In Abrahamic religions, free will is defined as the soul’s capacity to control matter. The soul is said to be free in the sense that it can do whatever it wants with material things. Conversely, the soul shouldn’t do such things to other souls, unless they acquiesce, because they too are free. Since animals and …
I’m currently translating the original text of Sāñkhya Sūtras composed by Sage Kapila, and it discusses the doctrine of Satkāryavāda, and its distinctions with other philosophies. This discussion is important for those interested in understanding Sāñkhya. While the full translation and commentary on the text will take some more time, I thought it might be …
I have recently received several questions about Sāñkhya. These include the differences between senses and organs, that between inert matter and a living body, how desires influence perception, how Sāñkhya elements could be understood in analogy to motion, and the relation between yoga and the control of senses and the mind. These are not tightly …
It is commonplace for people to assert that quantum theory indicates a lack of objectivity or reality, when all it indicates is the failure of the classical conception of reality. In the classical conception, when you cut an apple, you get smaller pieces of apple. In this post, I will argue that the quantum conception …
Sāńkhya has a theory of atomism, which is quite different than the theory of modern atomism. The modern description of atoms is based on the distinction between matter and force whereas the Sāńkhya description is based on the distinction between words and meanings. Clearly, we cannot expect the two descriptions to be similar, and making …
Vaishnava literature describes four forms of God—Vasudeva, Saṅkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha. These four forms are also said to be the masters of mind (Aniruddha), intelligence (Pradyumna), ego (Saṅkarṣaṇa) and mahattattva (Vasudeva), which are material elements in Sāńkhya. This leads us to ask: how is God the “master” of a material element, and how is the …
Even a casual look at Sāńkhya reveals an apparent asymmetry in its ontology, namely that there are five sense-objects called Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Ether, corresponding to the five senses of knowledge Nose, Tongue, Eyes, Skin, and Ears respectively, but there aren’t corresponding sense-objects for the five senses of action, namely, Hands, Legs, Anus, …
