Page:Essays On The Gita - Ghose - 1922.djvu/132

124 but if we remember that even Buddhi is in itself an inert action of inconscient Nature and that there is certainly in this sense an inconscient will and intelli- gence, a discriminative and determinative force even in the atom, if we observe the crude inconscient stuff of sensation, emotion, memory, impulsion in the plant and in this subconscient forms of existtnce, if we look at these powers of Nature-force assuming the forms of our subjectivity in the evolving consciousness of animal and man, we shall see that the Sankhya system squares well enough with all that modern en- quiry has elicited by its observation of material Nature. In the evolution of the soul back from Prakriti towards Purusha, the reverse order has to be taken to the original Nature-evolution, and that is how the Upa- nishads and the Gita following and almost quoting the Upanishads state the ascending order of our subjective powers. “Supreme, they say,” beyond their objects “are the senses, supreme over the senses the mind, supreme over the mind the intelligent will: that which is supreme over the intelligent will, is he,”” —is ‘the conscious self, the Purusha. Therefore, says the Gita, it is this Puraosha, this supreme cause of our subjective life which we have to understand and become aware of by the intelligence; in that we have to fix our will. So hold- ing cur lower subjective self in Nature firmly poised and stilled by means of the greater really conscient self, we can destroy the restless ever-active enemy of our peace and self-mastery, the mind’s desire.

For evidently there are two possibilities of the action of the intelligent will. Tt may take its downward and outward orientation towards a discursive action of