Practical Vedanta

Practical Vedantaessentially different from its cause. According to Kapila, from undifferentiatednature to thought or intellect, not one of them is what he calls the "Enjoyer" or"Enlightener". Just as is a lump of clay, so is a lump of mind. By itself the mindhas no light; but ate see it reasons. Therefore there must be some one behind it,whose light is percolating through Mahat and consciousness, and subsequentmodifications, and this is what Kapila calls the Purusha, the Self of the Vedantin.According to Kapila, the Purusha is a simple entity, not a compound; he isimmaterial, the only one who is immaterial, and all these various manifestationsare material. I see a black-board. First, the external instruments will bring thatsensation to the nerve-centre, to the Indriya according to Kapila; from the centre itwill go to the mind and make an impression; the mind will present it to theBuddhi, but Buddhi cannot act; the action comes, as it were, from the Purushabehind. These, so to speak, are all his servants, bringing the sensations to him, andhe, as it were, gives the orders, reacts, is the enjoyer, the perceiver, the real One,the King on his throne, the Self of man, who is immaterial. Because he isimmaterial, it necessarily follows that he must be infinite, he cannot have anylimitation whatever. Each one of the Purushas is omnipresent; each one of us isomnipresent, but we can act only through the Linga Sharira, the fine body. Themind, the self-consciousness, the organs, and the vital forces compose the finebody or sheath, what in Christian philosophy is called the spiritual body of man. Itis this body that gets salvation, or punishment, or heaven, that incarnates andreincarnates, because we see from the very beginning that the going and thecoming of the Purusha or soul are impossible. Motion means going or coming, andwhat goes or comes from one place to another cannot be omnipresent. Thus far wesee from Kapila's psychology that the soul is infinite, and that the soul is the onlything which is not composed of nature. He is the only one that is outside of nature,but he has got bound by nature, apparently. Nature is around him, and he hasidentified himself with it. He thinks, "I am the Linga Sharira", "I am the grossmatter, the gross body", and as such he enjoys pleasure and pain, but they do notreally belong to him, they belong to this Linga Sharira or the fine body.The meditative state is called always the highest state by the Yogi, when it isneither a passive nor an active state; in it you approach nearest to the Purusha. Thesoul has neither pleasure nor pain; it is the witness of everything, the eternalwitness of all work, but it takes no fruits from any work. As the sun is the cause ofsight of every eye, but is not itself affected by any defects in the eye or as when acrystal has red or blue flowers placed before it, the crystal looks red or blue, andyet it is neither; so, the soul is neither passive nor active, it is beyond both. Thenearest way of expressing this state of the soul is that it is meditation. This isSankhya philosophy.Next, Sankhya says, that the manifestation of nature is for the soul; allcombinations are for some third person. The combinations which you call nature,these constant changes are going on for the enjoyment of the soul, for itsliberation, that it may gain all this experience from the lowest to the highest. Whenfile:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Chitra%20Selva...oksBySwami/PracticalVedanta/PracticalVedantaPDF.html (97 of 113)2/26/2007 12:24:34 AM