Essays on the Gita

102 <strong>Essays</strong> on the Gitais a particular intensity, not the essential sign. The test is theexpulsion of all desires, their inability to get at the mind, and it isthe inner state from which this freedom arises, the delight of thesoul gathered within itself with the mind equal and still and highpoisedabove the attractions and repulsions, the alternations ofsunshine and storm and stress of the external life. It is drawn inwardeven when acting outwardly; it is concentrated in self evenwhen gazing out upon things; it is directed wholly to the Divineeven when to the outward vision of others busy and preoccupiedwith the affairs of the world. Arjuna, voicing the average humanmind, asks for some outward, physical, practically discerniblesign of this great Samadhi; how does such a man speak, howsit, how walk? No such signs can be given, nor does the Teacherattempt to supply them; for the only possible test of its possessionis inward and that there are plenty of hostile psychologicalforces to apply. Equality is the great stamp of the liberated souland of that equality even the most discernible signs are stillsubjective. “A man with mind untroubled by sorrows, who hasdone with desire for pleasures, from whom liking and wrath andfear have passed away, such is the sage whose understanding hasbecome founded in stability.” He is “without the triple actionof the qualities of Prakriti, without the dualities, ever based inhis true being, without getting or having, possessed of his self.”For what gettings and havings has the free soul? Once we arepossessed of the Self, we are in possession of all things.And yet he does not cease from work and action. Thereis the originality and power of the Gita, that having affirmedthis static condition, this superiority to nature, this emptinesseven of all that constitutes ordinarily the action of Nature forthe liberated soul, it is still able to vindicate for it, to enjoinon it even the continuance of works and thus avoid the greatdefect of the merely quietistic and ascetic philosophies, — thedefect from which we find them today attempting to escape.“Thou hast a right to action, but only to action, never to itsfruits; let not the fruits of thy works be thy motive, neither letthere be in thee any attachment to inactivity.” Therefore it is notthe works practised with desire by the Vedavadins, it is not the