteric method of the yoga of the Veda as also of the Upanishad was that of progressive sacrifice of desire leading up to complete elimination of desire so as to allow by methodical process of surrender (nama uktim vidhema, Īśā Upanishad. 18) the direct operation of the Divine Will for its unhindered manifestation. It was that teaching that was lost in due course of time, as Sri Krishna explains in the very first three verses of the fourth chapter, and it was that secret that was now expounded to Arjuna. "Slay thy desire", — these are the unambiguous words of the method of Karma Yoga. The image of the cosmic horse or of the life-force that we find in the very beginning of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is the image of life-force that arises from the ocean of the Inconscience which is driven by desire or Hunger; it is that Hunger that is subsequently in the same Upanishad described as Death; the Horse of Sacrifice is the horse of desire that is to be sacrificed into the higher ocean of superconcience. It is that sacrifice,
ashwamedha, the renunciation of desire that

removes obstruction to the ascending flow leading up to superconcience. As that passage in the Upanishad makes it clear, the immortal waters of the ocean of superconcience rejuvenate the life-force and make it also immortal, amritam, or madhu, sweet and immortal honey. Sri Krishna, therefore, rejected Vedavada and expounded once again the true old teaching of Karma Yoga, the yoga of works. The path of sacrifice that is central to karma yoga has these steps: (i) Renunciation of Desire for the enjoyment of fruits of action; (ii) Renunciation of the Egoistic sense of Doership by offering of Works as Sacrifice; (iii) Complete surrender to the Supreme Divine, Lord of Sacrifice, Purushottama.

14. First Step of Karma Yoga: Renunciation of Desire for the enjoyment of Fruits of Action

The first step of Karma Yoga of the Gita is to indicate where exactly the element of desire is strongest and how at its root the hold of desire can be loosened. It is here that the distinction is made between two elements which are always present in every work. There is, first, a process of activity which is applied towards a result or fruit, and secondly, there is a fruit that is produced as a result of the application of effort. Thus the two elements are: Karma, process of action, and Phala, fruit of action. In the ordinary human psychology, the individual aims at possessing and enjoying the fruit of action, and desire is most acute in regard to the possession and enjoyment of the fruit of action. In this movement of striving for the possession and enjoyment of the fruit, there is a secret operation which betrays the ignorance of the nature of work, process of work and the aim of work, which are truly the operations of universal Prakriti, which is Irking through various instruments of which the human

instrument is only one. That universal Prakriti has its own aim of action, and Prakriti goes on with its operations utilizing its own processes of action for the production and attainment of fruits which are intended by Prakriti. When this process is understood properly, one gains the knowledge that one has no right over the fruits of action. Hence, the first operation of Karma Yoga is directed towards the gaining of the knowledge of Prakriti and to apply the knowledge that the individual agent of work has no right to the fruits of action. The application of this knowledge will imply that one should not strive to possess and enjoy the fruits of action. At this stage of Karma Yoga, therefore, Sri Krishna provides the first injunction of Karma Yoga in the following words:

"Thou hast right only in regard to action, but never to the fruits of action. Never consider thyself to be the cause of the results of thy action, nor shouldst thou be attached to inaction."²⁸

When this injunction is persistently practised, deeper knowledge of the operation of work arises, and one is able to perform actions in a status of stability of consciousness in which one attains the renunciation of the desire to possess and enjoy the fruits of action, and the fruits, whether they are successful or unsuccessful or indifferent, do not affect the stability of consciousness. One is then enabled to perceive more and more accurately the results of action in a state of impartiality, detachment and equality. That state of equality will reflect the silence and immobility of Purusha, which by its very nature, is above all action and all fruits of action. In that state, one will be able to do actions in a greater stability and with due application of skill and dexterity in action.

Equality and Dexterity in Action

At this stage, Sri Krishna underlines two important characteristics of Karma Yoga:

(i) samatvam yoga uchyate, Yoga is verily the status or state of equality, and

(ii) yogah karmasu kauśalam, Yoga is indeed dexterity in works.²⁹ But this is only the first step, although a very great step. During this stage, when the desire for the possession and enjoyment of the fruit of action is removed, there is normally a danger of loss of interest in action itself, as also loss of dexterity in action. There is also increasing perplexity as to whether any action is at all to be performed, and if so, what action is to be performed. There is also the danger of enjoying more and more the state of equality which is not yet matured, and there is, therefore, rationalization in thought which promotes a false idea that any involvement in action is ultimately not justifiable. It is to prevent these dangers that Sri Krishna explains once again the process of Prakriti and shows that while, on the one hand, the poise of equality is to be constantly nourished and even stabilization of consciousness in the immobility of Purusha is to be strengthened, yet, on the other hand, one's hold on the movement of Prakriti and mastery over that movement as also on the fruits produced by that movement are also equally to be strengthened for the attainment of higher and higher states of knowledge and consciousness and for the discovery of the highest Good and the consequential perfection that is attainable.

Sri Krishna explains that none can remain, even for a moment, without doing any deed. The gunas born of Prakriti

impel a person to perform action constantly. One, who has restrained the organs of action outwardly, is not thereby free from desire, and he, therefore, broods over the objects of senses. Even if he abstains from action and thinks that he is free from any necessity of action, his inactivity remains only in appearance to be inactivity; it is actually a false appearance.³⁰ On the other hand, if one has attained inner restraint by the process of renunciation of the desire to possess and enjoy fruits of action, he experiences increasing equality, even though the organs of action are active externally. Sri Krishna, therefore, does not favour renunciation of work or decline in the dexterity in performance of work.

