Essays on the Gita

XVIThe Fullness of Spiritual ActionTHE DEVELOPMENT of the idea of the Gita has reacheda point at which one question alone remains for solution,— the question of our nature bound and defective andhow it is to effect, not only in principle but in all its movements,its evolution from the lower to the higher being and from thelaw of its present action to the immortal Dharma. The difficultyis one which is implied in certain of the positions laid downin the Gita, but has to be brought out into greater prominencethan it gets there and to be put into a clearer shape before ourintelligence. The Gita proceeded on a psychological knowledgewhich was familiar to the mind of the time, and in the steps ofits thought it was well able to abridge its transitions, to takemuch for granted and to leave many things unexpressed whichwe need to have put strongly into light and made precise to us.Its teaching sets out at the beginning to propose a new sourceand level for our action in the world; that was the startingpointand that motives also the conclusion. Its initial objectwas not precisely to propose a way of liberation, mokṣa, butrather to show the compatibility of works with the soul’s efforttowards liberation and of spiritual freedom itself when onceattained with continued action in the world, muktasya karma.Incidentally, a synthetic Yoga or psychological method of arrivingat spiritual liberation and perfection has been developedand certain metaphysical affirmations have been put forward,certain truths of our being and nature on which the validityof this Yoga reposes. But the original preoccupation remainsthroughout, the original difficulty and problem, how Arjuna,dislodged by a strong revulsion of thought and feeling from theestablished natural and rational foundations and standards ofaction, is to find a new and satisfying spiritual norm of works,or how he is to live in the truth of the Spirit — since he can