Essays on the Gita

8 <strong>Essays</strong> on the Gitastriking speculations of a philosophic intellect, but rather enduringtruths of spiritual experience, verifiable facts of our highestpsychological possibilities which no attempt to read deeply themystery of existence can afford to neglect. Whatever the systemmay be, it is not, as the commentators strive to make it, framedor intended to support any exclusive school of philosophicalthought or to put forward predominantly the claims of anyone form of Yoga. The language of the Gita, the structure ofthought, the combination and balancing of ideas belong neitherto the temper of a sectarian teacher nor to the spirit of a rigorousanalytical dialectics cutting off one angle of the truth to excludeall the others; but rather there is a wide, undulating, encirclingmovement of ideas which is the manifestation of a vast syntheticmind and a rich synthetic experience. This is one of those greatsyntheses in which Indian spirituality has been as rich as in itscreation of the more intensive, exclusive movements of knowledgeand religious realisation that follow out with an absoluteconcentration one clue, one path to its extreme issues. It doesnot cleave asunder, but reconciles and unifies.The thought of the Gita is not pure Monism although itsees in one unchanging, pure, eternal Self the foundation ofall cosmic existence, nor Mayavada although it speaks of theMaya of the three modes of Prakriti omnipresent in the createdworld; nor is it qualified Monism although it places in the Onehis eternal supreme Prakriti manifested in the form of the Jivaand lays most stress on dwelling in God rather than dissolutionas the supreme state of spiritual consciousness; nor is itSankhya although it explains the created world by the doubleprinciple of Purusha and Prakriti; nor is it Vaishnava Theismalthough it presents to us Krishna, who is the Avatara of Vishnuaccording to the Puranas, as the supreme Deity and allows noessential difference nor any actual superiority of the status ofthe indefinable relationless Brahman over that of this Lord ofbeings who is the Master of the universe and the Friend of allcreatures. Like the earlier spiritual synthesis of the Upanishadsthis later synthesis at once spiritual and intellectual avoids naturallyevery such rigid determination as would injure its universal