ications of the Understanding
that are called the senses. Over them is placed as their presiding chief
(or overseer) the invisible Soul. Residing in the body, the Understanding
exists in the three states (of Sattwa, Rajas, and Tamas). Sometimes it
obtains cheerfulness, sometimes it gives way to grief; and sometimes its
condition becomes such that it is united with neither cheerfulness nor
grief. The Understanding, however, whose chief function (as already said)
is to create entities, transcends those three states even as the ocean,
that lord of rivers, prevails against the mighty currents of the rivers
that fall into it.[1050] When the Understanding desires for anything, it
comes to be called by the name of Mind. The senses again, though
(apparently different) should all be taken as included within the
Understanding. The senses, which are engaged in bearing impressions of
form, scent etc., should all be subdued.[1051] When a particular sense
becomes subservient to the Understanding, the latter though in reality
not different (from that sense), enters the Mind in the form of existent
things. Even this is what happens with the senses one after another
(separately and not simultaneously) with reference to the ideas that are
said to be apprehended by them.[1052] All the three states that exist
(viz., Sattwa, Rajas, and Tamas), inhere to these three (viz., Mind,
Understanding, and Consciousness) and like the spokes of a car-wheel
acting in consequence of their attachment to the circumference of the
wheel, they follow the different objects (that exist in Mind,
Understanding, and Consciousness).[1053] The mind must make a lamp of the
senses for dispelling the darkness that shuts out the knowledge of the
Supreme Soul. This knowledge that is acquired by Yogins with the aid of
all especial agency of Yoga, is acquired without any especial efforts by
men that abstain from worldly objects.[1054] The universe is of this
nature (viz., it is only a creation of the understanding). The man of
knowledge, therefore, is never stupefied (by attachment to things of this
world). Such a man never grieves, never rejoices, and is free from envy
(at seeing another possessing a larger share of earthly objects). The
Soul is incapable of being seen with the aid of the senses whose nature
is to wander among all (earthly) objects of desire. Even righteous men,
whose senses are pure, fail to behold the soul with their aid, what then
should be said of the