Verses on Sāṃkhya 39

[Objection:] But if the unmanifest is non-conscious, how does the substrate called the body and organs engage in virtue, vice, and so forth, given that it is non-conscious? To this, he says:

Therefore, from that connection, the non-conscious subtle body [appears] as if conscious;
Likewise, even though agency belongs to the constituents, the neutral one becomes, as it were, the agent. // 20

"Therefore, from that connection," and so forth. From that connection which occurs with conscious spirit, the non-conscious becomes as if conscious. Just as, from connection with fire, an iron ball [is said to burn]. The subtle body, extending from the great principle down to the subtle elements, will be described later.

If that very [subtle body] consisting of the three constituents is the agent and not spirit, why is it said, "conscious spirit goes"? To this, he says: "Likewise, even though agency belongs to the constituents, the neutral one becomes, as it were, the agent." Agency belongs to the constituents, not to conscious spirit. Just as the non-conscious subtle body becomes as if conscious from connection with conscious spirit, so also [conscious spirit], though being a non-agent, becomes, as it were, an agent through connection with the subtle body consisting of the constituents. [It is] neutral. Just as a master, though not fighting himself, is designated a fighter through his connection with fighting servants, so conscious spirit also is called an agent metaphorically.
And thus it is said:
"Overpowered by darkness, his vision perverted, the fool imagines,
'I do [this],' [thinking himself the agent] of these constituents of nature as they operate, though he is powerless even to bend a blade of grass." // 20