15. Second Step of Karma Yoga:

Renunciation of the Egoistic Sense of Doership by offering Works as Sacrifice to the Lord of Sacrifice

As seen above, Sri Krishna had announced the first step of Karma yoga,³¹ namely, "Thou hast the right to perform action, but thou hast no right to the fruits thereof. Never consider thyself the cause of the results of thy action, nor shouldst thou be attached to inaction". But now, while expounding the second step of Karma Yoga, the method that is proposed is to offer every action (and not merely the fruits of action), as sacrifice. Sri Krishna, in this connection, proceeds forward and suggests modification to the agent's right to action. He points out in III.²⁷: "All actions are performed by the gunas of Prakriti, but he who is bewildered by the false ego, feels: 'I am the doer'."

When it was said that Arjuna had the right to action but not to its fruits, the question of doership of action and the

right of the doer in regard to action was not yet analyzed as it is now analyzed at this stage. It is now explained that the very sense of doership contradicts the working of Prakriti, considering that the ego-sense is a part of Prakriti's movement, and that the ego-sense is only a cog in the machine of universal workings of Prakriti; therefore, when the agent feels that action proceeds from him, he is really misled by a mistaken sense.

Who then is really the agent of action, if all action is determined by the universal Prakriti? What is the role of Purusha who is seen in the Sankhya as immobile witness, and what is his contribution in the movement of action if Prakriti is the doer of action? According to the Sankhya, it is the Purusha, on account of his identification with the ego-sense which belongs to Prakriti, who senses identification as a result of ignorance, and mistakenly thinks that he is the agent of action. But according to Sankhya, Purusha is by its very nature immobile and luminous; how does he fall into delusion? Prakriti, according to Sankhya, is entirely alien to Purusha and independent of Purusha. How then does Purusha have the possibility of getting entangled into Prakriti? These questions are not satisfactorily answered in the Sankhya, and whatever is stated by way of the answer is evidently inconsistent with the ontological positions of Purusha as conscious and inactive and Prakriti as the engine of action but entirely unconscious. There must be, therefore, a better answer to this question, and it is that better answer which is implied in the ontological position that we find in the vast and synthetic teaching of the Gita. Immobile Purusha and active Prakriti of Sankhya, even though both of them correspond to a certain level of experience, are not enough to explain the totality of the highest foundations of

knowledge and the totality of elements which are to be found in the operations of the universe and relationships of the individual with those operations and with the highest foundations. Let us, therefore, see how the teaching of the Gita and the methods of Karma Yoga include the teaching of the Sankhya but go beyond by restating in clearer terms the truths of yogic realizations that are to be found in the Veda and the Upanishads.

16. Ontological Foundations of Gita's Karma Yoga and Synthesis of Yoga:
Ultimate Reality of Purushottama and His Power, Para Prakriti

Both the Veda and the Upanishads speak of the ultimate reality as one without the second. Both have described that One as describable in many ways (bahudhd vadanti); both affirm that One as both immobile and mobile, and yet beyond even the immobile which is itself superior to the mobile. The Gita formulates these basic ontological positions as follows:

"There are two Purushas as far as this world is concerned: kshara (mobile) and akshara (immobile). All these existences of the world are called kshara; and kutastha (immobile) is called akshara. The Highest Purusha is different from these two. He is called the Supreme Being, who though immutable, permeates the three worlds, and is the Lord and controls and sustains them. I (Sri Krishna, the avatar of the Supreme) transcend the mobile and am superior to the immobile. I am proclaimed as the Supreme Self, Purushottama, in this world as well as in the Veda."³²

In chapter seven, Sri Krishna expands the Sankhyan view

of Prakriti as he has already expanded the Sankhyan view of Purusha in chapter fifteen. This expansion of the idea of Prakriti is stated in the following words:

"Earth, water, fire, ether, mind, intellect and ego — this is the eight-fold Prakriti, which is My nature. That is My lower nature, O Mighty-armed Arjuna! Other than this, know my higher Nature which has manifested as the individual souls, and it is that higher nature by which this entire world is sustained ....O Arjuna, there exists nothing else that is higher than Me. All this is woven upon Me like rows of gems upon a string."³³

In chapter eight, the following description of Purushottama is to be found, and in describing Purushottama, the goal of Divine Love or Bhakti is underlined:

"This is the supreme Person, O Arjuna, in whom all existence and by whom all this is pervaded, is attainable by unwavering single-minded devotion."³⁴

The ninth chapter, which affirms the deeper secrets of the Gita's Yoga, which, in turn, is described as the yoga of supreme secret (rājavidyā rājaguhya yoga), the supreme transcendence of the Purushottama is described as follows:

"This entire world is pervaded by Me in My unmanifest form. All beings abide in Me, but I am not confined in them. And yet these beings do not exist in Me; behold my divine mystery. Although My spirit is the source of all beings and sustainer of the beings, yet I am not confined in them. Realize that as the mighty wind that moves everywhere abides always in the sky, in the same way all becomings abide in Me. .....Holding down My own Nature I manifest myself again and again. This entire multitude of beings who

are rendered helpless when they are caught by Prakriti.... O Arjuna, it is Prakriti that generates the whole world of all that is mobile and immobile under My rulership, and it is for this reason that this living world keeps on variously transforming itself .... Endowed with futile desires, futile actions, false knowledge, devoid of wisdom and intelligence, they continue to be deluded and attracted by that layer of Nature (Prakriti) which is delusive and which characterizes violent hunger and domineering tyranny. O Arjuna, the great souls, however, who abide in my Higher Nature, Divine Nature, worship Me with an undistracted mind knowing Me to be the imperishable source of all beings. Always absorbed in adoring Me, endeavoring with great determination bowing down to Me, these great souls, endowed with devotion worship Me. There are others who worship Me with the sacrifice of knowledge both in my Oneness and in diversity, possessed in my universal form of multifarious faces. I am the Will, I am Sacrifice, I am offering, I am the medicinal herb, I am the sacred mantra, I am the clarity and I am the fire and I am the offering. .... I am the recipient as well as the Lord of all sacrifices. .... Whoever sacrifices to Me with devotion even a leaf, or a flower, or a fruit or water, I accept that offering of love from My pure hearted devotee. Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer as oblation, whatever you give, and whatever austerities you may practise, — do that as an offering and as a sacrifice to Me."35

