SIXTH CHAPTER

NIRVANA AND WORKS IN THE WORLD

1. The Blessed Lord said: Whoever does the work to be done without resort to its fruits, he is the sannyasin and the Yogin, not the man who lights not the sacrificial fire and does not the works.

2. What they have called renunciation (Sannhasa), know to be in truth Yoga, O Pandava; for none becomes a Yogin who has not renounced the desire-will in the mind.²

3. For a sage who is ascending the hill of Yoga, action is the cause²; for the same sage when he has got to the top of Yoga self-mastery is the cause.

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1 First the Teacher emphasises—and this is very significant —his often repeated asseveration about the real essence ,Sannyasa, that it is an inward, not an outward renunciation. Works are to be done, but with what purpose and in what order?

2 Works* are the cause, but of what? The cause of self- perfection, of liberation, of Nirvana in the Brahman; for by doing works with a steady practice of the inner renunciation this perfection, this liberation, this conquest of the desire-mind and the ego-self and the lower nature are easily accomplished.

3 But when one has got to the top ? Then works are no longer the cause; the calm of self-mastery and self-possession gained by works becomes the cause. Again, the cause of what ? Of fixity in the self, in the Brahman-consciousness and of the perfect equality in which the divine works of the liberated man are done.

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4. When one does not get attached¹ to the objects of sense or to works and has renounced all will of desire in the mind, then is he said to have ascended to the top of Yoga.

5. By the self thou shouldst deliver the self, thou shouldst not depress and cast down the self (whether by self-indulgence or suppression); for the self is the friend of the self and the self is the enemy.

6. To the man is his self a friend in whom the (lower) self has been conquered by the (higher) self, but to him who is not in possession of his (higher) self, the (lower) self as if an enemy and it acts as an enemy.

7. When one has conquered one's self and attained to the calm of a perfect self-mastery and self-possession, then is the supreme self in a man founded and poised (even in his outwardly conscious human being) in cold and heat, pleasure and pain as well as in honour and dishonour.

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1 That is the spirit in which the liberated man does works; he does them without desire and attachment, without the egoistic personal will and the mental seeking which is the parent of desire. He has conquered his lower self, reached the perfect calm in which his highest self is manifest to him, that highest self always concentrated in its own being, sawahita, in Samadhi, not only in the trance of the inward-drawn conscious" ness but always, in the waking state of the mind as well, in exposure to the causes of desire and of the disturbance of calm, to grief and pleasure, heat and cold, honour and disgrace, all the dualities. This higher self is the Akshara. kutastha.

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8. The Yogin, who is satisfied with self-knowledge, trainquil and self-poised, master of his senses, regarding alike clod and stone and gold, is said to be in Yoga.¹

9. He who id equal in soul to friend and enemy and to neutral and indifferent, also to sinner and saint, he excels.

10. Let the Yogin practise continually union with the Self (so that that may become his normal consciousness) sitting apart and alone, with all desire and idea of possession banished fro his mind, self-controlled in his whole being and consciousness.

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1 The Akshara, the higher self stands above the changes and the perturbations of the natural being; and the Yogin is said to be in Yoga with it when he also is like it, kutd tha, when he is superior to all appearances and mutations, when he is satisfied with self-knowledge, when he is equal-minded to all things and happenings and persons. In other words, to master the lower self by the higher, the natural self by the spiritual is the way of man's perfection and liberation. But this Yoga is after all no easy thing to acquire, as Arjuna indeed shortly afterwards suggests, for the restless mind is always liable to be pulled down from these heights by the attacks of outward things and to fall back into the strong control of grief and passion and inequality. Therefore, it would seem, the Gita proceeds to give us in addition to its general method of knowledge and works a special process of Rajayogic meditation also, a powerful method of practice, abhyasa, a strong way to he complete control of the mind and all its workings.

