Systems of Indian Philosophy

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Vidyalay

Page 78

THE YOGA PHILOSOPHY
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of consciousness, that out of the primordial essence Prakriti comes out the whole universe, by reason of the predominance of one or other of the three qualities of HTT, 1578 and and passivity, activity and grossness. All pain is the result of Tort activity, all grossness, darkness, ignorance of and, all pleasure, passivity, knowledge, peace of सत्त्व. The mind is a result of रजस् and it is सत्त्व alone which by its light illumines it and enables it at times to catch glimpses of the blissful Purusha ever near to the ora. As mind or the thinking principle plays an important part in the Sankhya and more so in the Yoga philosophy, for its chief article is 'Stop the transformation of the thinking principle and you will realize the Self', we will come to a consideration of the mind. 3. With the philosophers of the West, mind and soul are synonyms. The popular definition is-mind is the intellectual power in man. In the East there is a difference of opinion on this subject among the several philosophers. The followers of the Nyāya philosophy hold that all bodies having a form are impermanent, but the mind being formless is permanent; it has special attributes and is likewise subtle; hence it is unable to grasp two objects at the same time. The Sankhya philosophy however of which Yoga is the complement considers the mind to be a derivative product. Till the Purusha - soul — is emancipated
2. The exact import of the statement that the mind is a
result of Te is somewhat obscure; but if 'mind' here stands for als and fra for the Tayut then Gandhi is perhaps saying that in gf there is a greater preponderance
of a than it is there in the original Prakriti. 3. It is not clear what is precisely meant by saying that
mind has special attribules. Maybe it simply means that mind has a specific nature of its own, but that is hardly worth saying.