7rcTIX1xP

The Third Lesson: The Sankhya System.1163
glamour of Prakriti they plunged into the latter, and once there became
entangled in the manifold webs of material life. Bewildered by their strange
surroundings, the Purushas lose their original state of freedom and clearness
of perception, and become deluded by the Maya or Illusion of Matter, and
are led a merry dance in working their way out of the material plane in
which they have become immersed. Like a fly that has taken a dip into the
honey-pot filled with “Poppy-made Honey,” the Purushas flounder around
and are unable to use their legs and wings, and the more they struggle
the worse is their condition—the more the narcotic of the poppy-honey
intoxicates them. Finally awakening to a realization of their former state of
existence, and the real situation, the Purushas begin a process of extrication,
and through long series of reincarnations work themselves from lower to
higher states, slowly but surely, toward their former condition of Bliss. This
idea has been expressed by an English poet, Edward Carpenter, who says:
“Slowly and resolutely—as a fly cleans its legs of the honey in which it has
been caught—so remove thou, if it only be for a time, every particle which
sullies the brightness of thy mind.”
The Sankhyas hold that from the combined action and reaction of the
Purushas in Prakriti, all forms and varieties of life are created, and all varieties
of matter are produced, it being held that every atom of matter is Prakriti
ensouled by an individual Purusha, manifesting activity and life. In this way
the entire phenomena of the universe is accounted for, from the movement
and activities of atoms, to the revolution of suns, and the manifestation of
life, vegetable, animal, human, and super-human. The Purushas combine in
activities, forming all sorts of varieties of combinations (in the wrappings
of bodies of Prakriti, of course) which account for the variety of material
elements, and life. The entire phenomena of the material world, including
matter and energy, as known to modern Western science fits into the Sankhya
idea, as the corpuscles of which matter is now known to be composed, as
well as the aggregations of atoms, molecules, etc., and the various forms of
force, may be considered as occasioned by the imprisoned Purushas, in their