Q & A - Seeing Sāṃkhya

Here the verses are displayed as a series of questions and answers.
Click on the question to go to the full verse page.

Suffering

Verse 1: What is the origin of this inquiry?

It is a response to the inevitable human experience of suffering.

Verse 2: What kind of inquiry can address suffering?

An inquiry that discerns between the Manifest, Unmanifest & Knower.

Verse 3: How can I discern between the Manifest, Unmanifest & Knower?

By looking closely at my lived experience of causality.

Perception & Cognition

Verse 4: What do I need to know about causality?

Since causality emerges from cognition, I need to discern between right and wrong cognition.

Verse 5: What is right cognition?

Perception, inference and valid testimony.

Verse 6: How can I know an Unmanifest that I cannot perceive?

Through inference and valid testimony.

Verse 7: When perceiving directly, can I trust my own senses?

Yes, if I am aware of their limitations.

Causality

Verse 8: How can I know that the Unmanifest, which I cannot perceive, really exists?

Relying on causality, I Infer it from its effects.

Verse 9: How can I know causality is real?

I look around (with right cognition) and find evidence of it all around me.

Verse 10: What does causality reveal about the Manifest and Unmanifest?

The Manifest is that which is caused & transient and the Unmanifest is the opposite….

Verse 11: And what is the Knower?

The Knower (Spirit) is without the three Gunas and is opposite & similar to the…

Gunas

Verse 12: What are the three Gunas?

They are the essential underlying qualities of the Manifest.

Verse 13: Why are there three Gunas?

Together, the three encompass my entire lived experience.

Verse 14: Are the Gunas also present in the Unmanifest?

Yes, because it has already been established that the effect (Manifest) exists in its cause…

Partnership of the Unmanifest & Spirit

Verse 15: Why must I infer an Unmanifest?

There must be something that causes the Manifest.

Verse 16: How can all the diversity I experience in the world emerge from one Unmanifest cause?

Diversity comes from different combinations of the three Gunas.

Verse 17: What is the point of all this mixing and combining of the Gunas?

The Knower (Spirit).

Verse 18: Is there one Spirit or are there many?

There is one Knower, but many Spirits.

Verse 19: What does Spirit do?

Nothing. Spirit is an isolated and inactive witness.

Verse 20: How then, can there be conscious choice?

Conscious choice is an illusion that arises from a co-presence of Spirit and Nature.

Verse 21: Why do Spirit and Nature come together?

They need each other.

Intelligence & I-Principle

Verse 22: What arises from the conjunction of Spirit and Nature?

Mahat, a discerning intelligence.

Verse 23: What is Discerning Intelligence?

It is mental effort that is affected by the dominant Guna.

Verse 24: What arises from Discerning Intelligence?

Ahamkara – a center from which a notion of self arises.

Mind & Objects-of-Sense

Verse 25: What arises from the self center?

Eleven special objects arise when Sattva is dominant and five special objects arise when Tamas…

Verse 26: What are the eleven special objects that arise from a sattvic Ahamkara?

Ten of the eleven are objects-of-sense.

Verse 27: And what is the eleventh special object?

The eleventh special object is mind – Manas.

Verse 28: What do the objects-of-sense do?

Five of them perceive specific kinds of objects and five are active.

Verse 29: What does the mind do?

Mind functions alongside Discerning Intelligence and the I-Principle.

Cognition

Verse 30: How does cognition occur?

Cognition occurs when the three internal organs interact with the objects of sense.

Verse 31: Why does cognition occur?

Cognition is an impulse in Nature that operates in service of Spirit.

Verse 32: How does sensing become cognition?

Through seizing, illuminating and sustaining.

Verse 33: How does cognition give rise to the notion of time?

The ten external organs-of-sense function only in the present, the three internal organs function at…

Verse 34: What do the organs-of-sense do?

They are sensitized to and resonate with specific kinds of elements.

Verse 35: How do the internal and external objects-of-sense relate to each other?

The external objects-of-sense are gates and the internal organs are gatekeepers