Bhagavad Gita, chapter 3, verse 24

That this is the sense of the passage is made clear in what3.20-25 follows, by the affirmation of lokasaṅgraha as the object of works, of Prakriti as the sole doer of works and the divine Purusha as their equal upholder, to whom works have to be3.30 given up even in their doing,—this inner giving up of works and yet physical doing of them is the culmination of sacrifice,—and by the affirmation that the result of such active sacrifice with an equal and desireless mind is liberation from the bondage of4.22-23 works. "He who is satisfied with whatever gain comes to him and equal in failure and success, is not bound even when he acts. When a man liberated, free from attachment, acts for sacrifice, all his action is dissolved," leaves, that is to say, no result of bondage or after-impression on his free, pure, perfect and equal soul. To these passages we shall have to return. They are followed by a perfectly explicit and detailed interpretation of the meaning of yajña in the language of the Gita which leaves no doubt at all about the symbolic use of the words and the psychological character of the sacrifice enjoined by this teaching. In the ancient Vedic system there was always a double sense physical and psychological, outward and symbolic, the exterior form of the sacrifice and the inner meaning of all its circumstances. But the secret symbolism of the ancient Vedic mystics, exact, curious, poetic, psychological, had been long forgotten by this time and it is now replaced by another, large, general and philosophical in the spirit of Vedanta and a later Yoga. The fire of sacrifice, agni, is no material flame, but brahmāgni, the fire of the Brahman, or it is the Brahman-ward energy, inner Agni, priest of the4.24-31 sacrifice, into which the offering is poured; the fire is self-control or it is a purified sense-action or it is the vital energy in that discipline of the control of the vital being through the control of the breath which is common to Rajayoga and Hathayoga, or it is the fire of self-knowledge, the flame of the supreme sacrifice. The food eaten as the leavings of the sacrifice is, it is explained, the nectar of immortality, amṛta, left over from the offering; and here we have still something of the old Vedic symbolism in which the Soma-wine was the physical symbol of the amṛta, the immortalising delight of the divine ecstasy won by the sacrifice, offered to the gods and drunk by men. The offering itself is whatever working of his energy, physical or psychological, is consecrated by him in action of body or action of mind to the gods or God, to the Self or to the universal powers, to one's own higher Self or to the Self in mankind and in all existences.

The works of sacrifice are thus vindicated as a means of liberation and absolute spiritual perfection, saṁsiddhi. So Janaka3.20-22 and other great Karmayogins of the mighty ancient Yoga attained to perfection, by equal and desireless works done as a sacrifice, without the least egoistic aim or attachment — karmaṇaiva hi saṁsiddhim āsthitā janakādayaḥ. So too and with the same desirelessness, after liberation and perfection, works can and have to be continued by us in a large divine spirit, with the calm high nature of a spiritual royalty. “Thou shouldst do works regarding also the holding together of the peoples, lokasaṅgraham evāpi sampaśyan kartum arhasi. Whatsoever the Best doeth, that the lower kind of man puts into practice; the standard he creates, the people follows. O son of Pritha, I have no work that I need to do in all the three worlds, I have nothing that I have not gained and have yet to gain, and I abide verily in the paths of action,” varta eva ca karmaṇi, — eva implying, I abide in it and do not leave it as the Sannyasin thinks himself bound to abandon works.3.23-24 “For if I did not abide sleeplessly in the paths of action, men follow in every way my path, these peoples would sink to destruction if I did not work and I should be the creator of confusion and slay these creatures. As those who know not3.25-26 act with attachment to the action, he who knows should act without attachment, having for his motive to hold together the peoples. He should not create a division of their understanding in the ignorant who are attached to their works; he should set them to all actions, doing them himself with knowledge and in Yoga.” There are few more important passages in the Gita than these seven striking couplets.

