When you become aware of the misidentication you are reversing the process of creation by becoming aware that you are not the evolutes of matter. This is not just an intellectual realization. It has be a conscious realization. Then you will no longer see the world as you are seeing it right now. When you become consciously aware you are not the body then at that very instant just as you see the things outside of your body as external to you, you will likewise see your body as external to you. This is what is known as an out of body experience. In like manner as you conscious realization expands, you peel away one layer after the other(24 tattvas to peel away) to reveal the essential nature of everything and your identity with that: Brahman.
[QUOTE=Surya Deva;32862]The simple logical reason for why purusha and prakriti are ontologically distinct is that the observer can never be the observed. This is an incontrovertible logical dualism. As soon as you become aware of something you become aware of it as separate from you.
The field is not an attribute but is the nature of purusha. When you look out towards you will see as far as your awareness can extend - this is the field of your awareness. If your awareness extends even further out your fields expands and encompasses more. There finally comes a point in the expansion of consciousness that it expands to encompass all of existence and all levels of existence and this is what is known as Brahman.
So prakriti is the consciousness field and purusha is the pure consciousness at every point in the field. So they always go together just like the sun and light always go together.
[/QUOTE]
I think by contingent you mean that Prakriti and Purusa always go together. So if that is the case, then liberation is not a possibility. In place of liberation you are apparently substituting this expansion of consciousness to the point of Brahman. It sounds like you are saying that we all can become Brahman. I noticed that you did not address the question of right knowledge. You state this as fact, but this “knowledge” is only found in scriptures and there is no other evidence to support it. If this is your religious belief, that’s fine.
As prakriti(observed) and purusha(observer) are completely logically distinct they cannot ever logically combine and consciousness will always be just the witness of matter but never combine in it. This means if it appears that consciousness is embodied it must be just a superimposition. Like a garment can get superimposed with perfume and it may seem the perfume is coming from the garment but in fact it is not. Or like a mirror showing you a reflection if the mirror has blemishes on it and you look at it it may seem you have blemishes, but in fact you don’t.
Consciousness never combines with matter but merely comes into association with it. I have a body and I have a mind, I am not the body and the mind.
You seem to be preferring your logic to observation of nature. We all experience life everyday as the conjunction of purusa and prakriti. You don’t deny that this occurs, you just argue semantics.
The fact is you are aware of your body, so you cannot be your body; you are aware of your mind, so you cannot be the mind. So there is no real embodiment, but in fact your consciousness has become misidentified with matter. This is why the world is a perceptual error.
This is a non-sequitor. Assuming it is true that the self is not the body, and the self is not the mind, it does not follow that embodiment isn’t real. Misidentification of the self with matter is not a perceptual error. It has been explained with the metaphor of the snake and the rope, but this is just a metaphor. Aviveka is similar to the misperception, but not identical with it. But even if it aviveka was identical with misperception, that does not make the world illusory. According to Samkhya, aviveka results in the conjunction of purusa and prakriti, or birth.
Another logical axiom of Vedanta is the rule of non-negation. That is the truth cannot change and if it does change it is not the truth and has no being in itself. The world changes, the body changes and the mind changes so they cannot be be the truth and have no being in themselves,…
Not being a professional logician, I don’t know what this fallacy is called, but I know its a fallacy. You’re using the word truth in a context that is inappropriate for it. To say that the world changes, therefore it is not the truth has no meaning whatsoever. the truth is that constant change and transformation is part of the essence of material nature.
…however consciousness always remains still. The fact that your body has undergone a billion births and deaths since you were born, and the thoughts in your mind have undergone the birth of billions of births and deaths of thoughts, but still despite this your consciousness has endured is proof that consciousness is not a changing thing and it is the very substance or ground of all existence.
Another non-sequitor. Even if we accept as true that something within us is unchanging, it doesn’t follow that the unchanging self is the substance or ground of all existence. If that is your belief, that’s fine, but the logic doesn’t work.