17. Two Master-conceptions of the Gita: Purushottama and Para Prakriti

Two master conceptions of the Gita are those of Purushottama and of Para Prakriti, the supreme Lord and his

supreme power; these two concepts are not new, and they are not arrived at by any philosophical speculative process. They are based on yogic experiences to repeat which and to verify which yogic methods of the synthesis of yoga in which works, knowledge and divine love are harmoniously blended have been laid down. They also confirm the yogic experiences which have been recorded in the Veda and the Upanishads, although the words used in the Gita are novel. Some of the corresponding words used in the Veda for the Gita's Purushottama are: "tad ekam” (That One),³⁶ "tad adbhutam” (That wonderful),³⁷ "One, who is neither today nor tomorrow but has motion in the consciousness in another",³⁸ "catvāri śrnga” "trayoasya pāda” (the four-homed bull with three feet),³⁹ and Purusha described in the Purusha Sukta.⁴⁰ The words used in the Upanishads are: "tad ejati tad na ejati” (That moves and That which does not move),⁴¹ "avyaktāt parah pursah” (the highest Purusha above the Unmanifest).⁴² "akśrāt parātah parah” (Supreme beyond the Immutable).⁴³ The words in the Veda, which correspond to Gita's parā prakrti, are mainly: "dhenu” (the Cow), "Aditi” (Original Indivisible Mother); those in the Upanishads are mainly: "Aditi”, as also "stree” "Uma", (the Woman, Uma, who guides Indra to discover the Supreme Lord).⁴⁴ These two concepts resolve the difficulties which are found in the Sankhya in regard to the relationship of the Immobile and luminous Purusha with the Mobile but unconscious Prakriti. These concepts also resolve the difficulties in relating the Immobile Brahman with dynamic manifested world within the framework of the Vedantic Monism. They also enable the transcendence of Vedavada and its ritualism. They bring into the forefront the esoteric teaching of the Vedic yoga and show how Karmakanda can be uplifted into Karma Yoga in which

work and knowledge can be united and where the concept of sacrifice is enlarged into the concept of offering of all actions
(sarva karmāni) as sacrifice through which desire can be eliminated and where the motivation of desire is replaced by that of sacrifice and surrender to the Divine.

The concept of parā prakrti, as the higher nature of Purushottama, establishes the Vedic and the Upanishadic experience of oneness both in diversity and above diversity. The concept of parā prakrti, as the one Supreme Power, which manifests not only in all as the One, but in each as the Jiva, the individual spiritual presence, and which also manifests the essence of all qualities of Nature, brings out in sharp focus the complexity of the Ultimate Reality as at once transcendental, universal and the individual. The mystery of the individual soul, Jiva, which is quite veiled elsewhere, finds in the Gita its explicit position and its relationship with the Immobile Purusha along with its relationship with all that is mobile and also with the transcendental Purushottama as His eternal portion {mama eva amśah sanātanah)⁴⁵ Prakriti is conceived in Sankhya as one of the two independent and ultimate realities, even though that Prakriti consists of three dissimilar qualities; but in the Gita this Prakriti finds a subordinate position, as a derivative of higher Prakriti in which all qualities are properly harmonized. How Purusha which is self-luminous gets entangled and eclipsed in its consciousness by mere association with unconscious Prakriti, remains enigmatic in the Sankhya; but this enigma gets a proper reply and explanation in the Gita. The Immobile Purusha in the Gita remains ever-luminous and inactive; but it is the Jiva, the individual soul, which in its dynamic poise, ksara, that gets entangled by its descent from the Para Prakriti into Apara Prakriti.⁴⁶ The status of the

immobility of Immutable Purusha can always be recovered by the Jiva by an active will in its dynamic aspect by the process of Yoga; the Jiva can also ascend back into Para Prakriti and rise also into relationship with the Supreme Lord as its eternal portion.

One great difficulty in reconciling the Sankhya with the Vedanta is that although the Purusha in the Sankhya and the Brahman in the Vedanta are both luminous and immobile, the Purusha in Sankhya is plural, while the Brahman in the Vedanta is One without the Second. The Sankhya was obliged to posit in its intellectual philosophy the plurality of the Purushas because of two important facts which needed to be explained satisfactorily in any metaphysical system. The first is the fact that each individual in the world, despite many common characteristics with other individuals, has such a distinctive outlook of its experience in the world that its uniqueness can be explained only if each individual is ontologically different from the others. The second fact that had to be explained by the Sankhya was that when one individual gets liberated, all others do not thereby get liberated; this can happen only if each individual is separate from all the others and if each individual is individually bound to Prakriti and gets individually liberated. The Vedanta of the Gita resolves this problem by affirming, first, that the Purusha or the Brahman is always non-dual or non-plural in its immobile status; on the other hand, the Gita affirms that it is only in the kshara aspect of the reality, the One Supreme Reality, Purushottama, that multiplicity of individual souls or Jivas is put forth⁴⁷ without abrogating their oneness in the Brahmic consciousness. The Gita accepts the multiplicity of the individual souls but not their plurality, since plurality would amount to the independent

existence of each individual without any kind of dependence on one Source.

