Yoga as philosophy and religion

by Surendranath Dasgupta

This state is called mahat as it is the most universal thing conceivable and the one common source from which all other things originate.

Now this phase of sattva or pure shining naturally passes into the other phase, that of the Ego as knower or Ego as subject. The first phase as mahat or asmitāmātra was the state in which the sattva was predominant and the rajas and tamas were in a suppressed condition. The next moment is that in which the rajas comes uppermost, and thus the ego as the subject of all cognition—the subject I—the knower of all the mental states—is derived. The contentless subject-objectless “I” is the passive sattva aspect of the buddhi catching the reflection of the spirit of purusha.

In its active aspect, however, it feels itself one with the spirit and appears as the ego or subject which knows, feels and wills. Thus Patañjali says, in II. 6: dṛgdarśanaśaktyorekātmateva asmitā, i.e. the seeming identity of the seer and the perceiving capacity is called asmitā-ego. Again in Bhāshya, I. 17, we have ekātmikā saṃvidasmitā (knowledge as one identical is asmitā) which Vācaspati explains as sā ca ātmanā grahītrā saha buddhirekātmikā saṃvid, i.e. it is the feeling of identity of the buddhi (mind) with the self, the perceiver. Thus we find that the mind is affected by its own rajas or activity and posits itself as the ego or subject as activity. By reason of this position of the “I” as active it perceives itself in the objective, in all its conative and cognitive senses in its thoughts and feelings and also in the external world of extension and co-existence; in the words of Pañcaśikha (II. 5) thinking the animate and inanimate beings to be the self, man regards their prosperity as his own and becomes glad, and regards their adversity as his own and is sorry. Here the “I” is posited as the active entity which becomes conscious of itself, or in other words the “I” becomes self-conscious. In analysing this notion of self-consciousness we find that here the rajas or element of activity or mobility has become predominant and this predominance of rajas has been manifested by the inherent sattva. Thus we find that the rajas side or “I as active” has become manifested or known as such, i.e. “I” becomes conscious of itself as active. And this is just what is meant by self-consciousness.

This ego or self-consciousness then appears as the modification of the contentless pure consciousness of the mind (buddhi); it is for this reason that we see that this self-consciousness is but a modification of the universal mind. The absolute identity of subject and object as the egohood is not A part of our natural consciousness, for in all stages of our actual consciousness, even in that of self-consciousness, there is an element of the preponderance of rajas or activity which directs this unity as the knower and the known and then unites them as it were. Only so far as I distinguish myself as the conscious, from myself as the object of consciousness, am I at all conscious of myself.

When we see that the buddhi transforms itself into the ego, the subject, or the knower, at this its first phase there is no other content which it can know, it therefore knows itself in a very abstract way as the “I,” or in other words, the ego becomes self-conscious; but at this moment the ego has no content; the tamas being quite under suppression, it is evolved by a preponderance of the rajas; and thus its nature as rajas is manifested by the sattva and thus the ego now essentially knows itself to be active, and holds itself as the permanent energising activity which connects with itself all the phenomena of our life.

But now when the ego first directs itself towards itself and becomes conscious of itself, one question which naturally comes to our mind is, “Can the ego direct itself towards itself and thus divide itself into a part that sees and one that is seen?” To meet this question it is assumed that the guṇas contain within themselves the germs of both subjectivity and objectivity (guṇānāṃ hi dvairūpyaṃ vyavasāyātmkatvam vyavaseyātmakatvaṃ ca. Tattvavaiśāradī, III. 47); the guṇas have two forms, the perceiver and the perceived. Thus we find that in the ego the quality of the guṇas as the perceiver comes to be first manifested and the ego turns back upon itself and makes itself its own object. It is at this stage that we are reminded of the twofold nature of the guṇas.

It is by virtue of this twofold nature that the subject can make itself its own object; but as these two sides have not yet developed they are still only abstract and exist but in an implicit way in this state of the ego (ahaṃkāra).

Enquiring further into the nature of the relation of this ego and the buddhi, we find that the ego is only another phase or modification of the buddhi; however different it might appear from buddhi it is only an appearance or phase of it; its reality is the reality of the buddhi. Thus we see that when the knower is affected in his different modes of concepts and judgments, this too is to be ascribed to the buddhi. Thus Vyāsa writes (II. 18) that perception, memory, differentiation, reasoning, right knowledge, decision belong properly to mind (buddhi) and are only illusorily imposed on the purusha (grahaṇadhāraṇohāpohatattvajñānābhiniveśā buddhau varttamānā purushe adhyāropitasadbhāvāḥ).

Now from this ego we find that three developments take place in three distinct directions according to the preponderance of sattva, rajas or tamas.

By the preponderance of rajas, the ego develops itself into the five conative senses, vāk (speech), pāṇi (hands), pāda (feet), pāyu (organ of passing the excreta) and upastha (generative organ). By the preponderance of sattva, the ego develops itself into the five cognitive senses—hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell; and by a preponderance of tamas it stands as the bhūtādi and produces the five tanmātras, and these again by further preponderance of tamas develops into the particles of the five gross elements of earth, water, light, heat, air and ether.