The quietist, the ascetic, on the other hand cannot see any possibility of perfection into which life and action enter. Are they not the very seat of bondage and imperfection? Is not all action imperfect in its nature, like a fire that must produce smoke, is not the principle of action itself rajasic, the father of desire, a cause that must have its effect of obscuration of knowledge, its round of longing and success and failure, its oscillations of joy and grief, its duality of virtue and sin? God may be in the world, but he is not of the world; he is a God of renunciation and not the Master or cause of our works; the master of our works is desire and the cause of works is ignorance. If the world, the Kshara is in a sense a manifestation or a līlā of the Divine, it is an imperfect play with the ignorance of Nature, an obscuration rather than a manifestation. That is surely evident from our very first glance at the nature of the world and does not the fullest experience of the world teach us always the same truth? is it not a wheel of the ignorance binding the soul to continual birth by the impulse of desire and action until at last that is exhausted or cast away? Not only desire, but action also must be flung away; seated in the silent self the soul will then pass away into the motionless, actionless, imperturbable, absolute Brahman. To this objection of the impersonalising quietist the Gita is at more pains to answer than to that of the man of the world, the kinetic individual. For this quietism having hold of a higher and more powerful truth which is yet not the whole or the highest truth, its promulgation as the universal, complete, highest ideal of human life is likely to be more confusing and disastrous to the advance of the human race towards its goal than the error of an exclusive kinetism. A strong one-sided truth, when set forth as the whole truth, creates a strong light but also a strong confusion; for the very strength of its element of truth increases the strength of its element of error. The error of the kinetic ideal can only prolong the ignorance and retard the human advance by setting it in search of perfection where perfection cannot be found; but the error of the quietistic ideal contains in itself the very principle of world-destruction. Were I to act upon it, says3.23-24 Krishna, I should destroy the peoples and be the author of confusion; and though the error of an individual human being, even though a nearly divine man, cannot destroy the whole race, it may produce a widespread confusion which may be in its nature destructive of the principle of human life and disturbing to the settled line of its advance.

But it is to assist that ascent or evolution the descent is made or accepted; that the Gita makes very clear. It is, we might say, to exemplify the possibility of the Divine manifest in the human being, so that man may see what that is and take courage to grow into it. It is also to leave the influence of that manifestation vibrating in the earth-nature and the soul of that manifestation presiding over its upward endeavour. It is to give a spiritual mould of divine manhood into which the seeking4.7-8 soul of the human being can cast itself. It is to give a dharma, a religion,—not a mere creed, but a method of inner and outer living,—a way, a rule and law of self-moulding by which he can grow towards divinity. It is too, since this growth, this ascent is no mere isolated and individual phenomenon, but like all in the divine world-activities a collective business, a work3.20-25 and the work for the race, to assist the human march, to hold it together in its great crises, to break the forces of the downward gravitation when they grow too insistent, to uphold or restore the great dharma of the Godward law in man's nature, to prepare even, however far off, the kingdom of God, the victory of the seekers of light and perfection, sādhūnām, and the overthrow of those who fight for the continuance of the evil and the darkness. All these are recognised objects of the descent of the Avatar, and it is usually by his work that the mass of men seek to distinguish him and for that that they are ready to worship him. It is only the spiritual who see that this external Avatarhood is a sign, in the symbol of a human life, of the eternal inner Godhead making himself manifest in the field of their own human mentality and corporeality so that they can grow into unity with that and be possessed by it. The divine manifestation of a Christ, Krishna, Buddha in external humanity has for its inner truth the same manifestation of the eternal Avatar within in our own inner humanity. That which has been done in the outer human life of earth, may be repeated in the inner life of all human beings.

It is here that the Gita intervenes with a restatement of the truth of the Spirit, of the Self, of God and of the world and Nature. It extends and remoulds the truth evolved by a later thought from the ancient Upanishads and ventures with assured steps on an endeavour to apply its solving power to the problem of life and action. The solution offered by the Gita does not disentangle all the problem as it offers itself to modern mankind; as stated here to a more ancient mentality, it does not meet the insistent pressure of the present mind of man for a collective advance, does not respond to its cry for a collective life that will at last embody a greater rational and ethical and if possible even a dynamic spiritual ideal. Its call is to the individual who has become capable of a complete spiritual existence; but for the rest of the race it prescribes only a gradual advance, to be wisely effected by following out faithfully with more and more of3.20-25 intelligence and moral purpose and with a final turn to spirituality the law of their nature. Its message touches the other smaller solutions but, even when it accepts them partly, it is to point them beyond themselves to a higher and more integral secret into which as yet only the few individuals have shown themselves fit to enter.