Under the premises of the pure Sankhya alone, the combining of works and liberation is impossible. Under the premises of the immobile Brahmic monism in Vedanta, the permanent continuation of works as a part of yoga and the indulgence of devotion after perfect knowledge and liberation and union are attained, become impossible or at least rationally unsustainable. But the Gita transcends both the Sankhyan dualism and pure Vedantic Monism by discovering, by a higher yogic knowledge which is also in conformity with the synthesis of the yogic realizations of the Veda and the Upanishad, the vision and experience of Purushottama. We have in the Gita the Vedantic yoga of works, which is rooted in the complex and integral Monism; as a result, action is not in the Gita merely a preparation but itself the means of liberation, and action continues even after liberation, since action thereafter becomes a part of divine action itself. Similarly, Gita's Vedantic yoga of devotion and divine love is not only a preparation but itself the means of liberation, and devotion continues even after liberation, since the Jiva, as distinguished from ego, who is an eternal portion of the Purushottama, can continue to subsist as that portion in a state of divine love with all its intensity and permanence in the state of liberation. The integral knowledge continues to be the immortal foundation of works and devotion, and as Sri Krishna points out, the divine lover who is also the divine knower is dearer to the Divine than all other categories of devotees. The Vedavada, which emphasized ritualistic work of sacrifice as an exclusive and as the only path (na anyad asti iti vādinah)⁴⁸ is also transcended by the Gita, and while it admits the justification for works, it provides a sure

foundation for all works (sarvakarmāni), and it also uplifts the meaning of works as sacrifice by insisting on the renunciation of desires which are normally to be found to be inescapably associated with works and even with ritualistic works in the framework of Vedavada. In transcending the Vedavada, the Gita admits the utility of the Veda as a Scripture but it appeals to a deeper source of knowledge by pointing out that the Supreme Lord is in the heart of every man and from Him is the knowledge. In that context, the Gita points out: "When thy intelligence shall cross beyond the world of delusion, then shalt thou become indifferent to Scripture heard or that which thou hast yet to hear, 'tadā gantāsi nirvedam śrotavyasya śrutasya ca’. When thy intelligence which is bewildered by the shruti, 'śrutivipratipannā’, shall stand unmoving and stable in Samadhi, then shalt thou attain to Yoga."⁴⁹ This is how the Gita places Yoga as superior to religious ritualism and to the authority of the Scripture, and this justifies the description of the Gita as yogashastra, systematic science of yoga. In other words, the Gita provides a sound basis for the untrammelled truth-seeking of the free and illumined mind and God-experienced soul, and in this way the Gita rings with the message with the all-liberating quest that irrespective of what is heard or unheard before, one must always seek the truth in the illumined depths of the heart where knowledge can be unfolded in a yogic process, not only from Ignorance to Knowledge, but even of Knowledge proceeding to a still higher, profounder and wider Knowledge, the intimations of which can always be heard directly from the Supreme Lord, who is the inmost Guide and Master of all knowledge.

The discovery of the Para Prakriti, the higher nature that

we find in the Gita, — or rather the rediscovery, since this higher nature was already discovered in the Veda and also in the Upanishads and formulated in the concept of Aditi, the infinite Mother, — is central to the solution that Sri Krishna provides to Arjuna. Arjuna had come to the battlefield with the confident sense of the Right in regard to the role that he wanted to play in the battle of the Kurukshetra; he was acting according to the dharma of kshatriya, the dharma of the warrior that was recognized in his Age to fight and even to massacre, if need be, his enemies, who were judged in the highest light available to him to be a source of adharma. — of injustice and uncivilized passions, which were leading the society towards degradation. He knew that he was acting according to dharma and his action was right and just. But when confronted physically with the situation, he found that what he had thought was dharma was actually adharma, since he was to massacre his own grandfather and his teachers in whose service it was his dharma to give up his own life; even if he thought that it was his dharma to seek his own happiness or the happiness of all to whom he owed so much, his brethren and his relatives and friends and others, in whose company alone and sharing happiness with whom alone, happiness had to be sought and enjoyed, were the very people whom he was to massacre; to avoid the massacre was his dharma in preference to what he had thought was dharma; in other words, his dharma to fight was, he now thought, was adharma; but even if that adharma had some justification, what about the adharma that was to arise in the entire society as a result of massive massacre of enemies whose wives would be rendered into the state of widowhood and would be obliged by the force of the human nature to take recourse to immoral ways of life that would

generate generations of people who would be born through immorality? That would be a total collapse of dharma. Which dharma, he had asked, that he had to follow? And is it not true that, after all, sannyasa, renunciation of all works was the right thing to do, as was advocated by Sankhyan philosophy and seers? He had felt that that was his dharma, —to renounce the entire field of work, to renounce the desire for happiness, the desire for kingdom, and even to allow himself to be killed unarmed and without resistance by his own enemies. But even this renunciation, even if it was seen for a moment to be the right solution — was it truly the right solution? Arjuna was not sure. He confessed his confusion and his bewilderment and turned to Sri Krishna for light and for a true solution so as to be able to do what was perfectly right and to which no blemish could apply. Arjuna was in complete bewilderment, where dharma collided with dharma, and where standards of conduct erected within the circle of human consciousness stood in sharp conflict with each other. This confusion and bewilderment was also the cause of all-consuming sorrow, and Arjuna found no way of relief from that sorrow. In that hour of terrible crisis, Sri Krishna assured him to show the way by which he could act and fight in the battle with such a new consciousness that there would be in his action such purity that it would be devoid of any blemish.

