Part 21 - Sorrow and its Dissolution

^[1]

Sāṃkhya and the Yoga, like the Buddhists, hold that all experience is sorrowful. Tamas, we know, represents the pain substance. As tamas must be present in some degree in all combinations, all intellectual operations are fraught with some degree of painful feeling. Moreover even in states of temporary pleasure, we had sorrow at the previous moment when we had solicited it, and we have sorrow even when we enjoy it, for we have the fear that we may lose it. The sum total of sorrows is thus much greater than the pleasures, and the pleasures only strengthen the keenness of the sorrow. The wiser the man the greater is his capacity of realizing that the world and our experiences are all full of sorrow. For unless a man is convinced of this great truth that all is sorrow, and that temporary pleasures, whether generated by ordinary worldly experience or by enjoying heavenly experiences through the performance of Vedic sacrifices, are quite unable to eradicate the roots of sorrow, he will not be anxious for mukti or the final uprooting of pains.

A man must feel that all pleasures lead to sorrow, and that the ordinary ways of removing sorrows by seeking enjoyment cannot remove them ultimately; he must turn his back on the pleasures of the world and on the pleasures of paradise. The performances of sacrifices according to the Vedic rites may indeed give happiness, but as these involve the sacrifice of animals they must involve some sins and hence also some pains. Thus the performance of these cannot be regarded as desirable. It is when a man ceases from seeking pleasures that he thinks how best he can eradicate the roots of sorrow. Philosophy shows how extensive is sorrow, why sorrow comes, what is the way to uproot it, and what is the state when it is uprooted. The man who has resolved to uproot sorrow turns to philosophy to find out the means of doing it.

The way of eradicating the root of sorrow is thus the practical •enquiry of the Sāṃkhya philosophy^[2]. All experiences are sorrow. Therefore some means must be discovered by which all experiences may be shut out for ever. Death cannot bring it, for after death we shall have rebirth. So long as citta (mind) and puruṣa are associated with each other, the sufferings will continue. Citta must be dissociated from puruṣa. Citta or buddhi, Sāṃkhya says, is associated with puruṣa because of the non-distinction of itself from buddhi^[3]. It is necessary therefore that in buddhi we should be able to generate the true conception of the nature of puruṣa ; when this true conception of puruṣa arises in the buddhi it feels itself to be different, and distinct, from and quite unrelated to puruṣa, and thus ignorance is destroyed.

As a result of that, buddhi turns its back on puruṣa and can no longer bind it to its experiences, which are all irrevocably connected with sorrow, and thus the puruṣa remains in its true form. This according to Sāṃkhya philosophy is alone adequate to bring about the liberation of the puruṣa. Prakṛti which was leading us through cycles of experiences from birth to birth, fulfils its final purpose when this true knowledge arises differentiating puruṣa from prakṛti. This final purpose being attained the prakṛti can never again bind the puruṣa with reference to whom this right knowledge was generated ; for other puruṣas however the bondage remains as before, and they continue their experiences from one birth to another in an endless cycle.

Yoga, however, thinks that mere philosophy is not sufficient. In order to bring about liberation it is not enough that a true knowledge differentiating puruṣa and buddhi should arise, but it is necessary that all the old habits of experience of buddhi, all its saṃskāras should be once for all destroyed never to be revived again. At this stage the buddhi is transformed into its purest state, reflecting steadily the true nature of the puruṣa. This is the kevala (oneness) state of existence after which (all saṃskāras, all avidyā being altogether uprooted) the citta is impotent any longer to hold on to the puruṣa, and like a stone hurled from a mountain top, gravitates back into the prakṛti^[4].

To destroy the old saṃskāras, knowledge alone not being sufficient, a graduated course of practice is necessary. This graduated practice should be so arranged that by generating the practice of living higher and better modes of life, and steadying the mind on its subtler states, the habits of ordinary life may be removed. As the yogin advances he has to give up what he had adopted as good and try for that which is still better. Continuing thus he reaches the state when the buddhi is in its ultimate perfection and purity. At this stage the buddhi assumes the form of the puruṣa, and final liberation takes place.

Karmas in Yoga are divided into four classes:

1. śukla or white (puṇya, those that produce happiness),
2. kṛṣṇa or black (pāpa, those that produce sorrow),
3. śukla-kṛṣṇa (puṇya-pāpa, most of our ordinary actions are partly virtuous and partly vicious as they involve, if not anything else, at least the death of many insects),
4. aśuklākṛṣṇa (those inner acts of self-abnegation, and meditation which are devoid of any fruits as pleasures or pains).