Something has to be not changing for there to be any perception at all. If it was true that both consciousness was changing every moment and matter was changing every moment then it would be impossible to have any stability or substance at all. However, this is not the case. It is clear that there is substance in reality and therefore something is not changing. This is consciousness. Brahman. It is the ground of all of existence.
I’m beginning to doubt your credentials, prof. You sound more like a preacher than a PhD. If an ignorant slob like me can find all these errors of logic, what follows from that?
You have not shown any errors in my logic but only in your own comprehension and once again betrayed that you do not understand Samkhya much at all.
I think by contingent you mean that Prakriti and Purusa always go together. So if that is the case, then liberation is not a possibility. In place of liberation you are apparently substituting this expansion of consciousness to the point of Brahman. It sounds like you are saying that we all can become Brahman. I noticed that you did not address the question of right knowledge. You state this as fact, but this “knowledge” is only found in scriptures and there is no other evidence to support it. If this is your religious belief, that’s fine.
No, contingent means that Prakriti is dependent on Purusha. Not that they always go together. Before prakriti is manifest prakrit is only a potential called moolaprakriti and does not yet exist. But a potential within what? The only entity that is existing prior to prakriti becoming manifest is purusha. Therefore it is clear that moolaprakriti is a potential within purusha. Therefore prakriti exists inside of purusha not outside of it.
This is equivalent to Brahman and maya in Vedanta. Brahman is the pure consciousness and maya is the potential within Brahman that Brahman projects which makes up the world which exists within Brahman. Purusha is the pure consciousness and moolaprakriti is the potential within purusha that purusha projects which makes up the world. I am sorry but you are blind if you cannot see these are equivalent.
You seem to be preferring your logic to observation of nature. We all experience life everyday as the conjunction of purusa and prakriti. You don’t deny that this occurs, you just argue semantic
Rubbish. We do not experience purusha and prakriti at all. Have you actually read the Samkhyakarika? Purusha and Prakriti are inferred entities not observed entities. The Samkhyakarika gives arguments for their existence. The Prakriti is the field which consists of guna activity and the purusha is pure consciousness which is outside of space, time and causation. The samkhyakarika mentions that these are entities which are not apparent and that the only way to know them is through logic.
What we observe is not purusha and prakriti but the trasformations of prakriti: buddhi, ahamkara, manas, karmaindryas, jnanaindriyas, tanmatras and mahabhuttas.
The reason you are confused is because you are working with wrong translations of purusha and prakriti as mind and matter. What you think of consciousness is not purusha in Samkhya but buddhi, ahamkara, manas. And what you think of matter is not prakriti in Samkhya but the mahabhuttas which are evolutes of prakriti. In think in Samkhya all of these are matter. The property of matter according to Samkhyakarika is that which has the property of being produced. All produced things are matter.
Both purusha and prakriti are theorerical entities.
This is a non-sequitor. Assuming it is true that the self is not the body, and the self is not the mind, it does not follow that embodiment isn’t real. Misidentification of the self with matter is not a perceptual error. It has been explained with the metaphor of the snake and the rope, but this is just a metaphor. Aviveka is similar to the misperception, but not identical with it. But even if it aviveka was identical with misperception, that does not make the world illusory. According to Samkhya, aviveka results in the conjunction of purusa and prakriti, or birth.
There is no real conjunction at all. Both Samkhya and Yoga say that the purusha merely just observes prakriti and then prakriti transforms they do not actually physically combine. It is described like a magnet coming near iron fillings and the fillings reacting. The sheer act of purusha looking at moolaprakriti causes the gunas to come out of their equilbrium and moolaprakriti begins to undergo modifications(vikriti) and evolves all the tattvas. The purusha who is observing this becomes misidentified with the tattvas and appears to become embodied. This process is reversed by Yoga so that the purusha develops vivek and gradually detaches itself from all tattvas going back to moolaprakriti and then the purusha stands in its own nature as pure conscousness.
