Page:Essays On The Gita - Ghose - 1922.djvu/149

Rh otherwise, even at the purest, still we obey a choice of our nature, and if our nature were different and the gunas acted on our intelligence and will in some other combination, we would not accept the Shastra) but live according to our pleasure or our intellectual notions or else break free from the social Jaw to live the life of the solitary or the ascetic. We cannot become impersonal by obeying something outside ourselves, for we cannot so get outside our- selvés; we can only do it by rising to the highest in ourselves, into our free Soul and Self which is the same and one in all and has therefore no perspnal interests, to the Divine in our being who possesses Himself trans- cendent of cosmos and is therefore not bound by His cosmic works or His individual action. That is what the Gita teaches and desirelessness is only a means to this end, not an aim in itself. Yes, but how is it to be brought about ? By doing all works with sacrifice as the only object, is the reply of the divine Teacher. * By - doing works otherwise than for sacrifice, this world of men is in bondage to works ; for sacrifice practise works, O son of Kunti, becoming free from all attuchment.” It i$ evident that all works and not merely satrifice and social duties can be done in this spirit; any action may be done either from the ego-sense narrow or enlarged or for the sake of the Divine. All being and all action of Prakriti exist only for the sake of the Divine ; from that it proceeds,‘by that it endures, to that it is directed, But so long as we are dominated by the ego-sense we cannot perceive or act in the spirit of this truth, but act for the satisfaction of the ego and in the spirit of the ego, otherwise than for sacrifice. Egoism is the knot of the bondage. By acting Godwards, without any