If ultimate reality consisted of only two independent principles of Purusha and Prakriti, and if all movement of energy and action were to be only in the realm of Prakriti, there could be no action which would be free from the obscurity of Prakriti, free from desire and free from the operations of ego. Within the circle of the nature of Prakriti, the very operations of which are a disequilibrium of three

gunas, one can never arrive in that circle any possibility of harmonious action, an action where dharma and adharma and dharma and dharma could ever cease to collide with each other, since all dharmas and adharmas are the unavoidable parts of the disequilibrium of inertia, tamas, impulsion to act, rajas and striving for light and harmony, sattwa. Prakriti is a constant field of disequilibrium; how can one find in that field anything that can be judged to be entirely right or entirely wrong? And how can any decisive action follow in which there is true and justifiable and totally right action? It is only if the action of energy of Prakriti that is described in Sankhya is not all, if it is only a derivative, incomplete and imperfect movement flowing from a higher source of energy in which all is totally harmonius with all that is released from its source, then it is only by renouncing the workings of lower Prakriti, the Sankhyan Prakriti, and only by embracing the higher Prakriti that there is a possibility of action that would be totally good. The Gita affirms that the Sankhyan account of Prakriti is an account of lower Prakriti, but there is a higher Prakriti of which the lower Prakriti is a sub-ordinate derivative, and that the higher Prakriti, Para Prakriti, is the luminous and conscious will and power of the supreme Purusha, in every movement of whom there is inherent harmony and fullness of spiritual purity.⁵⁰ The entire drift of Sri Krishna's argument in answer to the questions of Arjuna is directed towards the affirmation of Para Prakriti and towards the way and the method by which Arjuna can perceive that will and unite himself with that will so that that will can spontaneously flow through Arjuna as that Para Prakriti's will, which is always the totally luminous will of the Purushottama.

18. Two Descriptions of Para Prakriti:
(i) Higher Nature, the Power of Purushottama
(ii) Higher Nature manifest in Jiva

As a part of that perception, there are two important descriptions of Para Prakriti which are extremely significant. The first is that the higher nature is the original nature of Purushottama and that the astadhā prakriti, the Prakriti that is described in Sankhyan philosophy, is lower energy and derived from Purushottama but through a higher source of the higher Prakriti, Para Prakriti. That higher nature is higher because it is the direct will of the Purushottama himself, and it is as universal and luminously universal as the Purushottama, even though Purushottama is still transcendental in a state where both immobility of Purusha or Brahman is synthesized with the mobility of higher nature. That higher nature is luminously comprehensive, constantly unifying, constantly harmonizing; it is the consciousness that corresponds to the description in the Veda of the synthesis of the vastness of Varuna and the harmony of Mitra. In that consciousness, there is no conflict and no possibility of conflict. The second important point refers to the description of the higher nature as parā prakritir jīvabhūtā, the higher nature that has become or manifested in the Jiva, which, in turn, is described as an eternal portion of the Purushottama, mama eva amśah sanātanah.⁵¹ It is here that we are introduced to the idea of the eternal indivisibility of the indivisible portion of Purushottama, the individual soul, which is in reality one with the Purushottama, even though a portion, in the same way as a wave is indivisible from the ocean. These two important points make all the difference between the pluralism of Sankhya and integralism of Gita's

Vedanta with its emphasis on eternal oneness of Reality in all manifestation and beyond manifestation.

19. Complexity of Self-Knowledge

In the complexity of the individual human consciousness, there is, apart from the mute presence of the immutable Purusha or Brahman, on the one hand, and the overt operations at the physical, vital and mental levels of the obscure disequilibrium of the workings of the Apara Prakriti of the three gunas, on the other, there are also secret operations of superconscient levels, there are hidden operations of Para Prakriti, the higher nature. And, seated in the inmost depths and profundities of our heart, there is seated that individual soul, which has the same nature as that of Para Prakriti. It is that individual soul, which has been described in the Kathopanishad as the eater of sweetness (madhvadah) and as the Dwarf or the being no bigger than the thumb.⁵² All action in the human complex being is not merely the action of lower nature, there is also a mixed result of the operations of the individual soul or Jiva and Para Prakriti. In our ordinary understanding of the human complex, what we call 'I' is the ego, which is only the product of the lower nature; the ego is only a cog in the machine of Prakriti, although because of the obscurity which is inherent in the movements of Prakriti, it is constantly engaged in unifying the limited flow of the energies which are flowing around it; it sees nothing else vividly than that surrounding flow of energy, and it feels itself that it is the center of all that is and all that is becoming of that self, and is itself independent in its unifying action of anything other than itself. In reality, all that is flowing around ego and all that is unifying and even its own impulsion that is engaged

in unifying action is a part of a vast and universal movement of Prakriti. This egoistic consciousness is ignorant of all, — of itself and of the vast universal energy of which it has no clear conception. The jiva, on the other hand, is the individual consciousness having its luminous source in the workings of higher nature, and even then it is not a mere construction; it is a manifest portion of the Purushottama, eternal and immortal, sanatanah, and even though in its workings, it manifests only a partial consciousness of the Purushottama and the Para Prakriti, its boundaries are transparent and can constantly expand into its luminous awareness of itself as essentially the Universal Lord, Ishwara, but individualized in the play of the totality; it is, therefore, capable of constantly universalizing itself and living in the transcendental. It is this individual consciousness, the Jiva, is found to be hooked to Apara Prakriti through the instrumentality of that cog of the machinery of Prakriti, which is called ego. But even in that condition, this Jiva is in his dynamic relationships with the ego and the universal workings of Apara Prakriti, superior to all of them, and, if it so wills, it can always act and manifest sovereignly and control the impulsions of the gunas and of the inducements of the ego. This Jiva is constantly capable of acting, and the more it wills to act, the more will it manifest its superiority and its freedom from the clutches of the movements of Apara Prakriti and of the ego. This is the reason why Sri Krishna speaks of the Jiva's right of action, but this right belongs to jiva, not to ego. As far as the ego is concerned, it has right neither to the fruits of action nor to the action itself. The ego is constantly impelled by the universal movements of Prakriti. But the Jiva, when pressed by the unacceptable position of bondage to the ego, it can, if

