when he stands on the peak of nature will the yogi meet his soul-Pu
rusa-and also Purusa-visesa-the Universal Soul. To stand on it, in
truth, is to understand it.
The Evolution of NatureIt is worth pointing out that there is no inherent antipathy between
Darwinian concepts of evolution and yogic theories. Yoga has faith in
the existence of God. But it does not see God as a puppet master,
pulling the strings of a trillion marionettes simultaneously. The world
as we experience it is connected to and imbued with the reality of
Cosmic Soul. But it is not directly manipulated by it. This way of
looking at things is entirely in sympathy with yogic attitudes.
Yoga agrees, which is why it is deemed to be a dualistic philos
ophy, Nature on the one hand, Soul on the other. To yoga, nature is na
ture and spirit is spirit. They intercommunicate, and the spiritual Soul
is supreme, the abiding reality. But we must take nature seriously as we
belong to it and live in it. To dismiss it as an illusion by a philosoph
ical sleight of hand is, to the yogic mind, naive. To accept visible na
ture as the only reality is ignorance personified. To the yogi, nature is
a mountain to be climbed.
Yoga sees the origin of nature as a root. In Sanskrit it calls it root
nature, (mula prakrti). Within that root, as we saw earlier, exist certain
unstable but creative propensities called the qualities of nature, the
three guna: mass or inertia (tamas), dynamism or vibrancy (rajas), and
luminosity and serenity (sattva). In the root of nature, they are bal
anced and in equal proportions. They exist only as a potential. They
do, however, partake of nature's enduring characteristic. They arc un
stable. They shift. It is their destiny to fidget and form.
And form they do, but gradually. The subtle preced(�S thl· �ross, or
ns we would say, the invisible comes before the visible. ( :osmk irllt·lli
II I. I·'' I II 1·. Il l VI N 1:. II ( l II Y ( 1\ N 1\ N Ill\ I