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96.
SAMAYASARA
COMMENTARY
Samsara or concrete life implies embodied nature of the Self. This embodied existence of the empirical Self is primarily due to the association with karmic matter. This association with karmic matter is present through the career of the empirical Self. This karmic material which is associated with the Self throughout its samsaric life is made up of minute material particles. These minute material particles must constitute various types of material aggregates or types of karma. These various types or modes of karma get inextricably bound with the nature of the Self and this intimate association of Self with matter is called karmic bondage. These two processes of forming karmic aggregates from primary karmic molecules, and these aggregates binding themselves with the Self, are entirely the result of the manifestation of karmic molecules. If this tendency of matter to manifest itself into karmic modes is denied then there will be no karmas. When there are no karmas there is no karmic bondage and when there is no karmic bondage, the Self must remain pure and unsullied as in the case of the puruşa in the Samkhya philosophy. If the Self remains perfectly pure in himself, there is no chance for his embodied existence and no scope for samsāra. This is absurd as it is contrary to Our experience. If in order to avoid this inconvenient conclusion, it is maintained that the Self by his own intrinsic potency, produces the transformation of karma types from primary material molecules and ties himself to these types of his own accord, then this leads to an equally impossible position. Matter itself being incapable of transformation cannot be forcibly made to undergo transformation by any alien influence. Hence it must be maintained that matter by nature is capable of transformation and it is this process of transformation which matter undergoes that results in the formation of various types of karmas such as jñānāvaraniya.
Thus in order to refute the Samkhya point of view, the tendency to manifest is predicated of matter. Similarly the same attribute is said to be true of the Self in the following gāthās,
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