perception of any kind. Inasmuch as for the jiva the individual perception means an
externalised form of knowledge, and because externalisation is not possible where
rajas is not predominant and rajas is not predominant in this condition of equipoise,
therefore, no perception of anything is possible here—and, therefore, no knowledge.
This is the alinga condition mentioned.
Lingamatra is faintly visible, but not clearly visible. That is the mahat-tattva, the
first manifestation of prakriti—the Cosmic Intelligence, as it is usually called. It is
indistinct because it has also no particularities. It is all-pervading, omnipresent; it is
in everything. Inasmuch as it is cosmic, it cannot be particularised and seen as an
object of individual perception. Yet, it is there. It is the first form in which prakriti
reveals itself in a tendency to objectivity. As they say, there is a consciousness of ‘I
am’, or ‘I am that I am’; that is the Cosmic-conscious condition. This cosmic
awareness is ‘I-am-ness’ of a universal type, which includes all objects which it
knows. It is impossible to describe because such a thing is never heard of, not seen
anywhere and, therefore, not thinkable by the human mind.
We cannot imagine what it is to be simply aware of oneness of oneself, free from all
objects outside. For us, this is only an academic acceptance; practically, such a thing
is unimaginable. But such a thing is there, as they say. That is the mahat, the Great
Intellect, the Cosmic Intelligence, also called Hiranyagarbha in certain other schools
of thought—the repository of all the possibilities of future manifestation, the
potentiality of all particulars that are going to be revealed in the future, and the
latency of all the effects that will come out afterwards as the names and the forms of
experience. It is Cosmic-consciousness. At once there is knowledge of all things
simultaneously. It is not the indistinct, unconscious equipoise of prakriti, but it is the
conscious equipoise of cosmic awareness where all jivas get merged into a totality.
They exist as part of this consciousness. They hang upon it as its limbs, as it were.
Such is the mahat-tattva; we may also call it the Isvara-tattva. And, for all practical
religious purposes, this is the God of religion. We cannot think of anything more than
this. What religions in the world call God is this supreme mahat. It is indistinct,
because it is cosmic, yet it is there as a possibility of all future particularities and
diversities. This is what is referred to in this sutra as lingamatra.
Further on is the avisesha, a grosser form of manifestation where there is a
beginning of the diversity of things. The first stroke is dealt to cut off things from one
another, and there is an indication that the Cosmic Being is going to be diversified
into the particulars of experience. It has not taken place, but there is an indication.
As they say, the ordinance has been passed, but it has not yet come into effect.
Likewise, this peculiar condition of the tendency to become diverse is called avisesha
in this sutra. It has the possibility of viseshata. It is going to become visesha, or
particular; and it also is decided that it is going to take place—but it has not
happened yet. This is what is known as the tanmatras of the elements, the pancha-
mahabhutas. Shabda, sparsa, rupa, rasa and gandha are the Sanskrit terms for it.
These are the potentialities behind sense perception. They are the fine, subtle,
ethereal backgrounds of not only the senses which perceive objects, but also the
objects themselves.
In some respects, though not entirely, we may compare this condition to the fine
atomic stage of physical matter, as modern science calls it. What they call the atomic
condition of physical substances where physicality is there, and a form of diversity