Essays on the Gita -Aurobindo 334

Essays on the Gita -Sri Aurobindo Second Series : Chapter 8 God in Power of Becoming To all the differentiation of the world-existence the sage, looking everywhere for the supreme purity and oneness, returns the austere cry, “not this, not this,” neti neti. Even if to many things in the world we give a willing or reluctant assent and admit the Divine in the universe, still before most must not the mind persist in that cry “not this, not this”? Here constantly the assent of the understanding, the consent of the will and the heart’s faith become difficult to a human mentality anchored always on phe- nomenon and appearance. At least some compelling indications are needed, some links and bridges, some supports to the difficult effort at oneness. Arjuna, though he accepts the revelation of Vasudeva as all and though his heart is full of the delight of it, — for already he finds that it is delivering him from the perplexity and stum- bling differentiations of his mind which was crying for a clue, a guiding truth amid the bewildering problems of a world of oppositions, and it is to his hearing the nectar of immortality, amr.tam, — yet feels the need of such supports and indices. He feels that they are indispensable to overcome the difficulty of a complete and firm realisation; for how else can this knowledge be made a thing of the heart and life? He requires guiding indications, asks Krishna even for a complete and detailed enumeration of the sovereign powers of his becoming and desires that nothing shall be left out of the vision, nothing remain to baffle him. “Thou shouldst tell me” he says “of thy divine self-manifestations in thy sovereign power of becoming, divya atma vibhu tayah., all without exception,—as es en. a, nothing omitted,—thy Vibhutis by which thou pervadest these worlds and peoples. How shall I know thee, O Yogin, by thinking of thee everywhere at all moments and in what preeminent becomings should I think of thee?” This Yoga by which thou art one with all and one in all and all are becomings of thy being, all are pervading or pre-eminent or disguised powers of thy nature, tell me of it, he cries, in its detail and extent, and tell me ever more of it; it is nectar of immortality to me, and however much of it I hear, I am not satiated. Here we get an indication in the Gita of something which the Gita itself does not bring out expressly, but which occurs frequently in the Upanishads and was developed later on by Vaishnavism and Shaktism in a greater intensity of vision, man’s possible joy of the Divine in the world-existence, the universal Ananda, the play of the Mother, the sweetness and beauty of God’s Lila.