All external actions involve some sins, for it is difficult to work in the world and avoid taking the lives of insects^[5].

All karmas proceed from the five-fold afflictions (kleśas), namely

1. avidyā,
2. asmitā,
3. rāga,
4. dveṣa
5. and abhiniveśa.

We have already noticed what was meant by avidyā. It consists generally in ascribing intelligence to buddhi, in thinking it as permanent and leading to happiness. This false knowledge while remaining in this form further manifests itself in the other four forms of asmitā, etc. Asmitā means the thinking of worldly objects and our experiences as really belonging to us—the sense of “mine” or “I” to things that really are the qualities or transformations of the guṇas. Rāga means the consequent attachment to pleasures and things. Dveṣa means aversion or antipathy to unpleasant things. Abhiniveśa is the desire for life or love of life—the will to be. We proceed to work because we think our experiences to be our own, our body to be our own, our family to be our own, our possessions to be our own; because we are attached to these; because we feel great antipathy against any mischief that might befall them, and also because we love our life and always try to preserve it against any mischief. These all proceed, as is easy to see, from their root avidyā, which consists in the false identification of buddhi with puruṣa.

These five, avidyā, asmitā, rāga, dveṣa and abhiniveśa, permeate our buddhi, and lead us to perform karma and to suffer. These together with the performed karmas which lie inherent in the buddhi as a particular mode of it transmigrate with the buddhi from birth to birth, and it is hard to get rid of them^[6]. The karma in the aspect in which it lies in the buddhi as a mode or modification of it is called karmāśaya (the bed of karma for the puruṣa to lie in). We perform a karma actuated by the vicious tendencies (klcśa) of the buddhi. The karma when thus performed leaves its stain or modification on the buddhi, and it is so ordained according to the teleology of the prakṛti and the removal of obstacles in the course of its evolution in accordance with it by the permanent will of Iśvara that each vicious action brings sufferance and a virtuous one pleasure.

The karmas performed in the present life will generally accumulate, and when the time for giving their fruits comes, such a life is ordained for the person, such a body is made ready for him according to the evolution of prakṛti as shall make it possible for him to suffer or enjoy the fruits thereof. The karma of the present life thus determines the particular kind of future birth (as this or that animal or man), the period of life (āyuṣ) and the painful or pleasurable experiences (bhoga) destined for that life. Exceedingly good actions and extremely bad actions often produce their effects in this life. It may also happen that a man has done certain bad actions, for the realization of the fruits of which he requires a dog-life and good actions for the fruits of which he requires a man-life. In such cases the good action may remain in abeyance and the man may suffer the pains of a dog-life first and then be born again as a man to enjoy the fruits of his good actions. But if we can remove ignorance and the other afflictions, all his previous unfulfilled karmas are for ever lost and cannot again be revived. He has of course to suffer the fruits of those karmas which have already ripened. This is the jīvanmukti stage, when the sage has attained true knowledge and is yet suffering mundane life in order to experience the karmas that have already ripened (tiṣṭhati saṃskāravaśāt cakrabhramivaddhṛtaśarīraḥ).

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Tattvavaiśārandī and Yogavārttika, II. 15, and Tattvakaumudī, I.

[2]:

Yoga puts it in a slightly modified form. Its object is the cessation of the rebirth-process which is so much associated with sorrow (duhkhabahulah saṃsārah heyah).

[3]:

The word citta is a Yoga term. It is so called because it is the repository of all sub-conscious states. Sāṃkhya generally uses the word buddhi. Both the words mean the same substance, the mind, but they emphasize its two different functions. Buddhi means intellection.

[4]:

Both Sāṃkhya and Yoga speak of this emancipated state as Kaivalya (alone-ness), the former because all sorrows have been absolutely uprooted, never to grow up again and the latter because at this state puruṣa remains for ever alone without any association with buddhi, see Sāṃkhya kārikā, 68 and Yoga sūtras, IV. 34.

[5]:

Vyāsabhāṣya and Tattvavaiśāradī ., iv. 7.

[6]:

Vyāsabhāṣya and Tattvavaiśāradī, II. 3-9.