At the same time the Yogin who knows the Supreme is not subject to any need or compulsion in these activities; for to him they are neither a duty nor a necessary occupation for the mind nor a high amusement, nor imposed even by the loftiest human purpose. He is not attached, bound and limited by any nor has he any personal motive of fame, greatness or personal satisfaction in these works; he can leave or pursue them as the Divine in him wills, but he need not otherwise abandon them in his pursuit of the higher integral knowledge. He will do these things just as the supreme Power acts and creates, for a certain spiritual joy in creation and expression or to help in the holding together and right ordering or leading of this world of God's workings. The Gita teaches that the man of knowledge shall by his way of life give to those who have not yet the spiritual consciousness, the love and habit of all works and not only of actions recognised as pious, religious or ascetic in their character; he should not draw men away from the world-action by his example. For the world must proceed in its great upward aspiring; men and nations must not be led to fall away from even an ignorant activity into a worse ignorance of inaction or to sink down into that miserable disintegration and tendency of dissolution which comes upon communities and peoples when there predominates the tamasic principle, the principle whether of obscure confusion and error or of weariness and inertia. "For I too," says the Lord in the Gita, "have no need to do works, since there is nothing I have not or must yet gain for myself; yet I do works in the world: for if I did not do works, all laws would fall into confusion, the worlds would sink towards chaos and I would be the destroyer of these peoples." The spiritual life does not need, for its purity, to destroy interest in all things except the Inexpressible or to cut at the roots of the Sciences, the Arts and Life. It may well be one of the effects of an integral spiritual knowledge and activity to lift them out of their limitations, substitute for our mind's ignorant, limited, tepid or trepidant pleasure in them a free, intense and uplifting urge of delight and supply a new source of creative spiritual power and illumination by which they can be carried more swiftly and profoundly towards their absolute light in knowledge and their yet undreamed possibilities and most dynamic energy of content and form and practice. The one thing needful must be pursued first and always; but all things else come with it as its outcome and have not so much to be added to us as recovered and reshaped in its self-light and as portions of its self-expressive force.

लोकसंग्रहमेवापि संपश्यन् कर्तुमर्हसि ॥ यद्यदाचरति श्रेष्ठस्तत्तदेवेतरो जनः । स यत्प्रमाणं कुरुते लोकस्तदनुवर्तते ॥ न मे पार्थास्ति कर्तव्यं त्रिषु लोकेषु किञ्चन । नानवाप्तमवाप्तव्यं वर्त एव च कर्मणि ॥ यदि ह्यहं न वर्तेयं जातु कर्मण्यतन्द्रितः । मम वर्त्मानुवर्तन्ते मनुष्याः पार्थ सर्वशः ॥ उत्सीदेयुरिमे लोका न कुर्यां कर्म चेदहम् । सङ्करस्य च कर्ता स्यामुपहन्यामिमाः प्रजाः॥ सक्ताः कर्मण्यविद्वांसो यथा कुर्वन्ति भारत । कुर्याद्विद्वांस्तथासक्तश्चिकीर्षुर्लोकसंग्रहम् ॥ न बुद्धिभेदं जनयेदज्ञानां कर्मसङ्गिनाम् । योजयेत्सर्वकर्माणि विद्वान्युक्तः समाचरन् ॥

"Looking also to the maintenance of order in the world thou shouldest act; for whatever the best practises, that other men practise; for the standard set by him is followed by the whole world. In all the Universe there is for Me no necessary action, for I have nothing I do not possess or wish to possess, and lo I abide always doing. For if I abide not at all doing action vigilantly, men would altogether follow in my path, O son of Pritha; these worlds would sink if I did not actions, and I should be the author of confusion (literally illegitimacy, the worst & primal confusion, for it disorders the family which is the fundamental unit of society) and the destroyer of the peoples. What the ignorant do, O Bharata, with their minds enslaved to the work, that the wise man should do with a free mind to maintain the order of the world; the wise man should not upset the mind of the ignorant who are slaves of their deeds, but should apply himself to all works doing customary things with a mind in Yoga."

