Now as we have seen that the unit of time is indistinguishable from the unit of change or evolution, and as these moments are not co-existing but one follows the other, we see that there is no past or future existing as a continuous before or past, and after or future. It is the present that really exists as the manifested moment; the past has been conserved as sublatent and the future as the latent. So the past and future exist in the present, the former as one which has already had its manifestation and is thus conserved in the fact of the manifestation of the present. For the manifestation of the present as such could not have taken place until the past had already been manifested; so the manifestation of the present is a concrete product involving within itself the manifestation of the past; in a similar way it may be said that the manifestation of the present contains within itself the seed or the unmanifested state of the future, for if this had not been the case, the future never could have happened. So we see that the whole world undergoes a change at one unit point of time, and not only that but it conserves within itself all the past and future history of cosmic evolution.
We have pointed out before that the manifestation of the rajas or energy as action is what is called change. Now this manifestation of action can only take place when equilibrium of a particular collocation of guṇas is disturbed and the rajas arranges or collocates with itself the sattva and tamas, the whole group being made intelligible by the inherent sattva. So the cosmic history is only the history of the different collocations of the guṇas. Now, therefore, if it is possible for a seer to see in one vision the possible number of combinations that the rajas will have with sattva and tamas, he can in one moment perceive the past, present or future of this cosmic evolutionary process; for with such minds all past and future are concentrated at one point of vision which to a person of ordinary empirical consciousness appears only in the series. For the empirical consciousness, impure as it is, it is impossible that all the powers and potencies of sattva and rajas should become manifested at one point of time; it has to take things only through its senses and can thus take the changes only as the senses are affected by them; whereas, on the other hand, if its power of knowing was not restricted to the limited scope of the senses, it could have grasped all the possible collocations or changes all at once. Such a perceiving mind whose power of knowing is not narrowed by the senses can perceive all the finest modifications or changes that are going on in the body of a substance (see Yoga-sūtra, III. 53).
CHAPTER V
THE EVOLUTION OF THE CATEGORIES
The Yoga analysis points to the fact that all our cognitive states are distinguished from their objects by the fact of their being intelligent. This intelligence is the constant factor which persists amidst all changes of our cognitive states. We are passing continually from one state to another without any rest, but in this varying change of these states we are never divested of intelligence. This fact of intelligence is therefore neither the particular possession of any one of these states nor that of the sum of these states; for if it is not the possession of any one of these states it cannot be the possession of the sum of these states. In the case of the released person again there is no mental state, but the self-shining intelligence. So Yoga regarded this intelligence as quite distinct from the so-called mental states which became intelligent by coming in connection with this intelligence. The actionless, absolutely pure and simple intelligence it called the purusha.
Yoga tacitly assumed a certain kind of analysis of the nature of these mental states which sought to find out, if possible, the nature of their constituent elements or moments of existence. Now in analysing the different states of our mind we find that a particular content of thought is illuminated and then passed over. The ideas rise, are illuminated and pass away. Thus they found that “movement” was one of the principal elements that constituted the substance of our thoughts. Thought as such is always moving. This principle of movement, mutation or change, this energy, they called rajas.
Now apart from this rajas, thought when seen as divested of its sensuous contents seems to exhibit one universal mould or form of knowledge which assumes the form of all the sensuous contents that are presented to it. It is the one universal of all our particular concepts or ideas—the basis or substratum of all the different shapes imposed upon itself, the pure and simple. Sattva in which there is no particularity is that element of our thought which, resembling purusha most, can attain its reflection within itself and thus makes the unconscious mental states intelligible. All the contents of our thought are but modes and limitations of this universal form and are thus made intelligible. It is the one principle of intelligibility of all our conscious states.
Now our intellectual life consists in a series of shining ideas or concepts; concepts after concepts shine forth in the light of the pure intelligence and pass away. But each concept is but a limitation of the pure shining universal of our knowledge which underlies all its changing modes or modifications of concepts or judgments. This is what is called pure knowledge in which there is neither the knower nor the known. This pure object—subjectless knowledge differs from the pure intelligence or purusha only in this that later on it is liable to suffer various modifications, as the ego, the senses, and the infinite percepts and concepts, etc., connected therewith, whereas the pure intelligence remains ever pure and changeless and is never the substratum of any change. At this stage sattva, the intelligence-stuff, is prominent and rajas and tamas are altogether suppressed. It is for this reason that the buddhi or mind is often spoken of as the sattva. Being an absolute preponderance of sattva it has nothing else to manifest, but it is its pure-shining self. Both tamas and rajas being mostly suppressed they cannot in any way affect the effulgent nature of this pure shining of contentless knowledge in which there is neither the knower nor the known.
But it must be remembered that it is holding suspended as it were within itself the elements of rajas and tamas which cannot manifest themselves owing to the preponderance of the sattva.
This notion of pure contentless consciousness is immediate and abstract and as such is at once mediated by other necessary phases. Thus we see that this pure contentless universal consciousness is the same as the ego-universal (asmitāmātra). For this contentless universal consciousness is only another name for the contentless unlimited, infinite of the ego-universal. A quotation from Fichte may here be useful as a comparison. Thus he says in the introduction to his Science of Ethics: “How an object can ever become a subject, or how a being can ever become an object of representation: this curious change will never be explained by anyone who does not find a point where the objective and subjective are not distinguished at all, but are altogether one. Now such a point is established by, and made the starting point of our system. This point is the Egohood, the Intelligence, Reason, or whatever it may be named.”[[26]] The Vyāsa-bhāshya, II. 19, describes it as liṅgamātram mahattatvaṃ sattāmātre mahati ātmani, and again in I. 36 we find it described as the waveless ocean, peaceful infinite pure egohood. This obscure egohood is known merely as being. This mahat has also been spoken of by Vijñāna Bhikshu as the manas, or mind, as it has the function of assimilation (niścaya). Now what we have already said about mahat will, we hope, make it clear that this mahat is the last limit at which the subject and the object can be considered as one indistinguishable point which is neither the one nor the other, but the source of both.
This buddhi is thus variously called mahat, asmitāmātra, manas, sattva, buddhi and liṅga, according to the aspects from which this state is observed.