The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c11.46

c11.46

So long as the necessary knowledge of the essential distinction of spirit and nature is not attained, the spirit with the psychic apparatus must wander from birth to birth, gathering from nature at each birth the portions of the gross elements described as born of father and mother in order to assume a physical body. All this time nature by evolving for spirit in the hope of enabling it to attain final release is like a dancer who displays herself on the stage and then retires again, her task unaccomplished. But in the end nature succeeds in her object, and like a bashful maiden seen in *déshabillé*, who withdraws for ever from the sight of the man who has seen her, nature, having fulfilled her object, withdraws from spirit for ever, when spirit has realized its essential distinction from nature. Then comes to an end the paradox by which spirit, which has really no connection with nature and is unaffected by the misery inherent in nature, considers itself bound and suffers transmigration, while nature undertakes the changes of evolution for the sake of spirit, since in herself she is not conscious of misery. In truth the spirit is not bound, does not undergo transmigration, and is not released, but these processes are applicable to nature, but only for the sake of spirit.