उत्सीदेयुरिमे लोका न कुर्यां कर्म चेदहम् ।

"These worlds would be overpowered by tamas and sink into Prakriti if I did not do actions." To be attached to inaction is to give up our action not to God but to our tamasic ahaṅkāra.

THE GURU Mukti prevents one's future deeds from creating bondage; but what of the past deeds which have already created bondage? The Jivanmukta is not indeed bound, for he is one with God and God is the Master of His prakriti, not its slave; but the Prakriti attached to this Jivatman has created causes while in the illusion of bondage and must be allowed to work out its effects, otherwise the chain of causation is snapped and the whole economy of nature is disturbed and thrown into chaos. उत्सीदेयुरिमे लोकाः etc. In order to maintain the worlds therefore, the Jivanmukta remains working like a prisoner on parole, not bound indeed by others, but detained by himself until the period previously appointed for his captivity shall have elapsed.

Even if he does not will to be reborn, he will be careful not to leave the world of phenomena until his prarabdha karma is worked out. There are certain debts standing against his name in the ledger of Nature and these he will first absolve. Of course the Jivanmukta is not legally bound by his debts to Nature, for all the promissory notes he has executed in her name have been burned up in the fire of Mukti. He is now free and lord, the master of Prakriti, not its slave. But the Prakriti attached to this Jivatman has created, while in the illusion of bondage, causes which must be allowed to work out their effects; otherwise the chain of causation is snapped and a disturbance is brought about in the economy of Nature. उत्सीदेयुरिमे लोकाः. In order therefore to maintain the law of the world unimpaired, the Jivanmukta remains amid works like a prisoner on parole, not bound by the fetters of Prakriti, but detained by his own will until the time appointed for his captivity shall have elapsed.