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11-12. He should set in a pure spot his firm seat, neither too high, nor yet too low, covered with a cloth, with a deer skin, with sacred grass, and there seated with a concentrated mind and with the workings of the mental consciousness and the senses under control, he should practise Yoga for self-purification.

13-14. Holding the body, head and neck erect, motionless (the posture proper to the practice of Raja-yoga), the vision drawn in and fixed between the eye-brows, not regarding the regions, the mind kept calm and free from fear and the vow of Brahmacharya observed, the whole controlled mentality turned to Me (the Divine), he must sit firm in Yoga, wholly giving up to Me (so that the lower action of the consciousness shall be merged in the higher peace.

15. Thus always putting himself in Yoga by control of his mind, the Yogin attains to the supreme peace of Nirvana¹ which has its foundation in Me.

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1. Yet the result is not, while one yet lives, a Nirvana which puts away every possibility of action in the world, every relation with beings in the world. It would seem at first that it ought to be so. When all the desires and passions have ceased, when the mind is no longer permitted to throw itself out in thought, when the practice of this silent and solitary Yoga has become the rule, what farther action or relation with the world of outward touches and mutable appearances is any longer possible? No doubt, the Yogin for a time still remains in the body, but the cave, the forest, the mountain-top seem now the fittest, the •only possible scene of his continued living and constant trance of Samadhi his sole joy and occupation. But, first, while this solitary Yoga is being pursued, the renunciation of all other action is not recommended by the Gita.

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16. Verily this Yoga is not for him who eats too much or sleeps too much, even as it is not for him who gives up sleep and food, O Arjuna.

17. Yoga destroys all sorrow for him I whom the sleep and walking, the food, the play, the putting forth of effort in works are all yukta.¹

18. When all the mental consciousness is perfectly controlled and liberated from desire and remains still in the self, then it is said, “he is in Yoga.”

19. Motionless like the light of a lamp in a windless place is the controlled consciousness (free from its restless action, shut in from its outward motion) of the Yogin who practises union with the Self.

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1 This is generally interpreted as meaning that all should be moderate, regulated, done in fit measure, and that may indeed be the significance. But at any rate when the Yoga is attained, all this has to be yukta in another sense, the ordinary sense of the word everywhere else in the Gita. In all states, in."' waking and in sleeping, in food and play and action, the Yogin will then be in Yoga with the Divine, and all will be done by him in the consciousness of the Divine as the self and as the All and as that which supports and contains his own life and his action. Desire and ego and personal will and the thought of the mind are the motives of action only in the lower nature; when the ego is lost and the Yogin becomes Brahman, when he lives in and is, even, a transcendent and universal consciousness, action comes spontaneously out of that, luminous knowledge higher than the mental thought comes out of that, a power other and mightier than the personal will comes out of that to do for him his works and bring its fruits; personal action "has ceased, all has been taken up into the Brahman and assumed by the Divine, mayi sannyasya karmani.

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20. That in which the mind becomes silent and still by the practice of Yoga; that in which the Self is seen within in the Self by the Self (seen, not as it is mistranslated falsely or partially by the mind and represented to us trough the ego, but self-perceived by the Self, swaprakasha), and the soul is satisfied.

21. That in which the soul knows its own true and exceeding bliss,¹ which is perceived by the intelligence and is beyond the senses, wherein established, it can no longer fall away from the spiritual truth of its being.

22. That is the greatest of all gains and the treasure beside which all lose their value, wherein established he is not disturbed by the fieriest assault of mental grief.

23. It is the putting away of the contact with pain, the divorce of the mind's marriage with grief. The firm winning of this inalienable spiritual bliss in Yoga; it is the divine union. This Yoga is to be resolutely practised without yielding to any discouragement by difficulty or failure (until the release, until the bliss of Nirvana is secured as an eternal possession).

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1 Not that untranquil happiness which is the portion of the mind and the senses, but an inner and serene felicity in which it is safe from the mind's perturbations and can no longer fall away from the spiritual truth of its being.

