the mind’s insistence on them is the means, the instru- mefital cause. A man may control his organs of action and refuse to give them their natural play, but he has gained nothing if his mind continues to remember and dwell upon the objects of sense. Such a man has be- wildered himself with false notions of self-discipline ; he has not understood its object or its truth, nor the first principles of his subjective existence; therefore all his methods of self-discipline are false and null. + The body’s actions, even the mind’s actions are nothing in themselves, neither a bondage, nor. the first cause of bondage. What is vital is the mighty energy of Nature which will have her way and her play in her great field of mind and life and body ; what is dangerous in her, is the power of her three gunas, modes or qualities to con- fuse and bewilder the intelligence and so obscure the soul. That, as we shall see later, is the whole crux of action and liberation for tha Gita. Be free from obscuration and bewilderment by the three gunas and actiofi can continue, as it must continue, and even the largest, richest or most enormous and violent action ; it does not matter, for nothing then touches the Purusha, the soul has naishkarmya.
But at present the Gita does not proceed to that “larger point. Since the mind is the instrumental cause, since inaction is impossible, what is rational, necessary, the right way is a controlled action of the subjective and objective organism. The mind must bring the
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- ↑ I cannot think that mithydchdra means a hypocrite. How is a man a hypocrite who infliets on himself so severe and complete a privation? He is mistaken and deluded, vimidhdtmd, and his dchdra, his formally regulated method of self-discipline, is a false and vain method,—this surely is all that the Gita means.