The supreme importance of the question is apparent. If the theory of the Illusionist is true, life is an inexplicable breach of Truth, an unjustifiable disturbance in the silence & stillness of the Eternal. It is a freak to be corrected, a snare to be escaped from, a delusion to be renounced, a mighty cosmic whim & blunder. The results upon the nation which produced this tremendous negation, have been prodigious. India has become the land of saints & ascetics, but progressively also of a decaying society and an inert, effete & helpless people. The indignant denunciation of the Vishnu Purana against the certain results to society of the Buddhist heresy has been fulfilled in the fate of our strongly Buddhicised Hindu nation. We see increasing upon it through the centuries the doom announced in the grave warnings of the Gita against the consequences of inaction, "utsideyur ime lokah .. sarirayatrapi akarmanah .. sankarasya cha karta syam upahanyam imah prajah .. buddhibhedam janayed ajnanam karmasanginam" etc. The religious life of this country has divided itself into two distinct & powerful tendencies, the Hinduism of the withdrawal from life which has organised itself in the monastery & the hermitage and the Hinduism of social life which has resolved itself into a mass of minute ceremony & unintelligent social practice. Neither is pure; both are afflicted with sankara, mixture & confusion of dharmas; for the life of the monastery is stricken with the tendency towards a return to the cares & corruptions of life, the life of society sicklied over & rendered impotent by the sense of its own illusion & worthlessness faced with the superiority of the monastic ideal. If a man or a nation becomes profoundly convinced that this phenomenal life is an illusion, its aims & tendencies of a moment & its values all false values, you cannot expect either the man or the nation to flourish here, whatever may be gained in Nirvana. For the nation any sustained & serious greatness of aim & endeavour becomes impossible. To get through the years of life, to maintain the body and propagate the race, since for some unreasonable reason that is demanded of us, but to get done with the business as soon as possible & escape by sannyasa into the unconditioned, this must obviously be the sole preoccupation of man in a society governed by this negative ideal. What is chiefly needed by it is an elaborate set of rules, the more minute & rigid the better, which will determine every action of life both social & religious, so as to save men the labour of thought & action & give them the assurance that they are doing only the nityakarma necessary to life in the body or the shastric karma which creates the least bondage for future lives & are not heaping up on themselves the burden of long continued existence in this terrible & inexplicable nightmare of the phenomenal world. But the attachment to works remains & it tends to satisfy itself by an excessive insistence on the petty field still left to it. We see an exclusive preoccupation with a petty money-getting, with the mere maintenance of a family, with the sordid cares of a narrow personal existence. The great ideals, the universalising & liberating movements which have continually swept rajasic Europe & revivified it, have been more & more unknown to us in the later history of our country. We have had but one world-forgetting impulse & one worldconquering passion,—the impulse of final renunciation & the passion of self-devotion to the Master of all or to a spiritual teacher. It is this habit of bhakti that alone has saved us alive; preserving an imperishable core of strength in the midst of our weakness & darkness it has returned upon us from age to age and poured its revivifying stream always through our inert mass and our petrifying society. But for all that our great fundamental mistake about life has told heavily; it has cursed our rajasic activity with continual inefficiency and our sattwic tendencies with a perpetual weight of return to tamas. Andham tamah pravishanti ye avidyam upasate. Tato bhuya iva te tamo ya u vidyayam ratah. Both these sentences of gloom have weighed upon us; we have divided ourselves into the exclusive seekers after the unconditioned knowledge & the exclusive lingerers in the phenomenal ignorance. We have made the life divine well nigh impossible in the world, possible only in remote hermitage, desolate forest or lonely mountain. We have not known the harmony which the early Vedantins practised; we have given ourselves instead to a great negation which, however inspiring and strength giving by its positive side—for it has its strong positive side—to a few exceptional spirits, cannot be grasped by the ordinary soul even when it is accepted by the ordinary intellect, is not man's swadharma, and must therefore tend only to destroy his strength & delight in life by imposing upon him an effort beyond our average human capacity, from which it sinks back dispirited, weakened and nerveless. No nation, not even a chosen race, can with impunity build its life on a fundamental error about the meaning of life. We are here to manifest God in our mundane existence; our business is to express & formulate in phenomenal activity such truth as we can command about the Eternal; and in order to do that effectively we must answer the riddle set for us of the coexistence of the eternal & the phenomenal—we must harmonise God & Nature on peril of our destruction. The European nations have invariably decayed after a few centuries of efflorescence because they have persisted in ignorance, & been obstinate in Avidya. We who possess the secret but misunderstand it, have taken two millenniums to decay, but in the end we have decayed & brought ourselves to the verge of actual death & decomposition. We can preserve ourselves only by returning to the full & harmonious truth of our religion, truth of Purana & Tantra which we have mistranslated into a collection of fables and of magic formulae, truth of Veda which we have mistranslated into the idea of vacant & pompous ceremonial & the truth of Vedanta which we have mistranslated into the inexplicable explanation, the baffling mystery of an incomprehensible Maya. Veda & Vedanta are not only the Bible of hermits or the textbook of metaphysicians, but a gospel of life and a guide to life for the individual, for the nation & for all humanity.