The tattvas only exist because purusha is misidentified with them. They stop existing for the purusha when purusha develops vivek. The Samkhyakarika says that prakriti is only dancing for purusha when purusha is in its trance, but when purusha starts to come out of the trance, prakriti stops dancing. When once commences Yoga(meditation) this process happens automatically and one begins to go back in a reverse order through the tattvas to the final point of samadhi where purusha is completely liberated from prakriti and prakriti disappears. Hence why it is called kaivalya because purusha is completely on its own again and there is no world in existence.
Not being a professional logician, I don’t know what this fallacy is called, but I know its a fallacy. You’re using the word truth in a context that is inappropriate for it. To say that the world changes, therefore it is not the truth has no meaning whatsoever. the truth is that constant change and transformation is part of the essence of material nature.
There is no fallacy here. If something changes it is not true. If say look over there at that thing and it is not there anymore how can it be true and real? The fact is that matter is ceaselessly changing every moment and finally in Samkhya ceases to exist altogether when it goes back to moolaprkriti. So if matter is not the substance then something has to be the substance. That substance then has to consciousness. It is the only thing that is enduring from moment to moment.
Another non-sequitor. Even if we accept as true that something within us is unchanging, it doesn’t follow that the unchanging self is the substance or ground of all existence. If that is your belief, that’s fine, but the logic doesn’t work.
It does indeed follow that it is the substance and ground of all existence because matter cannot provide any substance or ground to anything because it is in ceaseless motion. If the ground underneath you was ceaslessly changing you would fall right through. So something gives stability to everything in the world and that can only be consciousness because it is the only thing that is unchanging. The Samkhyakarika says this as well it is only because consciousness is in association with matter that matter appears to be solid. We know for a fact it is not really solid today.
Surya Deva,
If you are the representative of Hinduism, then I have to conclude that Hinduism must be rejected because it is full of faulty logic and false reasoning. I sincerely hope that someday soon you find a job.
There is nothing wrong with my comprehension. I understand perfectly that for you it is most important to appear to prevail in any discussion or debate, and so you refuse to acknowledge the obvious errors in your reasoning. You find more logic to justify your faulty logic. All the while it is clear that you have no real experience of the things you speak about.
You should stop wasting your time with your lectures. I’ve concluded that you are not a trustworthy or reliable source, and I certainly will not be wasting any more of [I]my[/I] time entertaining your penchant for words.
Asuri,
I think have had enough of your arrogance and false representations of Samkhya from your superficial hobby reading of the texts. I have actually read the primary texts and done a dissertation in Samkhya philosophy and have a degree in philosophy and studied all of the six schools of Hindu philosophy . You have no credentials to challenge my knowledge in this area. I am going to show you your place by quoting directly from the Samkhyakarika and show that you do not know the very basics about Samkhya and have evidently have not read the primary texts close enough. You are behaving as but an ignorant and arrogant man who thinks you know more about Hindu philosophy than a learned Hindu brought up in the tradition formally and who has done academic research in it and awarded with distinction.
You seem to be preferring your logic to observation of nature. We all experience life everyday as the conjunction of purusa and prakriti. You don’t deny that this occurs, you just argue semantic
I told you purusha and prakriti are not observed or perceived entities, but inferred entiites proven on the basis of logical argument.
SK 6:
One knows sensible things through perception. But super-sensible things can only
be known through inference. And super sensible things not even established from that, are established through testimony of a reliable authority or Veda.
Commentary(given in text): Prakriti and purusha are not objests of perception and therefore they are unreal, argue our opponents. For a hare’s horn or a castle in the air is not perceived because it is unreal. Not so, because it is accordingly pointed out that perception cannot be the sole perception of reality, because there are well known causes from from even admitted existent things are not perceived. The next sutra explains.
Proof of Prakriti:
SK 7:
Existent things may not be able to perceive something because of extreme remoteness, nearness, impairment of senses, non-presence of the mind, extreme finess/minuteness, obstruction, intermingling of like properties, and other causes.
SK 8:
It is due to the extreme minuteness/fineness that that we cannot perceive prakriti, but this does not mean prakriti does not exist. The existence of prakriti can be known from her effects. And the effects are mahat(buddhi) etc which are similar or dissimilar to prakriti.
