Ideal of Karmayogin

Author(s): Aurbindo Ghose
Publisher: Prabartak Publishing House

Page 85

THE THREE PURUSHAS
not many. In the individual the One Purusha has three stages of personality ; He is One, but triple, trivrit. The Upanishads speak of two birds on one tree, of which one eats the fruit of the tree, the other, seated on a higher branch, does not eat but watches its fellow ; one is isha or Lord of itself, the other is anisha, not lord of itself, and it is when the eater looks up and perceives the greatness of the watcher and fills himself with it that grief, death, subjection,-in one word maya, ignorance, and illusion, cease to touch him. There are two unborn who are male and one unborn who is female ; she is the tree with its sweet and bitter fruit, the two are the birds. One of the unborn enjoys her sweetness, the other has put it away from him. These are the two Purushas, the akshara or immutable spirit, and the kshara or apparently mutable, and the tree or woman is Prakriti, universal Energy which the Europeans call Nature. The kshara Purusha is the soul in nature and
79