Later I will write to you what my path of yoga is. Or, if you come here, I will tell you. In these matters the spoken word is better than the written. For the present I can only say that its fundamental principle is to make a synthesis and unity of integral knowledge, integral works and integral devotion, and, raising this above the mental level to the supramental level of the Vijnana, to give it a complete perfection. The defect of the old yoga was that, knowing the mind and reason and knowing the Spirit, it remained satisfied with spiritual experience in the mind. But the mind can grasp only the fragmentary; it cannot completely seize the infinite, the undivided. The mind's way to seize it is through the trance of samadhi, the liberation of moksha, the extinction of nirvana, and so forth. It has no other way. Someone here or there may indeed obtain this featureless liberation, but what is the gain? The Spirit, the Self, the Divine is always there. What the Divine wants is for man to embody Him here, in the individual and in the collectivity—to realise God in life. The old system of yoga could not synthesise or unify the Spirit and life; it dismissed the world as an illusion or a transient play of God. The result has been a diminution of the power of life and the decline of India. The Gita says: utsīdeyurime lokā na kuryāṁ karma cedaham 1 , “These peoples would crumble to pieces if I did not do actions.” Verily “these peoples” of India have gone down to ruin. What kind of spiritual perfection is it if a few ascetics, renunciates, holymen and realised beings attain liberation, if a few devotees dance in a frenzy of love, god-intoxication and bliss, and an entire race, devoid of life and intelligence, sinks to the depths of darkness and inertia? First one must have all sorts of partial experience on the mental level, flooding the mind with spiritual delight and illuminating it with spiritual light; afterwards one climbs upwards. Unless one makes this upward climb, this climb to the supramental level, it is not possible to know the ultimate secret of world-existence; the riddle of the world is not solved. There, the cosmic Ignorance which consists of the duality of Self and world, Spirit and life, is abolished. Then one need no longer look on the world as an illusion: the world is an eternal play of God, the perpetual manifestation of the Self. Then is it possible fully to know and realise God—samagraṁ māṁ jñātuṁ praviṣṭum, “to know and enter into Me completely”, as the Gita says. The physical body, life, mind and reason, Supermind, the Bliss-existence—these are the Spirit's five levels. The higher we climb, the nearer comes a state of highest perfection of man's spiritual evolution. When we rise to the Supermind, it becomes easy to rise to the Bliss. The status of indivisible and infinite Bliss becomes firmly established—not only in the timeless Supreme Reality, but in the body, in the world, in life. Integral existence, integral consciousness, integral bliss blossom out and take form in life. This endeavour is the central clue of my yogic path, its fundamental idea.

এবং জ্ঞান দয়া প্রেম ও শক্তি বিতরণে জগতের ঋণ শোধ হইবে, যখন ভারতজননীর হিতার্থ উদার ও মহৎ কর্ম্ম সম্পাদনে জগন্মাতা সন্তুষ্ট হইবেন, তখন বানপ্রস্থ ও সন্ন্যাস আচরণ করা দোষাবহ হইবে না। অন্যথা ধর্ম্মসঙ্কর ও অধর্ম্মবৃদ্ধি হয়। পূর্ব্বজন্মে ঋণমুক্ত বালসন্ন্যাসীদের কথা বলিতেছি না; কিন্তু অনধিকারীর সন্ন্যাসগ্রহণ নিন্দনীয়। অযথা বৈরাগ্যবাহুল্যে ও ক্ষত্রিয়ের স্বধর্ম্মত্যাগপ্রবণতায় মহান্ ও উদার বৌদ্ধধর্ম্ম দেশের অনেক হিত সম্পাদন করিয়াও অনিষ্টও করিয়াছে এবং শেষে ভারত হইতে বিতাড়িত হইয়াছে। নবযুগের নবীন ধর্ম্মের মধ্যে যেন এই দোষ প্রবিষ্ট না হয়।

