SoundofStillness, I used the concordance to Maharishi's Gita translation and
checked the references under "effort." Chapter 4, vs 12 to 15 seem useful wrt
to your question. In vs 12, Maharishi makes the point that animals depend on
the force of evolution to move upward. But humans have freedom of action and
therefore development "depends upon how he acts and what he does." Also in vs
12 Maharishi introduces the idea that the Lord gives rise to all action AND at
the same time is separate from it. this is elaborate on in the next few verses.
On Tuesday, June 17, 2014 6:01 PM, "'Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com
[FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
On 6/17/2014 1:07 PM, soundofstilln...@ymail.com [FairfieldLife] wrote:
>From my minimalist way of understanding, Shyam Ranganathan is suggesting, as
>he did in his translation and commentary of the Yoga sSutra that Purusha =
>Person indeed does have "Agency" according to the great philosopher Maharishi
>Patanjali.
>
>"The Sankhya Karika appears to state that it is nature
that brings about freedom, while Patañjali’s view seems
to be that it is persons that are the explanation of
freedom (I write about this in my introduction to my
translation). The relevant points of comparison are the
Sankhya Karika 17, 44–45, 62–64, where the person is
>described as irrelevant to the process of liberation, and
Yoga Sutra I.21, IV.18, and IV.29 where persons and their
self improvement are treated as instrumental to liberation
. . ."
>
>http://indianphilosophyblog.org/2014/03/07/moral-standing-and-yoga/
>
>"irrelevant to the process of liberation" sayest the
Sankhya Karika
>
>"persons and their self improvement are treated as
instrumental to liberation" sayest the Yoga Sutra
>
>Letting go for a moment (or two) everything you've read,
thought and talked about, concentrated on, contemplated .
. . and based on your Person(al) experience of tens of
thousands of hours of meditation, what sez you?
>
>Do Purusha(s) = You have agency regarding their/Your
realization, enlightenment and liberation?
>
>Or as the Sankhya Karika and Vedanta suggest, from my
understanding, Purusha, Person, Pure Awareness,
>is but the observer with no capacity to act at all.
>
>And what did Maharishi have to say?
>
In commenting on Bhagavad Gita, Maharishi has brought our attention
to the existence of the gunas, whose concern is action, which, in
every case, is the result of the interplay of three constituents
born of nature - eternal becoming, termed prakriti in the Gita.
Rajas, sattva and tamas - these three propensities regulate the
state of action and are relative to each other and to all that
exists in the phenomenal world. That is, nature, which is
everything, is subject to the law of causation - cause and effect.
It is the gunas, without exception, that govern all action-reaction
in the material world, according to the rishis.
However, Maharishi has also called our attention to the fact that
nature, governed by the three gunas, is entirely separate from the
transcendental field - the field of Being, termed Purusha in the
Gita.
Work cited:
"On the Bhagavad Gita"
By Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
II., v. 45, p. 126 VI., v. 1, p. 384
>
>
