The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c12.15

c12.15

In the third place, the Sūtra develops in detail the doctrine of the process of the creation and the destruction of the world, which presents in a more philosophic shape the doctrine of the ages of the world found in the epic and common to the philosophies. Nature and spirit are ever ready for creation: the former seeks to develop for the enjoyment and final release of spirit, and the latter is ready to play its part of onlooker, but, of course, it is impossible to find any beginning in time for the process. Each creation follows on a period of destruction in which everything has been resolved back into a state of inactivity, in the sense that the three Guṇas, instead of intermingling in their constant activity, merely produce each its self. Nevertheless, as soon as the result of the work done before has found the correct time, the process commences afresh, all spirits having their psychic apparatuses evolved according to the impressions left upon them by the acts done in their last existences, which have left them with a definite moral character, and with the disposition produced by their failure to recognize the separation of spirit and nature. During the period of the continuance of the world in a state of destruction, as the psychic apparatuses of the spirits are existing only in a fine condition and are not evolved, there is no difference as regards actual conditions of existence between the free and the bound spirits, but the evolution exposes the latter to all the woes of existence. In each period some escape for ever by the acquisition of the essential knowledge, but the work of nature will never be over since the total number of spirits is infinite, and the whole can thus never be released.