product, or evolute. That everything is in the form of a child of that original mother
of things is a thing not known to anybody because of the vehemence of the rajasic
aspect of prakriti that has now taken upper the hand. That is why everybody looks
separate. I am somewhere; you are somewhere. We have no connection, one with the
other. Even the world is somewhere and we are somewhere.
The law of prakriti rules everywhere with impartiality. It has no partiality. In the
cosmos outside as well as in the individual, it works in a uniform manner. But the
individual that has been subjected to the action of rajas has found it impossible to
know what has happened on account of the merger of the quality of sattva and the
rising to the surface of the quality of rajas. Hence, there is a false sense of
independence felt in each individual, due to which the integrating law of prakriti is
lost sight of completely. And when there is no knowledge of this law of the
integrating prakriti, how can we abide by that law? Who can know what the law of
prakriti is? We do not know what prakriti is; we have completely forgotten it. We are
made to forget it on account of the action of rajas.
Therefore, the law of prakriti weighs heavily upon us. We have forgotten. Well, if we
forget, what can we do? Ignorance of the law is no excuse. We do not know the law of
prakriti; we pay for it through the nose. We are punished, as it were—punished
merely because we do not know how prakriti works. Due to that, we are completely
oblivious of the internal relationships existing between us and the other objects. The
subject and the object are cast asunder; they are rent aside as two different things
altogether, and one wants to grab the other. This attitude of grabbing, appropriating
and self-assertiveness on the part of any individual is the ego that is working; and
that is the beginning of this great sorrow that we call samsara. This is what actually
has taken place.
The objects outside, which impinge upon the mind through the senses, are nothing
but part of the mind itself in some way or the other. It is inscrutable to the mind
because the one cosmic prakriti has taken the form of the objects on one side and the
individual subject on the other side. The Samkhya theory of evolution tells us clearly
what has taken place. On the other side there are the tanmatras which are shabda,
sparsa, rupa, rasa and gandha, meaning sound, touch, sight, taste and smell, and
the bhutas which are prithvi, apas, tejo, vayu and akasa, meaning earth, water, fire,
air and ether. We see earth, water, fire, air and ether spread out all over. That is all
we see; there is nothing else except these five elements. We are sitting on the other
side as the subject observing this vast nature—earth, water, fire, air and ether. We
regard this world as an object because it is apparently outside our mind and our
senses. That the objects—the physical elements and everything that is made up of the
five elements—are all outside us, is an effect of the preponderance of rajas and the
absence of sattva. If the sattva had come up to the surface, and if the rule of sattva
had been the law operating in us, we would have seen through things to the
interconnection among us. That vision, unfortunately, is not there due to the
vehemence of the action of rajas.
Now yoga tells us, “My dear friends, this is what has happened to you. You are born,
and you die, and you pass through various harrowing experiences in life because the
law of the cosmos acts upon you as it ought to act. There is great justification, of
course, in its actions. Why should it not act? Well, it is within its inherent nature.
That you cannot understand the working of this law is the reason why you disobey