Geeta 2 and 3 - sri Aurobindo

In the Gita the Sankhyan way is described as buddhi yoga, the word Yoga is primarily used for indicating the Yoga of works, karma yoga. The word Yoga as used in the Gita has to be distinguished from the same word that is used to describe the system of yoga attributed to Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras do not contain karma yoga, and they largely concentrate on the methods of concentration which lead to the realization of the immobile Purusha and the state of Samadhi in which one can attain to the state of absorption in identity with the immobile Purusha [ nirvaan]. In that sense, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras constitute very largely the path of knowledge. On the other hand, the word yoga in the Gita is primarily used to mean karma yoga, although this word is used throughout the Gita to indicate a larger synthesis of yoga in which karma yoga, jnana yoga and bhakti yoga become united and reconciled with each other in perfect harmony. In the attainment of this harmony, the Gita affirms not only the truth of the immobile Purusha but also the truth of Ishwara [soul] and still larger concept of Purushottama [akalpurkh] which unites the immobile Purusha and Ishwara. Still again, while both the yoga of the Gita and the yoga of the yoga sutras of Patanjali speak of Samadhi, the latter connotes a state of complete immobility, and the former conceives of Samadhi as a status in which one can live and dynamically act even while completely fixed in the consciousness of Purushottama, who synthesizes both the immobile Purusha and the mobile Purusha. [In other words the samadhi of the Gita is the state of turiya]. In that state, it becomes possible for the seeker to move among the objects of sense, in contact with them, acting on them, but with the senses entirely under one's control. In that state, one is free from reactions, and even the senses are delivered from the afflictions of liking and disliking, and one escapes the duality of positive and negative desire. In that state, calm, peace, clearness, happy tranquility, {ātmaprasāda) will settle upon the seeker. And yet the seeker does not cease from work and action. That state is described by the Gita as a state of sthitaprajna, the state of fixed stability of the intelligent- will, or the state of samādhistha, the state of one who is constantly settled in the state of Samadhi. The description in the Gita of this state Sikhs will recognize as a description of the Brahamgiani in the Gurbani. Krishna gives the following description, which is extremely important as a statement of the highest state of yogic realization as conceived in the synthetic yoga of the Gita: "When a man thoroughly renounces all the desires of mental origination and is content in the self by the self, he is called sthitaprajna, one who has steady wisdom. He who is not perturbed in mind in the midst of sorrowful conditions and who is devoid of any craving in the midst of happiness, who is .free from attachment, fear and anger, such a one is called a sage of steady wisdom. He who is without attachment and who neither rejoices nor hates in whatever good and evil that may come upon him; his wisdom is firm. When one is able to withdraw his senses from the sense- objects as a tortoise withdraws its limbs from all sides, his wisdom is firm. When the embodied self abstains from sense-enjoyment, the objects turn away from him but the flavour for sense-objects continues to linger on; but even this flavour turns away from him when the Supreme Self is realized. The strong turbulent senses forcibly carry away even the mind of a man of discrimination who is endeavouring to control it, but having controlled his senses, when one fixes the entire being in devotion and consecration upon Me (Purushottama) then his senses are under his mastery, and his wisdom or intelligent-will becomes steady... When the self-controlled man, although moving among the sensory objects, is able to restrain his senses and becomes free from likes and dislikes, then he obtains that delight of the self that results from self-mastery. In that state of delight, all sorrows end, and the intelligent-will imbued with delight is soon established and remains permanently steady. .... Therefore, one whose senses are completely detached from their objects, his intelligent-will is firmly established.... Just as waters from different rivers enter into the ocean from all sides, yet the ocean continues to be stable, in the same way, a person who is not perturbed by the incessant flow of desire, he alone attains peace and not the desirer of sense-objects. One who gives up all desires and one who acts without any craving, and one who is devoid of attachment and of ego, he attains the supreme peace. Such is the state of Brahmic consciousness, having attained which one is not deluded... Who then is really the agent of action, if all action is determined by the universal Prakriti? What is the role of Purusha who is seen in the Sankhya as immobile witness, and what is his contribution in the movement of action if Prakriti is the doer of action? According to the Sankhya, it is the Purusha, on account of his identification with the ego-sense which belongs to Prakriti, who senses identification as a result of ignorance, and mistakenly thinks that he is the agent of action. But according to Sankhya, Purusha is by its very nature immobile and luminous; how does he fall into delusion? Prakriti, according to Sankhya, is entirely alien to Purusha and independent of Purusha. How then does Purusha have the possibility of getting entangled into Prakriti? These questions are not satisfactorily answered in the Sankhya, and whatever is stated by way of the answer is evidently inconsistent with the ontological positions of Purusha as conscious and inactive and Prakriti as the engine of action but entirely unconscious. There must be, therefore, a better answer to this question, and it is that better answer which is implied in the ontological position that we find in the vast and synthetic teaching of the Gita. Immobile Purusha and active Prakriti of Sankhya, even though both of them correspond to a certain level of experience, are not enough to explain the totality of the highest foundations of knowledge and the totality of elements which are to be found in the operations of the universe and relationships of the individual with those operations and with the highest foundations. We will, therefore, see how the teaching of the Gita and the methods of Karma Yoga include the teaching of the Sankhya but go beyond by restating in clearer terms the truths of yogic realizations that are to be found in the Veda and the Upanishads. http://motherandsriaurobindo.in/#_StaticContent/SriAurobindoAshram/-09 E-Library/-03 Disciples/Kireet Joshi/-01 English/The Gita and its Synthesis of Yoga/-04_Part One.htm