কর্ম্মসন্ন্যাস জগতের পক্ষে অনিষ্টকর এবং ত্যাগহীন সন্ন্যাস বিড়ম্বনা মাত্র। সন্ন্যাসে যে ফললাভ হয়, ত্যাগেও সেই ফললাভ হয়, অর্থাৎ অজ্ঞান হইতে মুক্তি, সমতা, শক্তিলাভ, আনন্দলাভ, শ্রীকৃষ্ণলাভ। সর্ব্বজনপূজিত ব্যক্তি যাহা করেন, লোকে তাহাই আদর্শ করিয়া আচরণ করে, অতএব তুমি যদি কর্ম্মসন্ন্যাস কর, সকলে সেই পথের পথিক হইয়া ধর্ম্মসঙ্কর ও অধর্ম্মপ্রাধান্য সৃষ্টি করিবে। তুমি কর্ম্মফলস্পৃহা ত্যাগ করিয়া মানুষের সাধারণ ধর্ম্ম আচরণ কর, আদর্শস্বরূপ হইয়া সকলকে নিজ নিজ কর্ম্মপথে অগ্রসর হইবার প্রেরণা দাও, তাহা হইলেই আমার সাধর্ম্ম্যপ্রাপ্ত ও প্রিয়তম সুহৃদ হইবে। তাহার পরে তিনি বুঝাইয়াছেন যে, কর্ম্মদ্বারা শ্রেয়ঃপথে আরূঢ় হইয়া সেই পথে শেষ অবস্থায় শম অর্থাৎ সর্ব্ব-আরম্ভ-ত্যাগই বিহিত। ইহাও কর্ম্মসন্ন্যাস নহে, অহঙ্কার বর্জ্জনপূর্ব্বক বহুলায়াসপূর্ণ রাজসিক চেষ্টাত্যাগে ভগবানের সহিত যুক্ত হইয়া, গুণাতীত হইয়া তাঁহার শক্তিচালিত যন্ত্রের ন্যায় কর্ম্ম করা। সেই অবস্থায় জীবের এই স্থায়ী জ্ঞান হয় যে, আমি কর্ত্তা নহি, আমি দ্রষ্টা, আমি ভগবানের অংশ, আমার স্বভাবরচিত এই দেহরূপ কর্ম্মময় আধারে ভগবানের শক্তিই লীলার কার্য্য করে। জীব সাক্ষী ও ভোক্তা, প্রকৃতি কর্ত্তা, পরমেশ্বর অনুমন্তা। এই জ্ঞানপ্রাপ্ত পুরুষ শক্তির কোনও কার্য্যারম্ভে কামনা-রূপ সাহায্য বা বাধা দিতে ইচ্ছুক হন না। শক্তির অধীন হইয়া দেহ-মন-বুদ্ধি ঈশ্বরাদিষ্ট কর্ম্মে প্রবৃত্ত হয়। কুরুক্ষেত্রের ভীষণ হত্যাকাণ্ডও যদি ভগবানের অনুমত হয় এবং স্বধর্ম্মপথে যদি তাহাই ঘটে, তাহাতেও অলিপ্তবুদ্ধি কামনারহিত জ্ঞানপ্রাপ্ত জীবের পাপস্পর্শ হয় না। কিন্তু ইহা অতি অল্পলোকের লভ্য জ্ঞান ও আদর্শ, ইহা সাধারণ ধর্ম্ম হইতে পারে না। তবে এই পথের সাধারণ পথিকের কর্ত্তব্য কর্ম্ম কি? তাঁহারও এই জ্ঞান কতক পরিমাণে প্রাপ্য যে, তিনি যন্ত্রী আমি যন্ত্র। সেই জ্ঞানের বলে ভগবানকে স্মরণ করিয়া স্বধর্ম্মসেবাই তাঁহার পক্ষে আদিষ্ট।