The main stress here has fallen on the stilling of the emotive mind, the mind of desire and the senses which are the recipients of outward touches and reply to them with our customary emotional reactions; but even the mental thought has to be stilled in the silence of the self-existent being.

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24-25. Abandoning without any exception or residue all the desires born of the desire-will and holding the senses by the mind so that they shall not run to all sides (after their usual disorderly and restless habit), one should slowly cease from mental action by a buddhi held in the grasp of fixity, and having fixed the mind in the higher Self one should not think of anything at all.

26. Whenever the restless and unquiet mind goes forth, it should be controlled and brought into subjection in the Self.

27. When the mind is throughly quieted, then there comes upon the Yogin stainless, passionless, the highest bliss of the soul that has become the Brahman.

28. Thus freed from stain of passion and putting himself constantly in Yoga, the Yogin easily and happily enjoys the touch of the Brahman which is an exceeding bliss.

29. The man whose self is in Yoga, sees the self in all beings and all beings in the self, he is equal-visioned everywhere.

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30. He who sees Me¹ everywhere and sees all in Me, to him I do not get lost, nor does he get lost to Me.

31. The Yogin who has taken his stand upon oneness and loves ² Me in all beings, however and in all ways he lives and acts, lives and acts in Me.

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1 All that he sees is to him the Self, all is his self, all is the Divine. But is there no danger, if he dwells at all in the mutability of the Kshara, of his losing all the results of this difficult Yoga, losing the Self and falling back into the mind, of the Divine losing him and the world getting him, of his losing the Divine ; and getting back in its place the ego and the lower nature ? No, says the Gita. For this peace of Nirvana, though it is gained through the Akshara, is founded upon the being of the Purushottama, mat-sanstham, and that is extended, the Divine, the Brahman is extended too in the world of beings and, though transcendent of it, not imprisoned in its own transcendence. One has to see all things as He and live and act wholly in that vision; that is the perfect fruit of the Yoga.

But why act ? Is it not safer to sit in one's solitude looking out upon the. world, if you will, seeing it in Brahman, in the Divine, but not taking part in it, not moving in it, not living in it, not acting in it, living rather ordinarily in the inner Samadhi? Should not that be the law, the rule, the dharma of this highest spiritual condition ? No, again; for the liberated Yogin there is no other law, rule, dharma than simply this, to live in the Divine, and love the Divine and be one with all beings; his freedom is an absolute and not a contingent freedom, self-existent and not dependent any longer on any rule of conduct, law of life or limitation of any kind. He has no longer any need of a process of Yoga, because he is now perpetually in Yoga.

2 The love of the world spiritualised, changed from a sense experience to a soul experience, is founded on the love of God and in that love there is no peril and no shortcoming. Fear and disgust of the world may often be necessary for the recoil from the lower nature, for it is really the fear and disgust of our own ego which reflects itself in the world. But to see God in the world is to fear nothing, it is to embrace all in the being

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32. He, O Arjuna, who sees with equality¹ everything in the image of self whether it be grief or it be happiness, him I hold to be the supreme Yogin.

33. Arjuna said: This² Yoga of the nature of equality which has been described by Thee, O Madhusudana, I see no stable foundation for it owing to restlessness.

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of God; to see all as the Divine is to hate and loathe nothing, but love God in the world and the world in God. But at least the things of the lower nature will be shunned and feared, the things which the Yogin has taken so much trouble to surmount ? Not this either; all is embraced in the equality of the self-vision.

1 By this it is not meant at all that he himself shall fall from the griefless spiritual bliss and feel again worldly unhappiness, even in the sorrow of others, but seeing in others the play of the dualities which he himself has left and surmounted, he shall still see all as himself, his self in all, God in all and, not disturbed or bewildered by the appearances of these things, moved only by them to help and heal, to occupy himself with the good of all beings, to lead men to the spiritual bliss, to work for the progress of the world Godwards, he shall live the, divine life, so long as days upon earth are his portion. The God-lover who can do this, can thus embrace all things in God, can look calmly on the lower nature and the works of the Maya of the three gunas and act in them and upon them without perturbation or fall or disturbance from the height and power of the spiritual oneness, free in the largeness of the God-vision, sweet and great and luminous in the strength of the God-nature, may well be declared to be the supreme Yogin. He indeed has conquered the creation, jitah sargah.

