PRINCIPLES OF A HIGHER ORDER OF LIFE
by Swami Krishnananda
The Import of the Gita's Fourth Chapter
The hands of God feel everywhere,
As Incarnations mighty come
To rid the earth of dissension
And free all souls from sorrow's pangs.
As four-dimensioned transcendent
In three-dimensioned forms abides,
The Supermental Infinite
Takes up the role of finitudes.
As conflagrations hide in sparks
God-Absolute as glory hails
As excellences seen in life
In great and grand and wondrous forms.
The harmonise extremes in life,
To Kingdom God's proclaim on earth,
To heal the sick and raise the low,
To trample ego God descends.
Of righteousness to plant the roots,
The universal justice fix
As forms of all performances
The Divine fingers operate.
As law unseen wakes up to work
When forms and things set up revolts,
The Arms of God are uplifted
As thunderbolt to ego's strikes.
As we approach the facts of life
So facts react to pay our dues;
However does one God adore
One reaps benefits in that way.
The social order is fitted
To enable the souls to rise
Above the finite involvements
To freedom's peak par excellence.
The wisdom's head and strength of arms,
Cooperative give and take,
And labour for life's sustenance
Sum up the pattern survival's.
As life exceeds mere survival
Reason has supreme part to play
In rooting every adventure
Firmly in Spirit's wide domain.
As social norms cannot negate
The needs of individuals,
They do arrange for gradual growth
By scales in life's experience.
To study and restrain senses,
To household keep and train passions,
To secluded as recluse live
And wisdom reach are steps levelled.
No action binds if intention
Does not connect the act with self;
And acts are done to free oneself
From impulses which compel acts.
Physical acts are no more acts
If acting mind is not attached;
And acts performed release the self
From subjection to life's instincts.
The greed for wealth and progeny
And world-renown are instincts called;
By means of them one transcends them.
This wisdom everyone should gain.
In sacrifice actions dissolve,
Whereby the self offers itself
In knowledge-fire burning all sins,
The all-inclusive Godhead's light.
Actor, action and action's goal,
Are waves in one abounding sea;
Here none does act and none fruits reaps
As all is just tumult of waves.
To adore gods, senses subdue,
Behold the One in sense-contacts,
Restrain all functions entirely,
Are some of Yoga's various ways.
To give material charity,
And offer gifts of belonging;
To fire create within oneself
By Tapas done, are Yoga's forms.
To drown oneself in scripture's lore,
To learning reach for clearing doubts,
To breath control in harmony
Are also Yoga's multi-limbs.
The highest sacrifice, Tapas,
Is union with universals,
Until the Great Universal
In meditation is attained.
By Yoga freed from action's bond,
By knowledge having dispelled doubts,
Rooted in all-pervading Self,
Forces act not on such a sage.