ঐক্যকে মানসিক ভূমির (level) উপরে তুলিয়া মনের অতীত বিজ্ঞানভূমিতে পূর্ণ সিদ্ধ করা হচ্ছে তাহার মূল তত্ত্ব। পুরাতন যোগের দোষ এই ছিল যে সে মনবুদ্ধিকে জানত আর আত্মাকে জানত, মনের মধ্যেই অধ্যাত্ম অনুভূতি পেয়ে সন্তুষ্ট থাকত, কিন্তু মন খণ্ডকেই আয়ত্ত করিতে পারে, অনন্ত অখণ্ডকে সম্পূর্ণ ধরিতে পারে না, ধরিতে হলে সমাধি মোক্ষ নির্ব্বাণ ইত্যাদিই মনের উপায়, আর উপায় নাই। সেই লক্ষণহীন মোক্ষলাভ এক এক জন করিতে পারে বটে কিন্তু লাভ কি? ব্রহ্ম আত্মা ভগবান ত আছেনই, ভগবান মানুষে যা চান, সেটী হচ্ছে তাঁহাকে এখানেই মূর্ত্তিমান করা ব্যষ্টিতে, সমষ্টিতে — to realise God in life। পুরাতন যোগপ্রণালী অধ্যাত্ম ও জীবনের সামঞ্জস্য বা ঐক্য করিতে পারে নি, জগৎকে মায়া বা অনিত্য লীলা বলে উড়িয়ে দিয়েছে। ফল হয়েছে জীবনশক্তির হ্রাস, ভারতের অবনতি। গীতায় যা বলা হয়েছে, “উৎসীদেয়ুরিমে লোকা ন কুর্য্যাং কর্ম্ম চেদহম্”, ভারতের “ইমে লোকাঃ” সত্যই সত্যই উৎসন্ন হয়ে গেছে। কয়েকজন সন্ন্যাসী ও বৈরাগী সাধু সিদ্ধ মুক্ত হয়ে যাবে, কয়েকজন ভক্ত প্রেমে ভাবে আনন্দে অধীর হয়ে নৃত্য কর্ব্বে, আর সমস্ত জাতি প্রাণহীন বুদ্ধিহীন হয়ে ঘোর তমোভাবে ডুবে যাবে, এ কিরূপ অধ্যাত্মসিদ্ধি? আগে মানসিক levelএ যত খণ্ড অনুভূতি পেয়ে মনকে অধ্যাত্মরসপ্লুত, অধ্যাত্মের আলোকে আলোকিত কর্ত্তে হয়, তাহার পর উপরে ওঠা। উপরে না উঠিলে — অর্থাৎ বিজ্ঞানভূমিতে, জগতের শেষ রহস্য জানা অসম্ভব, জগতের সমস্যা solved হয় না। সেখানেই আত্মা ও জগৎ, অধ্যাত্ম ও জীবন, এই দ্বন্দ্বের অবিদ্যা ঘুচে যায়। তখন জগৎ আর মায়া বলে দেখতে হয় না, জগৎ ভগবানের সনাতন লীলা, আত্মার নিত্য বিকাশ। তখন ভগবানকে পূর্ণভাবে জানা পাওয়া সম্ভব হয়, গীতায় যাকে বলে “সমগ্রং মাং জ্ঞাতুং প্রবিষ্টুম্”। অন্নময় দেহ, প্রাণ, মনবুদ্ধি, বিজ্ঞান, আনন্দ এই হল আত্মার পাঁচটী ভূমি, যতই উঁচুতে উঠি, মানুষের spiritual evolutionএর চরম সিদ্ধির অবস্থা নিকট হয়ে আসে। বিজ্ঞানে ওঠায় আনন্দে ওঠা সহজ হয়ে যায়, অখণ্ড অনন্ত আনন্দের অবস্থার স্থির প্রতিষ্ঠা হয় শুধু ত্রিকালাতীত পরব্রহ্মে নয়, দেহে জগতে জীবনে। পূর্ণ সত্তা পূর্ণ চৈতন্য পূর্ণ আনন্দ বিকশিত হয়ে জীবনে মূর্ত্ত হয়। এই চেষ্টাই আমার যোগপন্থার central clue, তার মূল কথা।

The laws of this world as it is are the laws of the Ignorance and the Divine in the world maintains them so long as there is the Ignorance—if He did not, the universe would crumble to pieces, utsīdeyur ime lokāḥ, as the Gita puts it. There are also, very naturally, conditions for getting out of the Ignorance into the Light. One of them is that the mind of the sadhak should cooperate with the Truth and that his will should cooperate with the Divine Power which, however slow its action may seem to the vital or to the physical mind, is uplifting the nature towards the Light. When that cooperation is complete, then the progress can be rapid enough; but the sadhak should not grudge the time and labour needed to make that cooperation fully possible to the blindness and weakness of human nature and effective.