Essays on the Gita -Sri Aurobindo
First Series : Chapter 18
The Divine Worker
The ordinary man depends upon outward things for his happiness; therefore he has desire; therefore he has anger and passion, pleasure and pain, joy and grief; therefore he measures all things in the balance of good fortune and evil fortune. None of these things can affect the divine soul; it is ever satisfied without any kind of dependence, nityatrpto niras rayah.; for its delight, its divine ease, its happiness, its glad light are eternal within, ingrained in itself, a tmaratih. , antah sukho ’ntarara mas tatha ntarjyotir eva yah. What joy it takes in outward things is not for their sake, not for things which it seeks in them and can miss, but for the self in them, for their expression of the Divine, for that which is eternal in them and which it cannot miss. It is without attachment to their outward touches, but finds everywhere the same joy that it finds in itself, because its self is theirs, has become one self with the self of all beings, because it is united with the one and equal Brahman in them through all their differences, brahmayoga yuktatma , sarvabhutatma bhutatma. It does not rejoice in the touches of the pleasant or feel anguish in the touches of the unpleasant; neither the wounds of things, nor the wounds of friends, nor the wounds of enemies can disturb the firmness of its outgazing mind or bewilder its receiving heart; this soul is in its nature, as the Upanishad puts it, avran. am, without wound or scar. In all things it has the same imperishable Ananda, sukham aksayam as nute. |