In this class (Class 10), we discuss chapter 4 of Sri Aurobindo’s Essays on the Gita, entitled “The Core of the Teaching” (pp. 29-38).
Study questions:
1. On pp. 29-30, Sri Aurobindo writes: “there are those who make the Gita teach, not works at all, but a discipline of preparation for renouncing life and works.” What school of philosophy or which commentator does he have in mind here?
2. What is Sri Aurobindo’s main objection to commentators who “speak of the Gita as if the doctrine of devotion were its whole teaching and put in the background its monistic elements and the high place it gives to quietistic immergence in the one self of all” (p. 30)? And which commentators do you think he has in mind?
3. What does Sri Aurobindo mean by the “Purushottama” (p. 30 and p. 37)? Please explain in your own words.
4. What are Sri Aurobindo’s main objections to commentators who interpret the Gītā as a “book of practical ethics” and “social service” (pp. 31-33)?
5. On p. 35, Sri Aurobindo writes: “There are in the world, in fact, two different laws of conduct each valid on its own plane, the rule principally dependent on external status and the rule independent of status and entirely dependent on the thought and conscience.” Please explain in your own words these “two different laws of conduct” and their relevance to the Gītā.
6. On p. 36, Sri Aurobindo claims that in the Gītā, the practice of renouncing the fruits of work is “practically superseded at a subsequent stage.” What is this “subsequent stage”? And what is the highest form of Karma Yoga?
7. On p. 37, Sri Aurobindo writes: “The argument of the Gita resolves itself into three great steps by which action rises out of the human into the divine plane leaving the bondage of the lower for the liberty of a higher law.” Please explain these “three great steps” in your own words.
8. Do you have any questions about the reading? Did you have difficulty understanding anything? Do you have any doubts or confusions?