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Yoga holds a slightly different view and supposes that the puru@sa not only fails to distinguish the difference between itself and the buddhi but positively takes the transformations of buddhi as its own. It is no non-perception of the difference but positively false knowledge, that we take the puru@sa to be that which it is not (anyathakhyati). It takes the changing, impure, sorrowful, and objective prak@rti or buddhi to be the changeless, pure, happiness-begetting subject. It wrongly thinks buddhi to be the self and regards it as pure, permanent and capable of giving us happiness. This is the avidya of Yoga. A buddhi associated with a puru@sa is dominated by such an avidya, and when birth after birth the same buddhi is associated with the same puru@sa, it cannot easily get rid of this avidya. If in the meantime pralaya takes place, the buddhi is submerged in the prak@rti, and the avidya also sleeps with it. When at the beginning of the next creation the individual buddhis associated with the puru@sas emerge, the old avidyas also become manifest by virtue of it and the buddhis associate themselves with the puru@sas to which they were attached before the pralaya. Thus proceeds the course of sa@msara. When the avidya of a person is rooted out by the rise of true knowledge, the buddhi fails to attach itself to the puru@sa and is forever dissociated from it, and this is the state of mukti.
The Cognitive Process and some characteristics of Citta.
It has been said that buddhi and the internal objects have evolved in order to giving scope to the experience of the puru@sa. What is the process of this experience? Sa@mkhya (as explained by Vacaspati) holds that through the senses the buddhi comes into touch with external objects. At the first moment of this touch there is an indeterminate consciousness in which the particulars of the thing cannot be noticed. This is called nirvikalpa pratyak@sa (indeterminate perception). At the next moment by the function of the sa@mkalpa (synthesis) and vikalpa (abstraction or imagination) of manas (mind-organ) the thing is perceived in all its determinate character; the manas differentiates, integrates, and associates the sense-data received through the senses, and
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thus generates the determinate perception, which when intelligized by the puru@sa and associated with it becomes interpreted as the experience of the person. The action of the senses, ahamkara, and buddhi, may take place sometimes successively and at other times as in cases of sudden fear simultaneously. Vijnana Bhik@su differs from this view of Vacaspati, and denies the synthetic activity of the mind-organ (manas), and says that the buddhi directly comes into touch with the objects through the senses. At the first moment of touch the perception is indeterminate, but at the second moment it becomes clear and determinate [Footnote ref 1]. It is evident that on this view the importance of manas is reduced to a minimum and it is regarded as being only the faculty of desire, doubt and imagination.