it so wills, rise above its bondage to Prakriti and affirm its superiority; it can even lift itself from the lower self of the ego constituted by the lower Prakriti. This is what Sri Krishna suggests in the sixth chapter⁵³ when he says that one should lift his self by his own self, uddharet ātmanā ātmānam. In fact, if there were no individual soul, and if there were only the ego and workings of Apara Prakriti, on the one hand, and the immobile Purusha, on the other, there would be complete determinism of Prakriti, and there would be no possibility of higher action that can surmount the loads and weights of the machinery of Prakriti. Normally, when jiva remains hooked to the ego and does not exercise his will to rise above the ego, then the resultant condition is what Sri Krishna describes when he says, "prakrtim yānti bhūtāni, nigrahah kim karisyatī”, all creatures follow the drive of Prakriti, of what avail is the restraint?⁵⁴ It is true that the power of universal Prakriti is so irresistible that the movement of restraint that emerges from the very workings of Prakriti itself, is of no avail. But it is possible for the impulsion of restraint to emerge from the jiva, and it can uplift itself from the workings of the three gunas and can even impart the impact of its upward will on the movements of the lower Prakriti and can eventually effect the transformation of that Prakriti. In fact, the very justification of yoga, which depends upon the effort of the upward will, rests upon the presence of the jiva and the operations of this jiva as also on various possibilities of these operations within the psychological complex of the human consciousness. It is on the basis of the possibility of this movement that Sri Krishna promises Arjuna to lift him up from his crisis and show him how by that upliftment he can perceive the movements of higher Prakriti and make those movements operative in that

very field of action in which he finds himself entangled and from which he wants to be delivered. There is, according to Sri Krishna, a way superior to that way which is available to him within the framework of the Sankhya. That superior way is the way of Karma Yoga, which is the way of works, — not the way of renunciation of works, but yet that way of works involves (i) the renunciation of desire which is operation of lower Prakriti, and (ii) the willingness on the part of the jiva to allow the higher Prakriti to manifest itself through the instrumentality of the jiva. This is the way of works, but it is the way in which the knowledge of comprehensive consciousness of the Divine, both in its essence and its manifestation, (jnānam savijnānam)⁵⁵ is indispensable. This is the way where the willingness of jiva is motivated, not by desire any more, but by its progressive self-giving and surrender (bhakti) to the operations of Para Prakriti, to the will of Purushottama and the being of Purushottama himself. This is the synthesis of the yoga of the Gita.

The concept and experience of the jiva as formulated in the Gita is a reaffirmation of the concept and experience that is to be found both in the Veda and the Upanishad, although expressed in language and symbolism that were appropriate to their own Age. In the Veda, the entire yoga is centered on the esoteric sense of the sacrifice; sacrifice was conceived as sacrifice of works combined with renunciation of desire, and combined also with attainment of the knowledge of the cosmic forces, cosmic beings, gods and goddesses, as also the knowledge of Aditi, Divine Mother, and of the Supreme Purusha that was conceived and experienced as Transcendental Originator of the universe. At the deeper level, the truth of sacrifice can best be seen in the Purusha Sukta of the Veda,⁵⁶ where the Purusha sacrifices himself into the abyss

of darkness or inconscient in order to dynamically participate in the growth and the evolution of the world from the state of the Inconscience and lead it to the highest ocean of consciousness of bliss and to the waters of honey and sweetness. This sacrifice of Purusha implied also the sacrifice of Aditi or Para Prakriti, the power of Purusha, as also the sacrifice of the Jiva, the eternal portion of the Supreme Purusha. The process of evolution from the Inconscience towards higher levels of consciousness repeats the process of sacrifice, and the jiva rises from Inconscience, the realm of Apara Prakriti, by the sacrifice of desire and all the other elements that have arisen and are arising from the Apara Prakriti. This process of sacrifice is the Yoga that was proposed in the Veda for the seeker, the yajamāna, the individual who performs the yoga of sacrifice for the attainment of immortality and immortal bliss of imperishable life. It was this Yoga that was exemplified in the Veda in the experiences and realizations of the Ribhus. The individual is the Son of the Father, the Supreme Lord, of whom Vishwamitra speaks in Rigveda;⁵⁷ many other hymns also speak of that son. The individual is conceived in the Veda in the image of Shunahshepa, who was bound as a victim to the sacrificial post with three ropes of limited mind, inefficient life, and obscure physical animality, the three cords corresponding to the later philosophical formulation of sattwa, rajas and tamas of Apara Prakriti. The yoga of Shunahshepa is the yoga of the individual soul, jiva, in which a connection is built between the upward will of Shunahshepa, and the higher ocean of immortal waters and supreme felicity. That upward will arises, according to Veda, from the inner agni, the individual soul, who is the Son of the Father. The inner agni is the mystic fire that burns always

in the inmost altar of the mystic heart in the form of aspiration and prayer which always rises upwards. That prayer is a call to Indra and Varuna and others who manifest the waters and the law of the flow of waters which are inherent in the divine nature of bliss, the essential character of Aditi (or Para Prakriti, to use the term of the Gita). According to the Vedic parable of Shunahshepa, Varuna, the mighty lord of divine law and harmony, comes down in the aid of Shunahshepa, the symbolic individual soul, aspiring for liberation from three cords of Prakriti. Varuna sunders the threefold restraint, and the individual soul is freed towards divine riches and immortality. Thus uplifted, the individual soul, jiva, the real man, rises to his true kingship in the undivided being of the Supreme Purusha of whom he is the eternal portion.

In the Upanishads, the individual soul is specifically described as jiva in the Kathopnishad, where it is stated: "He that has known from the very close this Eater of sweetness (madhwadah) the jiva (ātmānam jīvam), the self within that is lord of what was and what shall be, shrinks not thereafter from aught nor abhors any."⁵⁸ It is again that jiva which is described as Purusha, as one who is the Lord, Isha, and as one who is seated in the midst of our Self, no larger than the thumb of man. In the following two verses of Kathopnishad, it is stated: "The Purusha who is seated in the midst of one's self is no larger than the thumb of a man; He is the Lord of what was and what shall be. Him having seen one shrinks not from aught, nor abhors any.... .The Purusha that is within us is no larger than the thumb of a man (^{angustamātrah}): He is like a blazing fire that is without smoke. He is lord of His past and His future. He alone is today and He alone shall be tomorrow."⁵⁹ Indeed, there is much more in the Veda and the

Upanishad which is confirmed and reaffirmed in the Gita's concept and experience of Purushottama who is the immobile Purusha and Brahman as also mobile, kshara manifest as Para Prakriti that becomes jiva and also jiva, that is the eternal portion of the Purushottama.