(There are more sutras giving proof but I am omitting them)
Proof of Purusha:
SK 16: Purusha exists because the aggregate(prakriti) must be for the sake of the non-aggregate. Since there must be exist an entity which is not constituted of the properties of the three gunas who is the efficient cause; since that must be a superintendent; since there must be an experiencer and since activity is for the sake of abstraction.
SK 18: And from this contrast it can be proven that this Purusha is a just an witness, solitary, indifferent, observer and non-agent
The proof that purusha is a non agent and is not embodied
SK 20: Therefore the inference that intelligence and agency belong to the subject is a mistake. Through conjunction with Purusha the non-intelligent effects(of prakriti) appears as it was intelligent, and although agency is of the gunas, the indifferent purusha appears in the same way, as if he is an agent.
The enumeration of the evolutes of prakriti:
SK 22: From Prakriti evolves Mahat, thence ahamkara, and from this the sixteenfold set; from five, among the sixteenfold set, the 5 great elements
SK 24: The assertion of identity is ahamkara. From it proceeds a two fold evolution splitting Prakriti(into mental and physical) the elevenfold set and also the fivefold tanmatras
The description of the subtle body of Prakriti and reincarnation of it:
SK 40: The linga or mergent body, the one primordially produced, unconfined and composed of the tattvas from mahat to tanmatras, transmigrates free from experience, tinged with the bhavas
The purpose of Prakriti is to release Purusha:
SK 56: Thus then is this creation beginning with Mahat and ending with specific entities originated by Prakriti in the interest for another rather than her own, for the release of the purusha
You said:
This is a non-sequitor. Assuming it is true that the self is not the body, and the self is not the mind, it does not follow that embodiment isn’t real. Misidentification of the self with matter is not a perceptual error.
I said: The tattvas only exist because purusha is misidentified with them. They stop existing for the purusha when purusha develops vivek. The Samkhyakarika says that prakriti is only dancing for purusha when purusha is in its trance, but when purusha starts to come out of the trance, prakriti stops dancing.
SK 60: Just as a fair dancer, having performed before spectators, desists from her dance, so does Prakriti desist having exhibited herself to Purusha.
Proof that the world an illusion:
SK 62: Wherefrom, verily, no purusha is ever bound, nor is released,
not transmigrates, but it is Prakriti being the support of manifold creation
which is bound, is released and transmigrates
Liberation is gained when the Purusha becomes aware through observation of all of the tattvas from gross to subtle:
SK 64: So, through the knowledge of the tattvas, is produced the final, pure, free from error and doubt, and the single knowledge that neither agency belongs to me, not is attachment mine, nor am I identical with the body
For somebody who is setting up a Samkhya-Yoga website with translations of classical Samkhya texts your lack of comprehension of the very basics of Samkhya-yoga philosophy is shocking and you are clearly not qualified for such a project. You need to go right back to basics and do extensive reading Samkhya-Yoga. The experts in this tradition would fail you if you wrote papers on it.
It was clear in the other thread on “emptying your mind” where you claimed Patanjali did not say empty your mind of thoughts(despite every translation by experts contradicting you) You did not even know the difference between purusha, buddhi, ahamkara and manas.
Now you gone onto claim prakriti and purusha are observed in common experiennce. What a bunch of crock. This clearly shows you do not know the difference between Samhya dualism and Carestian dualism. They are completely different dualist philosophies. Samkhya dualism is between the observer and the observed and cartesian dualism is between mind(thinking things) and matter(extended things). The observer is purusha that is a pure witness and does nothing and the mind and body are the observed.
Now what you are in the Samkhya scheme(and you have lots of it) is ahamkara(false ego). So you too are a product of prakriti; not an observer. Anything that can be observed cannot be the observer. So you are not the observer in the Samkhya school. The observer is the real witness that you have to realise through viveka or conscious discrimination. The observer is not within space and time and it is only an illusion that we are the observers. We are material(mind-body systems) we are not actually the real self.
