Gita Rahasya -Tilak
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CHAPTER VII
THE KAPILA SAMKHYA PHILOSOPHY OR THE CONSIDERATION OF THE MUTABLE AND THE IMMUTABLE
(KAPILA SAMKHYA-SASTRA OR KSARAKSARA-VICARA) Although the advaita (Monistic) Vedanta philosophy fully accepts the Samkhya theory that the Spirit is qualityless, apathetic, and inactive, yet the other doctrine of the Samkhya philosophy, namely, that there are fundamentally innumerable independent Spirits which see the dance of one and the same Matter is not acceptable to the Vedantisits[1] According to the Vedanta philosophy, living beings appear different as a result of difference of environment ; but, as a matter of fact everything is Brahman. According to the Samkhya philosophers in as much as the life and death and the family of every man is different, in the world and in as much this difference in the world that one man is happy and anotherman is unhappy ,every Atman or purusa must be originally different from another, and their number is innumerable[2] It is true that Matter and Spirit are the two funda-mental principles of the entire universe ; but the Samkhya philosophers interpret the word ` Spirit' as meaning a collection of innumerable Spirits. They say that the world goes onas a result of the union between these innumerable Spirits and Matter with its three constituents. When each Spirit becomes united with Matter, it. places before that Spirit the diffusion of its constituents, and the Spirit goes on enjoying it. After this has gone on for a long time, when in the case of a particular Spirit, the activity of prakrti takes the sattvika ( placid) form, that Spirit alone(not all Spirits) acquires true knowledge, and the activity of Matter comes to an end so far as it is concerned; and it reaches its, fundamental isolatated state. But even if it attains salvation, the worldly life of the other Spirits continues. Some people are likely to think that when a Spirit reaches the state of isolation, it. must at once escape from the meshes of Matter. But according to the Samkhya philosophers such is not the case, and the body and the organs which are the manifestations of Matter do not leave it till the body dies. The reason given by the Samkhya philosophers for this is : in the same way as the wheel of the potter goes on revolving for some time as a result of previous motion, even after the pot on it has been finished and taken away from it, so also does the body of even that man who has attained the state of isolation continue to 'exist for some time" [3] But the man who has attained that isolated state is not in any way obstructed, nor does he experience either pain or pleasure, on account of his body ; because, in an much as this body, which is a manifestation of gross or lifeless Matter, is in itself gross or lifeless, he looks upon both pain and pleasura or happiness as the same ; and if you say that the Spirit will be affected by pain or pleasure then, as it has realised that it is different from the activity of Matter, and that the entire activity is of Matter and not its own, it remains apathetic, howmuchsoever active Matter may continue. |
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