The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c11.22

c11.22

This conception is the fundamental point of the whole Sāṃkhya system, and its difficulties are obvious. There is no possibility of mediation between the spirit which is removed from all action, and the active but unconscious nature. The famous simile of the blind man who carries on his back the lame man, and thus places his activity under the control of the directing power of the other, suffers from the fundamental difficulty that the two men with which it deals are both possessed of activity and so can co-operate. Spirit cannot act, and on the other hand nature, being unconscious, is not capable of receiving directions from the conscious spirit. Still more serious is the difficulty that, while the aim of the union of the lame and the blind is obviously the serving of a useful purpose, no such purpose can be conceived for the union of spirit and nature. Unconscious nature cannot experience misery: spirit in itself does not experience misery, and the union of the two, which results in the apparent experience of misery by spirit, which wrongly thinks that the misery which it brings to light in nature is misery which it itself endures, thus creates the very misery which it is the object of the union to abolish.