object. The breath changes its course, speech trembles, and even the movement of
the bloodstream is affected. The temperature may get heightened or lowered; the
blood pressure may change. Every bit of cell in the body changes when there is a
throbbing sensation of the senses in respect of desirable objects on account of their
being charged with consciousness, which goes with them and feels what the senses
feel.
This is the catastrophe that has befallen man, the individual jiva who has fallen into
the midst of dacoits, as it were, and has become their servant. Whatever they do,
whatever they say, whatever they order him to do, he has to execute. This poor thing
called consciousness in us has become subjected thoroughly, root and branch, to the
power and the impetuousness of the senses. The reason behind all this is simply
stated as the identification of consciousness with the structure of the senses which
are in sympathy with the objects on account of the similarity of the substance of both
the senses and the objects. With the friendship the senses have with consciousness,
they also have, simultaneously, what is called a ‘fifth column activity’ in their
affiliation to the objects outside.
This is brought out in the phrase bhūtendriyātmakaṁ bhogāpavargārtham dṛśyam
(II.18): The object, therefore, brings satisfaction in this manner. It is also mentioned
why this situation has arisen. It has arisen on account of the necessity to fulfil certain
karmas of the past which have revealed themselves now as the concrete
psychophysical individuality, this body-mind—the prarabdha karma which, if it is
exhausted by experience, liberation should follow. But, unfortunately, liberation does
not follow for other reasons—namely, karmas get accumulated in every birth.
Though the intention is to exhaust the karmas of the past, an unfortunate thing takes
place simultaneously with this process of exhaustion—an adding to the old stock of
karmas due to a misconception which gets confirmed and intensified because of
repeated sense-perception and experience of pleasure in the objects.
Viśeṣa aviśeṣa lingamātra alingāni guṇaparvāṇi (II.19) is another sutra that follows. The
stages by which prakriti manifests itself are stated in this sutra. Visesha means
particularised, gross, visible and demarcated; that is visesha. Avisesha is not so
demarcated—a little bit hazy, not clear, not distinct. Lingamatra is faintly visible,
only a symbol; an indication of it is there, but it itself cannot be seen properly. Alinga
is completely indistinct; we cannot even know that it exists. These are the four stages
in which prachana, or prakriti, manifests itself in the process of evolution.
The completely indistinct condition is the original nature of prakriti where there is
gunasamyavastha, the balance of the three properties of prakriti—sattva, rajas and
tamas—where one is not predominant over the other. Because of that equality of the
properties, the poise in which they exist, there is no distinct manifestation of any
form or name. There is, therefore, no perception of objects possible. The isolation of
the subject from the object has not taken place. They merge together in an indistinct
form on account of the non-manifestation of the gunas.
This is a state prior to the manifestation of things. It is alinga because we cannot
have even any indication of it being existent, just as in deep sleep we cannot have
even an indication that we exist. Everything is obliterated. Even our personality has
gone, so who is to know that something exists? There is a very peculiar extinction of
all distinctions—a total ‘wiping out’ of all particularities so that there cannot be