2 When Arjuna realises fully the nature of the Yoga which he is bidden to embrace, his pragmatic nature accustomed to act from mental will and preference and desire is "appalled by its difficulty and he asks what is the end of the soul which attempts and fails.

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34. Restless indeed is the mind, O Krishna; it is vehement, strong and unconquerable; I deem it as hard to control as the wind.

35. The blessed Lord said: Without doubt, O mighty-armed, the mind is restless and very difficult to restrain; but, O Kaunteya, it may be controlled by constant practice and non-attachment.

36. By one who is not self-controlled, this Yoga is difficult to attain; but by the self-controlled, it is attainable by properly directed efforts.

37. Arjuna said: He who takes up Yoga with faith, but cannot control himself with the mind wandering away from Yoga, failing to attain perfection in Yoga, what is his mind, O Krishna?

38. Does he not, O mighty-armed, lose both this life (of human activity and thought and emotion which it has left behind) and the Brahmic consciousness to which it aspires and falling from both perish like a dissolving cloud?

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39. This my doubt, O Krishna, please dispel completely without leaving any residue, for there is none else than Thyself who can destry this doubt.

40. The Blessed Lord said: O son of Pritha, neither in this life nor hereafter is there destruction for him; never does anyone who practises good, O beloved, come to woe.

41. Having attained to the world of the righteous and having dwelt there for immemorial years, he who fell from Yoga is again born in the house of such as are pure and glorious.

42. Or he may be born in the family of the wise Yogin; indeed such a birth is rare to obtain in this world.

43. There he recovers the mental state of union (with the Divine) which he had formed in his previous life; and with this he again endeavours for perfection, O joy of the Kurus.

44. By that former practice he is irresistibly carried on. Even the seeker after the knowledge of Yoga goes beyond the range of the Vedas and Upanishads.

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45. But the Yogin, endeavouring with assiduity, purified from sin, perfecting himself through many lives attains to the highest goal.

46. The Yogin1 is greater than the doers of askesis, greater than the men of knowledge, greater than the men of works; become than the Yogin, O Arjuna.

47. Of all Yogins he who with all his inner self given up to me, for me has love and faith, him I hold to be the most united with me in Yoga.

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The Gita brings in here as always bhakti as the climax of the Yoga, sarvabhiitasthitam yo mam bhajati ekatwam asthitah; that may almost be said to sum up the whole final result of the Gita's teaching—whoever loves God in all and his soul is found- ed upon the divine oneness, however he lives and acts, lives and acts in God. And to emphasize it still more, after an intervention of Arjuna and a reply to his doubt as to how so difficult a Yoga can be at all possible for the restless mind of man, the divine Teacher returns to this idea and makes it his culminating utterance. "The Yogin is greater than the doers of askesis, greater than the men of knowledge, greater than the men of works; become then the Yogin, 0 Arjuna," the Yogin, one who seeks for and attains, by works and knowledge and askesis
or by whatever other means, not even spiritual knowledge or power or anything else for their own sake, but the union with God alone; for in that all else is contained and in that lifted beyond itself to a divinest significance. But even among Yogins the greatest is the Bhakta. "Of all Yogins he who with all his inner self given up to me, for me has love and faith shraddhavan bhajate, him I hold to be the most united with me in Yoga." It is this that is the closing word of these first six chapters and contains in itself the seed of the rest, of that which still remains unspoken and is nowhere entirely spoken; for it is always and remains something of a mystery and a secret, rahasyam, the highest spiritual mystery and the divine secret.

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