20. Sacrifice and the Jiva

The entire exposition of the Gita in respect of sacrifice, yajna, which is the second step in the Karma Yoga of the Gita can be seen as that of a gradual ascent of the jiva by the affirmation of the dynamic will, which is distinct from the status of the immobile Purusha, on the one hand, and also distinct from the movements of the Prakriti of the three gunas. Psychologically, desire can be conquered, and action can take place without the impulsion of desire, because there is in the individual soul a Will, independent of desire and ego, the products of Apara Prakriti; that Will can blow away desire by sacrificing it by means of its fire that is inherent in it. Without giving up works, but by lifting the works on the fire of the upward will, the jiva, progressively bums away all the fibres of desire and threads of the ego, and one can attain to liberation from Apara Prakriti. In that state of liberation, the Jiva realizes the immobility of the Purusha and at the same time, it unites the sacrificing will with the dynamic divine will that manifests through Para Prakriti. Work itself thus becomes a means of liberation, and work itself acts as a liberating force enabling the realization of both the immobile Purusha and the mobile Purusha and of the Purushottama. This is the central secret of the Gita's Karma Yoga. But since this Yoga has to be worked out progressively, the path of sacrifice is conceived as a gradual path of Ascent, and each step of this ascent is a step towards

swarajya and samarajya, the free rule of the true self over one's own self and free rule of the self over all that comes within the empire of the self.

21. Ascent of the Sacrifice

Sacrifice is, indeed, the king-idea of the Gita's Karma Yoga and Gita's synthesis of yoga. At the stage where one detaches oneself from the right of enjoyment of the fruits of action, one still continues with the idea of oneself as the doer of action. "I am the doer, I am the doer".⁶⁰ This sense persists. Secondly, when desire for the fruits of action is renounced, a perilous possibility arises, namely, the possibility of renunciation of all works, since normally all action proceeds from a motive, and normally the motive is associated with the desire for the enjoyment of the fruits of action. The engine of action therefore becomes weaker if that motive of desire is gradually withdrawn. But it is here that the motive of desire gets replaced by the motive to perform action as sacrifice, as self-offering, as a movement in which all desires are offered in the sacrificial fire of tapasya in which they can all be burnt up. The motive of sacrifice, when practised more and more persistently, reveals that that motive does not essentially emerge from the network of the movements of Apara Prakriti, although for sometime the ego-consciousness is involved in that motive and action of sacrifice. At a deeper level, however, it will be found that the motive of the sacrifice has its essential root in the consciousness of the jiva, whose spontaneous breathing and life is a constant and spontaneous offering to the Para Prakriti and to the Purushottama. That spontaneous state of offering of the jiva is not desire; for it is not a movement to possess something that is not within itself nor is it for the

sustenance of any construction that the ego at its highest can construct. The jiva breathes spontaneously its offering to its source in an action that unites it constantly, — not with something that is outside itself, — but with that which is its deepest self and its own deepest source of existence. This motive, even though it may begin with the taints of egoism and lower motivation of desire, becomes free from those taints and limitations; actually, even these also are offered in the fire of the sacrifice. Every work done as sacrifice becomes then a liberating work; every work is a means by which sacrifice of desires and of ego is effected; and every work becomes the revealer of one's true soul and also the revealer of the knowledge that there is ultimately only one source of action, only one doer, the Para Prakriti, the higher nature, the executrix of the ultimate Doer, namely, Purushottama. The false idea that one is a doer of action, that ego is a doer, is clearly seen to be false. One begins to perceive that even activities of Prakriti, even the formation of ego and all operations of Prakriti, with all their limitations, have to be traced back to Para Prakriti and Purushottama. Indeed; this tracing is very difficult; for how from Para Prakriti, Apara Prakriti has emerged with all its ignorance and limitation is a great mystery. But with the constant practice of sacrifice, all the threads of Apara Prakriti can be seen to be connected with the operations of Para Prakriti and thence with Purushottama. The jiva can thus return to a very high status of knowledge, status of integral knowledge, samagram jnānam., jnānam savijnānam,⁶¹ in which all terms of existence, all terms of reality stand in perfect relationship, and one can then attain to the vision of Purushottama.

22. Self-Surrender, the Third Step of Karma Yoga

And having seen that Purushottama, the individual cannot but be filled with that supreme bhakti, which is the crown of the profoundest joy and immortality. From that joy, there can proceed perfect desireless action, free from any taint of ego or desire, from any taint of blemish. In that vision and, in that experience, the third step of Karma Yoga, Self- surrender to the Supreme, the culminating point of Karma Yoga, which is disclosed in the last chapter of the Gita, is attained. The statement of that culminating point can really be regarded as the mahāvākya of the Gita. It lays down the method of complete self-surrender, — spontaneous, simple and yet full, — in which all laws of action which are necessary for climbing the staircase of the ascent of the sacrifice, can also be sacrificed; and it is by renunciation of those standards that the highest standard, the highest law, the highest law of divine action, divyam karma, is discovered and becomes practicable.

