Bhagavagd Gita - Session 27- Track 2704

So, Sri Aurobindo has said at length in ‘The Life Divine’ that our normal concept of mobility and immobility by which we judge whether they are contradictory or not is itself very inadequate. If you really go into the depth of the experience of mobility and immobility, you will really find that the two must coexists at the same time. There can be no mobility without immobility behind. It is impossible for mobility to be mobile without an immobility behind. The greater the immobility at the back, the greater is the force of mobility.

Even for eloquence, you can be eloquent in your speech, when your mind is full and there is a complete stability of your mind which knows all the fullness of your ideas and then you can manifest, the flow of the speech goes on. That unless there is a big reservoir which is very quiet, without the fullness, there can’t be the force of action. This is even an ordinary experience. It is only the strong who can remain quiet, which is a fact: the weak goes on trembling all the time, but the strong…and the strength meaning something that is solid, unmovable, unshakable. Only the strong can be powerful in his action. So, when we go into the depths of our psychology we find that it is only when there is a tremendous quietude, or complete quietude that you can really be dynamic.

The supreme Purushottama is, at once static and dynamic ‘at the same time’. It is not as if ¾ is quiet and ¼ is dynamic, even ‘that’ distinction cannot be made. It is not as if when the dynamism moves out, the staticity diminishes little by little. That also does not happen, the staticity remains perfect. When a strong man acts, it is not as if his strength is therefore weakened: his strength remains constant. The quietude of a Yogi is not lost even for one moment when he goes on making eloquent speeches; it is not as if when he is speaking his quietude is lost. When he is speaking he is at the same time completely quiet in his consciousness. You might even say that the quietude increases in fact, not only it does not decreases, it even in a sense increases: “rama dhana payo”, as Mirabai says, it is such a wealth that the more you spend, the more it comes, it increases.

Such is the nature of this quietude and its expenditure; it is not the ordinary way of expending: you spend it therefore the reservoir becomes less; the reservoir remains. Therefore purṇam adaḥ purṇam idam, ‘this is perfect and that is perfect’. The quietude, the staticity remains perfect, there is complete immobility. The only point is that mobility ‘depends’ upon immobility; and immobility ‘does not depend’ upon mobility. It is a very special relationship: mobility depends upon immobility, but immobility does not depend upon mobility although mobility must somehow be in the immobility, because if it is not in immobility, from where does it arise? So, immobility must have within it the mobility.

Now, this is our starting point, our first premise: the Reality is at once static and dynamic. Although ‘dynamic’, it is not necessarily that it must become manifesting dynamically; it is such a relationship that it does not obliged the immobility to manifest into mobility: it may, it may not. That is called the real freedom. The real freedom of the Divine is that He is free to remain immobile if He so wants. He is free to be mobile if He so wants.

And when He decides to become mobile, what happens? There is a force of movement, Tapas, that is the idea of Tapas. The force by which the mobility is, as it were, projected is ‘Tapas’. So, you might say that there is a power in the Supreme which becomes projected by power of the force: it gets projected. The Reality if it is not merely immobile and not merely mobile, but both at the same time. How is this to be expressed?

Now, in our Indian literature this has been expressed in many ways. One of the ways by which this is been expressed is the concept of ardhanārīśvara; that half of Him is Ishwara and the other one is nāri, but the same reality at once masculine and feminine meaning there by that that masculine is immobile and the other one is mobile: this is one way of conceiving it; all analogies are imperfect. But this is one way of understanding. So, there is a concept of ardhanārīśvara.

Then, there is another concept which is called: “Purusha and Prakriti”, meaning there by that Purusha is immobile and Prakriti is mobile, from where it has given rise to the idea that whenever we speak of Purusha, it is always immobile. That is why the question arises: is Purusha immobile alone? Now, again this is an image, therefore it should not be taken analogically too far: we should go back to the real fact. When we say there is something like Purusha and something like Prakriti, the question is: is Prakriti different from Purusha? Can Purusha not be described as Prakriti? Can Prakriti not be described as Purusha? If Reality is only one, then it should be possible to say that Purusha is Prakriti, and Prakriti is Purusha.

Therefore in the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna says that Purusha is both mobile and immobile: there is kṣara puruṣa, and there is akṣara puruṣa. So, this distinction that we make between Purusha and Prakriti as if the two are opposite of each other, even that is rubbed out by this description of Sri Krishna: Purusha is one; it is at once static and dynamic. Therefore you say: puruṣa is kṣara; puruṣa is akṣara; and puruṣa is puruṣottama.

?Question?

By Purusha, He is uttama puruṣa, He does not cease to bePurusha, but is only uttama puruṣa, He Himself says: I am uttama puruṣa. He is Purusha: the word Purushottama itself means puruṣaḥ yaḥ uttamaḥ, sa eva puruṣottamaḥ. That Purusha which is uttama, that is Purushottama.

?Question?

uttama puruṣa: kṣara puruṣa is also Para Prakriti. As yet Apara Prakriti has not yet come into the picture at all. In the origin of all things that we are talking now…We are talking now at the highest level, in the very first premise. The first premise itself says: “There is one Reality: ekaṁ sad.” Now, that Reality is a very curious reality, it is adbhūtam, that Reality is not like an ordinary reality. So, it is very well known that the description of that Reality is a shocking statement: it is at once static and dynamic. There is something in that nature, Reality is such, it is not like ordinary thing that if something is stable, it remains stable, it will not move. If it is moving it is not stable: such is not the nature of Reality, it is something quite different. Of all that we see, there is no analogy of it. That is why the Supreme is called anupamā, anupamā means: that of which there is no upamā, there is no simile of it. Reality is anupamā because there is only one reality which is like this, which is at once static and dynamic. That is why Sri Aurobindo says: the Reality is complex even when it is simple. So His description is that Reality is simple-complex. Now this itself….