Just as the turtle stretches and withdraws its limbs under its back, so he who has excellent intellect controls his set of sense-organs.
The fact that one sees upwards, sideways as well as below the soles of one’s feet indicates that the excellent intellect abides by one’s duty alone.
The intellect is led by the gunas. It is the intellect that leads the sense-organs. Should the intellect be absent, whence can there be the gunas?
There are five sense-organs in man; the sixth is mind; the seventh is intellect; the soul is the eighth.
The eye perceives; the mind entertains doubt; the intellect determines; the soul is the witness.
Rajas, tamas and sattva are born of their respective causes. They are common to all beings. They are gunas (qualities).
That which one sees within the soul, something which is pleasant and delightful, is sattva. It is something quiescent and calm.
That predilection which is attended by distress either in the body or in the mind is rajas. One sees that rajas is always active.
That predilection which is attended by delusion is tamas. It is vague, incomprehensible and incapable of being explained.
Extreme delight, pleasure, bliss, and mastery over oneself and normal restful nature of the mind with or without reasons thereof are considered the qualities of sattva.
Conceit, untruthfulness, covetousness, delusion and impatience are the symptoms of rajas.
Deluded state, blunders, languor, slumber, and inability to be awake are the qualities of tamas. (The people under their influence) live somehow. They do not live a full useful
life.
The external prompting for action is threefold. The mind indulges in fanciful creation of conceptions. The intellect is the factor of energetic determination. The heart dwells
only on what is endearing.
The objects are indeed greater than the sense-organs; the mind is greater than the objects; the intellect is greater than the mind; and the soul is greater than the intellect.
The intellect is the leader of the soul; the intellect is indeed the soul. When the intellect undergoes aberration and change in regard to emotion, it becomes the mind.
Inasmuch as the sense-organs are separate, it is the intellect that undergoes aberration. In the act of hearing, it becomes the ear, and in the act of touch, it becomes the sense of touch.
In the act of seeing, it is the eye; in the act of tasting, it is the tongue; and in the act of smelling, it is the nose. It is the intellect that undergoes all the changes.
They (the wise men) call them the sense-organs. The intellect becomes diffused in those forms. When it remains steady, it is called intellect.
Sometimes it gets pleasure: sometimes it bewails; and sometimes it loses sense. (But really it is) not affected by pleasure and pain. Just as the ocean, lord of the rivers,
surges towards the great shore with its billows, so also the intellect that is intrinsically emotional surges towards the three emotions (pleasure, pain and delusion).
When the intellect yearns for and seeks something, it becomes the mind. One can see the two, intellectually, separate in their basis.
The sense-organs are based on the intellect. They must be considered entirely in the order in which each is evolved.
When the mind is free of gunas and emotions, it is the intellect. Emotion makes it the mind. When rajas begins to function, it transcends sattva.
Those that abide emotionally in all the three gunas run after the objects of senses like the spokes in the rim.
One shall make use of the mind for the purpose of illumination even as the sense-organs are perfected by the intellect (either) handling them befittingly or remaining
indifferent.
If only one understands this as natural, one does not become deluded. One does not bewail; and one is delighted. One is always free from hostility.
Indeed, the soul cannot be perceived by the sense-organs that are subject to lust, that function in diverse ways, that cannot be controlled and that are ignorant and foolish.
When one holds their reins firmly by means of the mind and controls them, the soul reveals itself like a figure illumined by a lamp.
When darkness is repelled, the living beings (or objects) are brought to light. This should also be considered in the same manner.
Just as an aquatic bird is not affected by water even as it moves through it, so also is the yogi of liberated soul not affected by the faults of gunas.
Similarly, one who has realized the soul is not affected by the defects (of worldly existence) even when one continues to live in the world; one does not cling to anything.
One is by no means contaminated.
As one abandons the karma done previously, one is not affected by it. If one has love towards the great Atman but yet gets stuck due to the contact with gunas, the soul of
such a one takes re-birth. One gets entangled in the gunas. The gunas do not understand the soul. But the soul knows the gunas.
One shall contemplate the gunas. One is the seer of everything in the manner it exists. One shall be able to perceive the difference between sattva (guna) and Kshetrajna (Individual Soul).
One of the two creates the guna(s) and the other does not create. The two are naturally separate, and yet are joined together. Just as gold and pebbles are found existing together (though separate), just as the mosquito and udumbara are found together though separate, just as the isika (shoot of a grass) and the munja grass are found together though separate, so also the two remain together though they are separate from each other.
Vyasa said:
Sattva creates gunas and the Kshetrajna presides over them.
It is all but natural that Sattva creates these gunas. Just as the spider weaves its web, so also Sattva creates gunas.
Some are of the opinion that those who have started functioning do not cease to function though the functioning is not perceptible. But others accept cessation of activity.
One should ponder over these two (theses), and come to a conclusion in accordance with one’s intellect. Of course, there is a possibility of a great doubt arising in one’s
mind.
