The Exploration of Man's Inner Universe
The Being of Flesh and the Being of Knowledge
MAN HAS A DOUBLE NATURE, A DOUBLE ROLE IN CREation; he is at once actor and spectator. Like other animals, he is the representative of a species whose harmony and beauty make up part of the spectacle, the theatrical diversion (lîlâ) of the creator. He transmits and develops the characteristics of his species through the genetic formulae contained in what the Sâmkhyä calls his Sexual Body (Lingä-Sharirä) or Transmigrant (or Transmittable) Body. On the other hand, he is inhabited by a consciousness and is the bearer of a heritage of knowledge that enables him to play his role of witness at the different stages of his evolution, to become aware of the various aspects of the world spectacle, and to discover little by little their secret nature. He thus accumulates a knowledge that he formulates and transmits from individual to individual by means of the symbols of language, thereby giving an overall role to his species.
Himself impermanent, man transmits his physical and mental characteristics through the genetic chain and, in parallel with this, the basis of his understanding of the cosmic world and its laws through the initiatic chain. There is an evolution on the one hand of his physical being and on the other of his cultural being.
The evolution of the physical being, the growth of the human species, like the progress of knowledge, does not occur in a single day. The development of the human animal takes place in the course of a long evolution, which follows a route parallel to the progress of knowledge.
There exists a concordance between the physical being and the intellectual and moral being. To be able to receive and transmit the heritage of knowledge, the individual must be qualified (adhikâri), that is, possessed of a physical harmony, and the moral virtues and capacities that form part of his genetic heritage, his transmittable Sexual Body. This is why man's destiny is determined by two factors, his membership in a physical line, which makes a good receptacle (pâträ) of him, and an initiatic line, which makes use of this receptacle.
Within man's destiny, it is the progress and transmission of knowledge that predominate and determine his destiny.
The Sexual Body (Lingä-Sharirä) or Transmittable Body
THE permanent transmittable element, the code that defines the possibilities of development of each individual, each link, is contained in the seed that transmits it. It is part of the plan, considered as a male principle, realized in the female matrix. Similarly, the universe is considered as issuing from the Lingä, the divine phallus fecundating Prakriti, the world substance. This is why the Sâmkhyä calls the living being's set of transmittable characteristics the Sexual Body.
The principle of life is symbolized by a column encircled by a serpent. The column, or phallus, is the image of Purushä (the male principle), that is, the plan or program; whereas the spiral, or serpent, represents Prakriti, substance, the feminine principle.
The moral, intellectual, and spiritual characteristics of the human being are profoundly linked to his physical being and cannot be separated from it.
The Lingä-Sharirä, the Sexual Body (as the plan or model of a species) preexists the physical development of its carrier. It emigrates and evolves. But it can only function when it be comes incarnate, although it remains independent of the body. It is characterized by a Dharmä, a goal to be accomplished, which continues when it leaves one body to take on another. [Sâmkhyä Kârikâ, 40]
The Lingä-Sharirä cannot subsist without a material support, without a physical body which lodges it, without a series of impermanent carriers, just as a picture cannot exist without a support, a shadow without a pillar. [Ibid., 41]
The Sexual Body is formed essentially of innate elements, but can, to a certain degree, acquire new ones. (This is why species can evolve. The development of the innate elements is achieved by the age of sixteen in the male. After this, one can only add acquired elements to them.) The capacities, tendencies, and intelligence of the living being are thus innate but can be modified by knowledge and virtue (dharmä), that is, by the conformity or nonconformity to the role given to the species. Furthermore, the habitat of the sexual body, the physical and mental substance of the living being which develops starting from the food it receives as an embryo, is perishable. [Ibid., 39, 43]
The individual depends for his development upon the terrain which nourishes the seed, which materializes the plan, that is to say, upon the maternal breast, then upon the fruits of the earth. The earth continues the role of the mother. The earth is identified with the female principle. It is the nourishing mother of living beings.
