Part 37 (1/2)

production being suspended, the activity here repeats the same state ([email protected][email protected]_) of equilibrium, so that there is no change or new production. The state of pralaya thus is not a suspension of the teleology or purpose of the [email protected], or an absolute break of the course of [email protected] evolution; for the state of pralaya, since it has been generated to fulfil the demands of the acc.u.mulated karmas of [email protected], and since there is still the activity of the [email protected] in keeping themselves in a state of suspended production, is also a stage of the [email protected] cycle. The state of mukti (liberation) is of course quite different, for in that stage the movement of the [email protected] ceases forever with reference to the liberated soul.

But still the question remains, what breaks the state of equilibrium?

The [email protected] answer is that it is due to the transcendental (non-mechanical) influence of the [email protected] [Footnote ref 1]. This influence of the [email protected] again, if it means anything, means that there is inherent in the [email protected] a teleology that all their movements or modifications should take place in such a way that these may serve the purposes of the [email protected] Thus when the karmas of the [email protected] had demanded that there should be a suspension of all experience, for a period there was a pralaya. At the end of it, it is the same inherent purpose of the [email protected] that wakes it up for the formation of a suitable world for the experiences of the [email protected] by which its quiescent state is disturbed. This is but another way of looking at the inherent teleology of the [email protected], which demands that a state of pralaya should cease and a state of world-framing activity should begin. Since there is a purpose in the [email protected] which brought them to a state of equilibrium, the state of equilibrium also presupposes that it also may be broken up again when the purpose so demands. Thus the inherent purpose of the [email protected] brought about the state of pralaya and then broke it up for the creative work again, and it is this natural change in the [email protected] that may be regarded from another point of view as the transcendental influence of the [email protected]

Mahat and [email protected]

The first evolute of the [email protected] is generated by a preponderance of the sattva (intelligence-stuff). This is indeed the earliest state from which all the rest of the world has sprung forth; and it is a state in which the stuff of sattva predominates. It thus holds

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[Footnote 1: The Yoga answer is of course different. It believes that the disturbance of the equilibrium of [email protected] for new creation takes place by the will of is'vara (G.o.d).]

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within it the minds (_buddhi_) of all [email protected] which were lost in the [email protected] during the pralaya. The very first work of the evolution of [email protected] to serve the [email protected] is thus manifested by the separating out of the old buddhis or minds (of the [email protected]) which hold within themselves the old specific ignorance (_avidya_) inherent in them with reference to each [email protected] with which any particular buddhi is a.s.sociated from beginningless time before the pralaya. This state of evolution consisting of all the collected minds (buddhi) or all the [email protected] is therefore called _buddhitattva._ It is a state which holds or comprehends within it the buddhis of all individuals.

The individual buddhis of individual [email protected] are on one hand integrated with the buddhitattva and on the other a.s.sociated with their specific [email protected] When some buddhis once begin to be separated from the [email protected], other buddhi evolutions take place. In other words, we are to understand that once the transformation of buddhis is effected for the service of the [email protected], all the other direct transformations that take place from the [email protected] take the same line, i.e. a preponderance of sattva being once created by the bringing out of some buddhis, other transformations of [email protected] that follow them have also the sattva preponderance, which thus have exactly the same composition as the first buddhis. Thus the first transformation from [email protected] becomes buddhi-transformation. This stage of buddhis may thus be regarded as the most universal stage, which comprehends within it all the buddhis of individuals and potentially all the matter of which the gross world is formed. Looked at from this point of view it has the widest and most universal existence comprising all creation, and is thus called _mahat_ (the great one). It is called [email protected]_ (sign), as the other later existences or evolutes give us the ground of inferring its existence, and as such must be distinguished from the [email protected] which is called [email protected],_ i.e. of which no [email protected] or characterise may be affirmed.

This mahat-tatva being once produced, further modifications begin to take place in three lines by three different kinds of undulations representing the sattva preponderance, rajas preponderance and tama preponderance. This state when the mahat is disturbed by the three parallel tendencies of a preponderance of tamas, rajas and sattva's called [email protected],_ and the above three tendencies are respectiviy called _tamasika [email protected]_ or _bhutadi_, _rajasika_ or _taijasa [email protected],_ and _vaikarika [email protected]_ The rajasika [email protected] cannot make a new preponderance by itself; it only

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helps (_sahakari_) the transformations of the sattva preponderance and the tamas preponderance. The development of the former preponderance, as is easy to see, is only the a.s.sumption of a more and more determinate character of the buddhi, for we remember that buddhi itself has been the resulting transformation of a sattva preponderance. Further development with the help of rajas on the line of sattva development could only take place when the buddhi as mind determined itself in specific ways. The first development of the buddhi on this line is called _sattvika_ or _vaikarika [email protected]_. This [email protected] represents the development in buddhi to produce a consciousness-stuff as I or rather ”mine,”

and must thus be distinguished from the first stage as buddhi the function of which is a mere understanding and general datun as thisness.

The ego or [email protected] (_abhimana-dravya_) is the specific expression of the general consciousness which takes experience as mine.

The function of the ego is therefore called _abhimana_ (self-a.s.sertion).

From this again come the five cognitive senses of vision, touch, smell, taste, and hearing, the five cognitive senses of speech, handling, foot-movement, the ejective sense and the generative sense; the [email protected]_ (bio-motor force) which help both conation and cognition are but aspects of buddhi-movement as life. The individual [email protected] and senses are related to the individual buddhis by the developing sattva determinations from which they had come into being. Each buddhi with its own group of [email protected] (ego) and sense-evolutes thus forms a microcosm separate from similar other buddhis with their a.s.sociated groups. So far therefore as knowledge is subject to sense-influence and the ego, it is different for each individual, but so far as a general mind ([email protected] buddhi_) apart from sense knowledge is concerned, there is a community of all buddhis in the buddhitattva. Even there however each buddhi is separated from other buddhis by its own peculiarly a.s.sociated ignorance (_avidya_). The buddhi and its sattva evolutes of [email protected] and the senses are so related that though they are different from buddhi in their functions, they are all comprehended in the buddhi, and mark only its gradual differentiations and modes. We must again remember in this connection the doctrine of refilling, for as buddhi exhausts its part in giving rise to [email protected], the deficiency of buddhi is made good by [email protected]; again as [email protected] partially exhausts itself in generating sense-faculties, the deficiency

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is made good by a refilling from the buddhi. Thus the change and wastage of each of the stadia are always made good and kept constant by a constant refilling from each higher state and finally from [email protected]

The Tanmatras and the [email protected] [Footnote ref 1].

The other tendency, namely that of tamas, has to be helped by the liberated rajas of [email protected], in order to make itself preponderant, and this state in which the tamas succeeds in overcoming the sattva side which was so preponderant in the buddhi, is called _bhutadi._ From this bhutadi with the help of rajas are generated the _tanmatras,_ the immediately preceding causes of the gross elements. The bhutadi thus represents only the intermediate stage through which the differentiations and regroupings of tamas reals in the mahat proceed for the generation of the tanmatras.

There has been some controversy between [email protected] and Yoga as to whether the tanmatras are generated from the mahat or from [email protected] The situation becomes intelligible if we remember that evolution here does not mean coming out or emanation, but increasing differentiation in integration within the evolving whole.

Thus the regroupings of tamas reals marks the differentiation which takes place within the mahat but through its stage as bhutadi. Bhutadi is absolutely h.o.m.ogeneous and inert, devoid of all physical and chemical characters except quantum or ma.s.s.

The second stadium tanmatra represents subtle matter, vibratory, impingent, radiant, instinct with potential energy. These ”potentials”