Essays on the Gita

IXSankhya, Yoga and VedantaTHE WHOLE object of the first six chapters of the Gitais to synthetise in a large frame of Vedantic truth thetwo methods, ordinarily supposed to be diverse and evenopposite, of the Sankhyas and the Yogins. The Sankhya is takenas the starting-point and the basis; but it is from the beginningand with a progressively increasing emphasis permeated withthe ideas and methods of Yoga and remoulded in its spirit.The practical difference, as it seems to have presented itself tothe religious minds of that day, lay first in this that Sankhyaproceeded by knowledge and through the Yoga of the intelligence,while Yoga proceeded by works and the transformationof the active consciousness and, secondly, — a corollary of thisfirst distinction, — that Sankhya led to entire passivity and therenunciation of works, sannyāsa, while Yoga held to be quitesufficient the inner renunciation of desire, the purification ofthe subjective principle which leads to action and the turningof works Godwards, towards the divine existence and towardsliberation. Yet both had the same aim, the transcendence of birthand of this terrestrial existence and the union of the human soulwith the Highest. This at least is the difference as it is presentedto us by the Gita.The difficulty which Arjuna feels in understanding any possiblesynthesis of these oppositions is an indication of the hardline that was driven in between these two systems in the normalideas of the time. The Teacher sets out by reconciling works andthe Yoga of the intelligence: the latter, he says, is far superiorto mere works; it is by the Yoga of the Buddhi, by knowledgeraising man out of the ordinary human mind and its desiresinto the purity and equality of the Brahmic condition free fromall desire that works can be made acceptable. Yet are worksa means of salvation, but works thus purified by knowledge.