7rcTIX1xP

A Series of Lessons on the Inner Teachings of the Philosophies and Religions of India1160
iii. The third conception of the nature of Purusha and Prakriti, and which
the best thinkers accept as correctly expressing Kapila’s meaning, is that
both Purusha and Prakriti are “emanations” from or “appearances” of that
or Brahman—both having equal substance and degree of reality, but both
being finite and being destined to pass away in time; that is, to be withdrawn
into their common source—that—at the end of the great cyclic period
of activity, when the great period of “cosmic rest” begins, which in turn is
followed by a subsequent period of activity, and so on. In this conception
the fundamental principle of the Hindu Philosophy—the existence of that
as the Only Reality—is recognized as a necessary basis for the teaching, and
as a necessary background for the doctrines concerning the phenomenal
universe. And Purusha and Prakriti are seen to be but the primal forms of
the two great principles of phenomenal activity, Spirit and Body, which are
apparent in all phenomenal things, from atom to man, and beyond man.
And both of these principles are emanated from, or cast into apparent
being by that or Brahman, in the process of world-making. Instead of their
being “aspects” of that, they are merely manifestations, appearances, or
emanations, or even “thought-forms” in the Mind of the One, as we have
described in our previous series of lessons.
So you see that Kapila’s teachings fit into the general framework of the
Great Hindu Thought, instead of being an exception to, and in opposition
to it. In this connection, we would call your attention to a frequent use of
the word “eternity” in some of the Hindu writings. In many cases the term
is used as in the Western sense, that is to say in the sense of “duration
without beginning or end; a condition of infinity and time,” but inasmuch
as the true Hindu philosopher ascribes and attributes this quality only to
that, and denies it to all else, it may be seen that outside of that the word
is meaningless to him, and cannot be employed. But, finding the need of
the word in a secondary sense, he applies it to things having a continuous
existence during the entire period of cosmic activity, which extends over
great spaces of time, but which ceases to be when all is finally withdrawn