SAIVA-SIDDHANTA

INTRODUCTION
XI
divisions and components, its instruments of knowledge and
action, its proclivities and tendencies, in which the Soul lives
as in a cottage. The Spirit is immanent in both Nature and Sou),
and is in fact their Guiding Principle. He is thus the Soul s Soul.
It is not in the power of the Soul to lead an independent existence,
either it must remain in unwitting communion with Nature, overpowered
by Her blandishments, or in conscious Fellowship with the
Spirit, an intermediate state being thus practically
denied to it.
If it
ceases to gravitate towards Nature, must it lean on to the Spirit.
The samsara-chakra is the Soul s orbit, which represents the result
ant of two forces continually acting upon The it. orbit certainly
shrinks up towards the Spirit, when the Soul would not be attracted
by Nature. The Soul has the ability to know both Nature and
Spirit, as it is possessed of sentiency, an attribute which it
only shares
in common with the Spirit. But it cannot be cognised by Nature,
as She lacks sentiency ; and, for the same reason, the senses and
the mind, which are fashioned out of insentient Nature, cannot
cognise the Soul. Nor has it
usually an opportunity to cognise
as such, its own true lineaments, because of its ceaseless and
indistinguishable communion with either Nature or Spirit, a com
munion which prevents the Soul from identifying its
genuine linea
ments. T he Soul is possessed, in other words, of the remarkable
tondency of ever appearing in the colours of either of the two
other Categories that chances to be in association therewith for
the nonce, since, as we have shown, it is, for one thing, seldom,
if ever, in a state of complete aloofness from both Nature and
Spirit, and cannot, for another, associate with either of those
Categories, without its being indistinguishably merged in, or its
becoming one with it. Consequently, the Soul ordinarily
sees in
itself either Nature or Spirit, but not its own form. It is beginninglessly
entangled in the fascinations of Nature, and the Spirit