A History of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century A.D. v2.c34.42

v2.c34.42

Describing the production of bodies ('organic vehicles') for individual souls, out of matter of Prakriti, under the influence of their merit and demerit, as concomitant conditions, Patañjali points out that non-material concomitants like merit and demerit do not supply any moving force or Energy to the sum of material conditions, but only remove the arrest (the state of relatively stable equilibrium) in a given collocation, even as the owner of a field removes the barrier in flooding his field from a reservoir of water. This description is intended to represent the super-physical influence of non-material concomitants (or causes) like volition, merit and demerit, etc., but the causal operation of a material concomitant condition is essentially the same ;—there is the same reservoir of stored-up Energy in a given collocation,—the same condition of arrest or relatively stable equilibrium,—the same liberation of the stored-up potential Energy which flows along the line of least resistance ;—the only difference being that in the case of material concomitants the stimulus which removes the arrest is physical, instead of being transcendental as in the case of non-material causes like will, merit and demerit, etc.