So Yoga which follows on from Samkhya is about realising the true self(the witness) by not thinking or doing anything, just letting go completely so all the guna activity begins to stops and as a result we begin to withdraw inwards(pratyhara) and start to regress through all the tattvas and finally reach samadhi.
I am not going to teach you anymore if you continue to maintain your rude, dispectful, ignormous attitude because it would be a waste of time giving this knowledge to somebody who is not intelligent enough to understand and appreciate it.
I haven’t really read all of your post, doc. You don’t seem to get that I’m not just talking about abstract principles, I’m talking about life. The philosophy is useless if it’s not applied to your life.
Welcome to the real world, doc. In real life, you are likely to encounter lots of ignorant and stupid people in positions of power. In the case of my website, I conceived it, designed it, I own the domains, and I seem to be the only one who is interested in doing the work. Therefore, Samkhya-Yoga is what [I]I[/I] say it is. Properly implemented, this site will become the world’s most authoritative source on Samkhya-Yoga. However, if you know of someone who is more quaified than I to implement it, I’m willing to relinquish ownership. The price is $50M US.
The philosophy is applied to life. From this philosophy comes Yoga. Now are you going to tell me Yoga has no application in life?
The first sutra of the SK declares that the reason this inquiry is being taken is to find ways to end the three kinds of suffering(internal, external, caused)
The whole aim of Samkhya-Yoga is to transform people into joyous, loving and realised beings and manifest their highest potentials I cannot think of anything more important in life.
In any case whatever you put on your website if it wrong it is going to get challenged. If you start confusing purusha and prakriti with another kind of dualism of mind and matter (catesian) you are no longer doing Samkhya. If you want to study Samkhya you need to study the actual Samkhya texts and become familiar with what they are saying, rather than what you want them to say. You need to know the difference between purusha and prakriti, unmanifest and manifest prakriti, the gunas, and all the evolutes of prakriti(ahamkara, manas, buddhi etc) You also need to know how they relate to similar concepts in other schools such Atman, Brahman, maya, jiva and the four states of consciousness.
So far you have purusha confused with our mind and prakriti confused with physical matter. This is not Samkhya.
We all experience life only because we are the union of spirit or matter. This is known as conjunction, which results in birth. There is no confusion. This is Samkhya-Yoga.
Nope, this is not Samkhya Yoga. What you experience is all nature and thus all transformations of prakriti. If we limited everything we could know based on experience there would be no justification for any spirit. Everything could be explained as matter. Even the mind is nothing more than a material process and functions just like a processing system. Modern science models the mind as an information processing system. There is no place for spirit in this scheme.
Even when we say “I am meditating” it is the mind which is meditating not the consciousness. The consciousness is always constant and always still in the background. What the mind does is receive more and more of it. So the mind merely behaves like a pool within which consciousness is reflected. So the deeper you go in meditation the more brighter and brighter that experience of consciousness becomes. It is not the consciousness that exists in levels, but our mind-body system, which through evolution begins to receive more and more consciousness.
You still have not grasped that both prakriti and purusha are absolutely theoretical entities in Samkhya. There is no evidence for their existence in normal perception. They are established based on argument. I have already shown by this by quoting from the Samkhyakarika. This point does not need anymore exposition.
I told you, you are mistaking Cartesian dualism with Samkhya dualism. In cartesian dualism a dualist theory is created based on observed properties(empirical dualism) So object is observed to be divisible, extended and measurable and is called matter and mind is observed to be non-extended, indivisble, thinking and immeasurable and is called subject. In Samkhya dualism a dualism is created on logical properties(rational dualism) where object is the source of is what is produced, is an aggregate and has the properties of the gunas and therefore includes both mind and body and is called matter. And suject is that which is non-produced, non-aggregate, does not have properties of the gunas is merely the observer, or experiencer or enjoyer.
If you cannot understand this basic difference you will never understand Samkhya.
I congratulate you on your reasonably accurate descriptions. Your judgement, however, is flawed.