It is fundamental Nature, Pradhânä, present in the feminine aspect of all things, which determines the manner in which the data of the genetic code, the Lingä-Sharirä, unfold, more or less favorably, in the physical body. [Gaudpadä, Commentary on the Sâmkhyä Kârikâ, 40]
To accomplish the goal which is assigned to it in the creation ... the Sexual or Transmigrant Body, incarnated by the power of Nature (Pradhânä), behaves like an actor who plays one role after another. [Sâmkhyä-Kârikâ, 42]
The Nature of the Transmigrant Body
The Transmigrant Body is formed of thirteen components: the mental (manas), which discusses and invents; the intelligence (buddhi), which enregisters, chooses, and decides; and the notion of the "I" (ahamkarä), to which are added the five modes of perception manifested in the five senses and the five principles of the elements or states of matter. [Gaudpadä, Commentary on the Sâmkhyä-Kârikâ, 39]
This group of faculties forms "the internal organ" (antah-karanä). "Discussion (sanchayä), decision (nishchayä), memory (smaranä) and pride (garvä) or the sense of the "I", are the activities of the internal organ" (ibid., 40).
Intelligence, the organ which registers, selects, and retains the data of perception, is called Buddhi. Memory is a part of Buddhi.
The Mental (manas) is the organ that discusses, combines, and utilizes the data accumulated by Buddhi. It is the organ of thought, cogitation, and the formation of ideas.
Buddhi and Manas are physical organs. They form part of the body, and their structures are transmittable through the genetic code, although their contents, memory in particular, are, with rare exceptions, destroyed with the death of the physical body.
Consciousness (cit) also makes up part of the internal organ, but the Sâmkhyä considers that consciousness, the principle of all perception, remains an integral part of Mahat, the omnipresent universal consciousness found in every atom, every cellular organization, every astral system, every living organism. Although present in the Transmigrant Body, it is not a part of it. It can be compared to the space enclosed in an urn, which is never really distinct from the space which surrounds it and into which it dissolves when the urn is broken.1
Normally, we have no control over the functioning of the different organs of the enormous machine that constitutes our body. We can at the very most remedy the poor functioning of some of its wheels, oil a joint or two, aid the healing function of an injured organ, and practice physical and mental exercises to prevent the machinery from becoming rusty. The organized cells that form our body, acting in a totally independent manner, each play their role with a remarkable intelligence and autonomy over which we have no power and of which we have no consciousness. In fact, our consciousness, as an entire being, only concerns our social role.
Our internal organ can be compared to the driver of an automobile who is completely outside of the functioning of the motor's organ, constructed according to a preestablished plan, but which he must treat with care, nourish with fuel, and drive in the traffic among the dangers of terrestrial life. This "I" drives several cars, just as the Lingaä-Sharirä guides one body after another and perfects the art of driving in the course of its transmigrations. The used cars are sent to the demolition site to become parts for other machines. The driver in due course also dies. This marks the end of a line, a species. The elements that compose the Lingä-Sharirä then return to the general store, since, for the Sâmkhyä, the "In is but a temporary knot that forms between the various materials which constitute the internal organ. It dissolves at the time of death. Nevertheless, certain acquired elements have been able, accidentally, to impress the genetic memory and can be transmitted with it. This gives rise to the experience of déjà vu, impressions of previous lives, and the like.
For the person who has no descendents, who breaks the lineage of his ancestors, the "I" disappears at death, although it may sometimes attach itself for a time to certain subtle elements, producing phantoms.
At the end of a lineage, when the genetic plan is not transmitted, each subtle element returns to the general stock: the intellect to the universal intellect, the consciousness to the universal consciousness to be reused, just as the matter of the body returns to be used again in other bodies.
It is in regard to the nature of what eventually survives and the duration and density of the group of faculties which constitute the human person that, in India as elsewhere, the profound divergences between religions and theological and philosophical systems appear.