Liberation From and Mastery of the External Nature of Man

0:00 Many religious and spiritual traditions focus on the idea of liberation, from bondage to the illusion of the external world and its enticements and attractions. In some cases this takes the form of a vow of austerity and a focus on achieving redemption and access to heaven after one dies. In other cases it involves the one pointed focus on liberation with the abandonment of the active life in the world, a reduction of 1's needs down to a bare minimum, and in some cases using a begging bowl to obtain food and accepting whatever, if anything, comes to 1.

0:42 Some practice austere meditations or practices of concentration while residing in the desert, in mountain caves, etcetera. There is a tradition that indicates that a liberated soul can be fully engaged in the external life, but without attachment to the fruits of that life. The legend of King Janaka, for instance, incorporates such a sense. The goal remains liberation, but the active life is not set up in opposition to it. Rather, the seeker needs to act in the world without attachment, act based on principles of righteousness, fairness and balance, and carry out one's Dharma in an upright and proper manner.

1:28 To a great degree, there has been a divergent view between those who seek liberation from the world and those who want to bring about progress and development in the world. In The Life Divine, Sri Robindo sets forth the opposing views in chapters 2 and 3. The materialist Denial and the refusal of the ascetic. He reconciles these two standpoints in Chapter 4. Reality, omnipresent liberation, and progressive development of the external nature are not opposites but complementary aspects of one reality, and thus both have their underlying validity.

2:11 In the Bhagwad Gita, Sri Krishna explains to Arjuna that the liberated individual is not to be identified by any particular outer activity or manner of action, but according to his inner state of spiritual realization. In chapter 13, verse 23, however, the Gita goes even further as translated by Sri Aurobindo. Quote Witness source of the consent, upholder of the work of nature, Her enjoyer, Almighty Lord and Supreme Self is the Supreme Soul seated in this body. End Quote. The significant point here is that the Gita goes beyond the description of the Mundaka Upanishad that treats the Supreme Soul as the witness.

3:02 While the soul of man is actively participating in the actions of nature, the Supreme Soul is seated in the body and is not simply a witness of nature for the Gita, but also source of the consent, upholder of the work of nature, her enjoyer, Almighty Lord and Supreme Self. This implies the possibility that Triorobindu expands upon when he describes the difference between assuming the role of the witness of nature and the potential for transformation and mastery of nature, or in the interim, refusing or withholding of consent for certain responses of nature.

3:47 Srioro Bindo writes Quote. You can certainly go on developing the consciousness of the witness Purusha above, but if it is only a witness and the lower Procriti is allowed to have its own way, there would be no reason why those conditions should ever stop. Many take that attitude that the Perusha has to liberate itself by standing apart and the procrity can be allowed to go on till the end of the life doing its own business. It is prarabdha karma. When the body falls away, the procrity will drop also, and the Perusha go off into the featureless Brahman.

4:32 This is a comfortable theory, but of more than doubtful truth. I don't think liberation is so simple and facile a matter as that. In any case, the transformation which is the object of our Yoga would not take place. The Pirusha above is not only a witness. He is the giver or withholder of the sanction. If he persistently refuses the sanction to a movement of procriti, keeping himself detached, then even if it goes on for a time by its own momentum, it usually loses its hold after a time, becomes more feeble, less persistent, less concrete, and in the end fades away.

5:20 If you take the Purusha consciousness, it should be not only as the witness, but as the Anumanta, refusing sanction to the disturbing movements, sanctioning only peace, calm, purity and whatever else is part of the divine nature. This refusal of sanction need not mean a struggle with the lower property. It should be a quiet, persistent, detached refusal, leaving unsupported, unassented to, without meaning or justification, the contrary action of the nature. End Quote Reference Srioro Bindu and the Mother Looking from Within, Chapter 5.

6:06 Attitudes on the Path, pages 1:50 to 1:51.