observable only when it comes
out, even so birth takes place from what is unmanifest. A piece of iron,
which is inanimate, runs towards a piece of loadstone. Similarly,
inclinations and propensities due to natural instincts, and all else, run
towards the Soul in a new life.[720] Indeed, even as those propensities
and possessions born of Ignorance and Delusion, and inanimate in respect
of their nature, are united with Soul when reborn, after the same manner,
those other propensities and aspirations of the Soul that have their gaze
directed towards Brahma become united with it, coming to it directly from
Brahma itself.[721] Neither earth, nor sky, nor heaven, nor things, nor
the vital breaths, nor virtue and vice, nor anything else, existed
before, save the Chit-Soul. Nor have they any necessary connection with
even the Chit-Soul defiled by Ignorance.[722] The Soul is eternal. It is
indestructible. It occurs in every creature. It is the cause of the Mind.
It is without attributes. This universe that we perceive hath been
declared (in the Vedas) to be due to Ignorance or Delusion. The Soul's
apprehensions of form, etc., are due to past desires.[723] The Soul, when
it becomes endued with those causes (viz., desire), is led to the state
of its being engaged in acts. In consequence of that condition (for those
acts again produce desires to end in acts anew and so on),--this vast
wheel to existence revolves, without beginning and without end.[724] The
Unmanifest, viz., the Understanding (with the desires), is the nave of
that wheel. The Manifest (i.e., the body with the senses) constitutes its
assemblage of spokes, the perceptions and acts from its circumference.
Propelled by the quality of Rajas (Passion), the Soul presides over it
(witnessing its revolutions). Like oilmen pressing oilseeds in their
machine, the consequences born of Ignorance, assailing the universe (of
creatures) which is moistened by Rajas, press or grind it in that wheel.
In that succession of existences, the living creature, seized by the idea
of Self in consequence of desire, engages itself in acts. In the union of
cause and effect, those acts again become (new causes).[725] Effects do
not enter into causes. Nor do causes enter into effects. In the
production of effects, Time is the Cause. The primordial essences (eight
in number as mentioned before), and their modifications six-(teen in
number), fraught with causes, exists in a state of union, in conseque