Page:Essays On The Gita - Ghose - 1922.djvu/133

Rh the perceptions and the will in the triple play of Prakriti, or it may take its upward and inward orientation to- wards a settled peace and equality in the calm and immutable purity of the conscious silent soul no longer subject to.the distractions of Nature. In the former alternative the subjective being is at the mercy of the objects of sense, it lives in the outward contact of things. That life is the life of desire. For the senses excited by their objects create a restless or often violent disturbance, a strong or even headlong outward move- ment towards the seizure of these objects and their en- joyment, and they carry away the sense-mind, “as the winds carry aways a ship upon the sea; " the mind sub- jected to the emotions, passions, longmgq impulsions awakened by this outward movement of the senses carries away similarly the intelligent will, which loses therefore its power of calm discrimination and mastery. Subjection of the soul to the confused play of the three gunas of Prakriti in their eternal entangled twining and wrestling, ignorance, a false, sensuous, objective life of the soul, enslavement to grief and wrath and attachment and passion, are the results of the down- wardl trend of the buddhi,—the troubled life of the ordi- nary, unenlightened, undisciplined man. Those who " like the Vedavadins make sense-enjoyment the object of action and its fulfilment the highest aim of the soul, are misieading guides. The inner subjective self-delight 1ndependent of obJects is our true aim and the hlgh and wide poise of our peace and liberation.

Therefore, it is the upward and inward orientation of the intelligent will that we must resolutcly choose with a settled concentration and perseverance, vyavasdya;