Here is your Essay on Purusa or the Self

The second type of ultimate reality admitted be the Sahkhya is the self. The existence of the self must be admitted by all. Everybody feels and asserts that he or she exists, and has this or that thing belonging to him or her.

The feeling of one’s own existence is the most natural and indubitable experience that we ill have. In fact, no one can consistently deny the existence of his self, for the act of denial presupposes the reality of the denying self.

So it has been said by the Saiikhyas that the self exists, because it is self-manifest and its non-existence cannot be proved in any way.

But while there is general agreement with regard to the existence of the self, there is a wide divergence of opinion about its nature.

Some Carvakas or materialists identify the self with the gross body, some with the senses, some with life, and some others with the mind. The Buddhists and some empiricists regard the self as identical with the stream of consciousness.

The Nyaya- vaisesikas and the Prabhakara Mlmamsakas maintain that the self is an unconscious substance which may acquire the attribute of consciousness under certain conditions.

The Bhatta Mimamsakas, on the other hand, think that the self is a conscious entity which is partially hidden by ignorance, as appears from the imperfect and partial knowledge that men have of their own selves.

The Advaita Vedanta holds that the self is pure eternal consciousness which is also a blissful existence (saccidananda svarupa). It is one in all bodies, and is eternally free and self- shining intelligence.

The self is the transcendent subject whose essence is pure consciousness. The light of the selfs consciousness ever remains the same, although the objects of knowledge may change and succeed one another.

It is a steady constant consciousness in which there is neither change nor activity. The self is above all change and activity. It is an uncaused, eternal and all-pervading reality which is free from all attachment and unaffected by all objects.

All change and activity, all pleasures and pains belong really to matter and its products like the body, mind and intellect. It is sheer ignorance to think that the self is the body or the senses or the mind or the intellect.

But when, through such ignorance, the self confuses itself with any of these things, it seems to be caught up in the flow of changes and acdvities, and merged in the mire of sorrows and miseries.

The existence of the self as the transcendent subject of experience is proved by the Sahkhya by several arguments:

(a) Objects of the world like tables, chairs, etc. which are composed of parts are means to the ends of other beings. These beings whose purpose is served by the things of the world must be quite different and distinct from them all.

That is, they cannot be said to be unconscious things, made up of parts like physical objects, for that would make them means to the ends of others and not ends in themselves. They must be conscious selves, to whose ends all physical objects are the means.

(b) All material objects including the mind and intellect must be controlled and directed by some intelligent principle in order that they can achieve anything or realise any end.

A machine or a car does its work when put under the guidance of some person. So there must be some selves who guide the operations of prakrti and all her products.

(c) All objects of the world are of the nature of pleasure, pain and indifference. But pleasure and pain have meaning only as they are experienced by some conscious experiencer.

Hence there must be some conscious subjects or selves who enjoy and suffer pleasure and pain respectively.

(d) Some persons at least of this world make a sincere endeavour to attain final release from all suffering. This is not possible for anything of the physical world, for by its very nature, the physical world causes suffering rather than relieve it.

So there must be some immaterial substances or selves transcending the physical order. Otherwise, the concept of liberation or salvation and the will to liberate or to be liberated as found in saints and the saviours of mankind would be meaningless.

There is not, as the Advaita Vedantin says, one universal self pervading all bodies alike. On the other hand, we must admit a plurality of selves, of which one is connected with each body. That there are many selves in the world follows from the following considerations:

(a) There is an obvious difference in the birth and death, and the sensory and motor endowments of different individuals. The birth or death of one individual does not mean the same for all other individuals.

Blindness or deafness in one man does not imply the same for all men. But if all persons had one and the same self, then the birth and death of one would cause the birth and death of all, and the blindness or deafness of one would make all others blind or deaf.

Since, however, that is not the case; we are to say that there are not one but many selves.

(b) If there were but one self for all living beings, then the activity of any one would make all others active. But as a matter of fact, when we sleep, others make restless efforts, and vice versa,

(c) Men and women are different from the gods, on the one hand, and birds and beasts, on the other. But there could not have been these distinctions, if gods and human beings, birds and beasts possessed the same self.

Thus we see that there must be a plurality of selves, which are eternal and intelligent subjects of knowledge, as distinguished from prakrti which is the one, eternal and non-intelligent ground of the objects of knowledge, including manas, intellect and the ego.