________________
THE IDEAL OF THE KARMAYOGIN
unmoved, where there is reason for deep and passionate feeling. When he acts, men will call him unmatta, a mad-man, eccentric or idiot; for his actions will often seem to have no definite result or purpose, to be wild, unregulated, regardless of sense and probability or inspired by a purpose and a vision which is not for this world. And it is true that he follows a light which other men do not possessro would even call darkness, that what is a dream to them, is to him a reality; that their night is his day. And this is the root of the difference that, while they reason, he knows.
To be capable of silence, stillness, illuminated passivity is to be fit for immortality -amritatwaya kalpate. It is to be dhira, the ideal of our ancient civilisation, which does not mean to be tamasic, inert and a block. The inaction of the tamasic man is a stumbling block to the energies around him, the inaction of the Yogin creates, preserves and destroys; his action
74