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Essays on the Gita -Sri Aurobindo
Second Series : Chapter 12
The Way and the Bhakta
The liberation of the Gita is not a self-oblivious abolition of the soul’s personal being in the absorption of the One, sa yujya mukti; it is all kinds of union at once. There is an entire unification with the supreme Godhead in essence of being and intimacy of consciousness and identity of bliss, sa yujya, — for one object of this Yoga is to become Brahman, brahma bhuta. There is an eternal ecstatic dwelling in the highest existence of the Supreme, sa lokya, — for it is said, “Thou shalt dwell in me,” nivasis. yasi mayyeva. There is an eternal love and adoration in a uniting nearness, there is an embrace of the liberated spirit by its divine Lover and the enveloping Self of its infinitudes, samıpya. There is an identity of the soul’s liberated nature with the divine nature, sadrs ya mukti, — for the perfection of the free spirit is to become even as the Divine, madbha vam a gatah. , and to be one with him in the law of its being and the law of its works and nature, sa ̄dharmyam a gatah. The orthodox Yoga of knowledge aims at a fathomless immergence in the one infinite existence, sa yujya; it looks upon that alone as the entire liberation. The Yoga of adoration envisages an eternal habitation or nearness as the greater release, salokya, samıpya. The Yoga of works leads to oneness in power of being and nature, sadrs ya. But the Gita envelops them all in its catholic integrality and fuses them all into one greatest and richest divine freedom and perfection. Arjuna is made to raise the question of this difference. It must be remembered that the distinction between the impersonal immutable Akshara Purusha and the supreme Soul that is at once impersonality and divine Person and much more than either — that this capital distinction implied in the later chapters and in the divine “I” of which Krishna has constantly spoken, aham, mam, has as yet not been quite expressly and definitely drawn. We have been throughout anticipating it in order to understand from the beginning the full significance of the Gita’s message and not have to go back again, as we would otherwise be obliged, over the same ground newly seen and prospected in the light of this greater truth. Arjuna has been enjoined first to sink his separate personality in the calm impersonality of the one eternal and immutable self, a teaching which agreed well with his previous notions and offered no difficulties. But now he is confronted with the vision of this greatest transcendent, this widest universal Godhead and commanded to seek oneness with him by knowledge and works and adoration.
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