Page:Essays On The Gita - Ghose - 1922.djvu/134

126 we must fix it firmly in the calm self-knowledge of the Puiusha. The first movement must be obviously to get rid of desire which is the whole root of the evil and suffering; and in order to get rid of desire, we must put an end to the cause of desire, the rushing out of the senses to seize and enjoy their objects. We must draw them back when they are inclined thus to rush out, draw them away from their objects,—as.the tortoise draws in his limbs into the shell, so these into their source, quiescent in the mind, the mind quiescent in intelligen- ce, the intelligence quiescent in the soul and its self- -knowledgc, observing the action of Nature, but not subject to it, not desiring any thing that the objective life can give.

It is not an external asceticism, the physical renun- ciation of the objects of sense that T am teaching, suggests Krishnaimmediately to avoid a misunderstand- ing which is likely at once to arise. Not the renuncia- tion of the Sankhyas or the austerities of the rigid ascetic with his fasts, his maceration of the body, his attempt to abstain even from food; that is not the self- discipline or the abstinence which I mean, for [ speak of an inner withdrawal, a renunciation of desire. The embodied soul, having a body, has to support it normal- ‘1v by food for its normal physical action; by abstention from food it simply removes from itself the physical contact with the object of sense, but does not get rid of the inner relation which makes that contact hurtful. It retains the pleasure of thc sense in the object, the rasa, the liking and disliking,—for rasa has two sides; the soul must, on the contrary, be capable of enduring the physical contact without suffering inwardly this