23. Intermediate Stages of the Synthesis of Yoga

The ascent of sacrifice necessitates the synthesis of increasing knowledge of oneness and increasing practice of equality. In fact, this synthesis is the governing principle of all the steps of Karma Yoga. Development of the largest and highest states of powers of consciousness of oneness and equality constitutes the peak attainment. The kernel of the method is unreserved acceptance of the Divine, of the Purushottama, of the Lord of Sacrifice, to whom sacrifice is offered and by whom sacrifice is received. This acceptance of the divine in our life as in our inner-self and spirit facilitates the inner renunciation of personal desire. With this

the consciousness of equality increases and greater and greater surrender to the divine becomes more and more spontaneous, and it gets filled with that love, that devotion, which cannot be sufficiently hymned in human terms. The jiva becomes increasingly free from the lower Prakriti and becomes more and more united with the Para Prakriti, and one attains to oneness with Purushottama in dynamic force and not only in static peace or inactive beatitude. It is in that increasing state of self-surrender that the promise that Sri Krishna had made to Arjuna can be fulfilled: Freedom for the spirit even in the midst of work and in the midst of full energies at work. An integral dynamic activity gets founded on a still passivity, a largest possible action gets irrevocably based on an immobile calm. There arises free and full expression of a supreme inward silence.

There are many ways by which the synthesis of yoga can grow and develop in different individuals, and all these ways can be seen ultimately as His ways, and the divine consciousness deals with each individual in the way that is appropriate to him and guides him and leads him up to the highest possible levels of perfection on the lines of development suitable to him. A full treatise on synthesis of yoga would be much more extensive in which several ways and manners in which the higher stages of synthesis can be developed. But the Gita, although a yogashastra, is not that extensive theoretical exposition. The yoga and the gradual development of the synthesis of yoga that is presented in the Gita is circumscribed within an episode of a huge cauldron of an intensest movement of war at a historical development, and it is centered on answering a dynamic bewilderment of a man of action. Therefore, the Gita is an exposition of the process, the starting-point of which was Karma Yoga. If that

Yoga were addressed to a man of knowledge or to a man of emotional aesthesis or emotional fervour of love, the expositional development of the Yoga would have been quite different. In actuality, therefore, the Gita's Yoga weaves Jnana Yoga and Bhakti Yoga with Karma Yoga, and this weaving is extraordinarily subtle and complex. The processes of Jnana Yoga and Bhakti Yoga can be all discerned. The descriptions that we find of buddhi yoga, brahma nirvana yoga, of the rajyogic practices of concentration and further expansion by which jnana is woven with vijnana all these are clearly parts of the path of Knowledge. It is shown that the path of knowledge is indispensable for the development of Karma Yoga. For in both, the delusion of the dualities, which arise from likes and dislikes, has to be destroyed. In both the processes of yoga, there is a necessity of utter purification from the clutches of the vital ego, the fire of passion, the tumult of desire of the rajasic nature, and one has to cultivate the steadiness of sattwic impulse of the ethical being. When that is done or as it is being done, there is the growth of the sattwic nature that nourishes the increasing capacity for a high quietude, equality and transcendence. Both in Karma Yoga and Jnana Yoga, it is necessary to rise above the dualities and become impersonal, equal, one with the Immutable — one with all-existence. As this process develops, self-knowledge, world-knowledge and God-knowledge are enlarged. And with this enlargement, a new element grows more spontaneously and begins to occupy a central position.

This new element is the increase in devotion, Bhakti. That is the reason why it becomes easier to synthesize the method of Karma Yoga in which the sacrifice to the Supreme Lord gets increasing preeminence, and with the increase of

sacrifice, the knowledge of immutable is ripened and even attained; but there is also an expansion into world- knowledge so as to gain the knowledge of the two natures of the divine being, the higher nature and the lower nature as also a more perfect and integral knowledge of oneness of existence even in diversity and various degrees of the developments that are constantly evolving in Apara Prakriti by their constant expansion in which Para Prakriti can burst out and manifest. But as the synthesis begins to grow, one has not only to act in a large spirit of equality, but also to do sacrifice to the Supreme Lord, who becomes known more and integrally, samagram mām.⁶² One has then the vision of the One Self everywhere in all existences. But with increase of equality and vision of unity, devotion from the heart of the seeker for the Lord of Sacrifice to whom works are being offered begins to grow, and with the greater knowledge of the jiva and his relationship with the immutable spirit as its own inmost Self, and its relationship with Para Prakriti and Purushottama, the inmost love which constitutes the very being of the jiva becomes more and more manifest. The seeker becomes firm in bhakti, and along with the process of self-consecration of all being, — of all activities of knowledge, and of all activities of varieties of works, bhakti gains the base of the knowledge. With that firm base, the movements of bhakti become intenser, and the lower forms of bhakti are transcended, — bhajante mām drdha vratāh. ⁶³

The Gita recognizes distinctions between different kinds of seekers who are moved by devotion. There are, according to the Gita, four kinds of Bhaktas, devotees. There are those who are ārta,⁶⁴ who are in the state of deep sorrow and suffering in the world, and therefore they turn to a higher help and take refuge in whomever they regard as Divine or

capable of providing refuge. There are those who are arthārthī ⁶⁵ who are seekers of welfare, prosperity, and the good, and who seek the help of the divine in the form of anyone, any superior source who can serve as a giver of the good. Then there are those who are desirous of knowledge, jijnāsu⁶⁶ and they also approach the Divine or any higher source from where knowledge is obtainable. And lastly, there are those who have come to know the Divine, not in the form in which he can be approached or known through inferior formations, human powers, angelic powers or godly powers, but of the Divine directly who is behind all inferior formations but who transcends them all, the divine in Himself, both in his essence and in his divine manifestations; they are jnāni; they are knowers and who adore the Divine. The Gita recognizes all the lower forms of bhakti and accepts them also in their own place, udārāh sarva evaite⁶⁷ but points out that the Bhakti that is coupled with knowledge excels them all, viśīsyate. For the knowledge of the Divine is difficult to attain, and rare on earth is the great soul, mahātmā, who is capable of fully seeing him and entering into him with his whole being, in every way of his nature, by the wide power of this all-embracing knowledge, sarvavit sarvabhāvena.⁶⁸