Essays on the Gita

194 <strong>Essays</strong> on the Gitathan to that union of inner renunciation of desire with continuedactivity in the world of Nature which the Gita advocates. TheGita, however, admits and makes room for this movement; itallows as a recoiling starting-point the perception of the defectsof the world-existence, birth and disease and death and old ageand sorrow, the historic starting-point of the Buddha, janmamṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam,and it accepts theeffort of those whose self-discipline is motived by a desire forrelease, even in this spirit, from the curse of age and death,jarā-maraṇa-mokṣāya mām āśritya yatanti ye. But that, to be ofany profit, must be accompanied by the sattwic perception of ahigher state and the taking delight and refuge in the existence ofthe Divine, mām āśritya. Then the soul by its recoil comes to agreater condition of being, lifted beyond the three gunas and freefrom birth and death and age and grief, and enjoys the immortalityof its self-existence, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-duḥkhair vimukto’mṛtam aśnute. The tamasic unwillingness to accept the painand effort of life is indeed by itself a weakening and degradingthing, and in this lies the danger of preaching to all alike thegospel of asceticism and world-disgust, that it puts the stamp ofa tamasic weakness and shrinking on unfit souls, confuses theirunderstanding, buddhibhedaṁ janayet, diminishes the sustainedaspiration, the confidence in living, the power of effort which thesoul of man needs for its salutary, its necessary rajasic struggleto master its environment, without really opening to it — for itis yet incapable of that — a higher goal, a greater endeavour,a mightier victory. But in souls that are fit this tamasic recoilmay serve a useful spiritual purpose by slaying their rajasicattraction, their eager preoccupation with the lower life whichprevents the sattwic awakening to a higher possibility. Seekingthen for a refuge in the void they have created, they are able tohear the divine call, “O soul that findest thyself in this transientand unhappy world, turn and put thy delight in Me,” anityamasukhaṁ lokamimaṁprāpya bhajasva mām.Still, in this movement, the equality consists only in an equalrecoil from all that constitutes the world; and it arrives at indifferenceand aloofness, but does not include that power to