A short essay on the Tattvas or cosmic principles (some familiarity with Sâm'khya is required). Here the Tattvas are considered as truly cosmic principles, and not bodily ones. And the cosmos is taken as all-inclusive of our experience, and not simply the realm of atoms. For example, Fire is the 'substance' of spirituality, while Air provides us with culture.

"Sâm'khya Tattvas" [click image +]

Sâm'khya envisions the cosmos in three layers: the causing, the caused and causing, and the caused. To this is added a fourth ingredient, the un-caused, or acausal manifestation. The three strata associated with causality is further differentiated into various principles or Tattvas. Each of these principles has its own unique structure, but they are all understood to be of the same substance - the guñas. In fact, the arisal and relationships of the various tattvas is characterized as the activity of these guñas. To understand the guñas fully, we must understand their shapes - the tattvas, and, naturally, to understand the tattvas, we must understand the guñas. These two phases of understanding are much more than conceptual exercises. When the tattvas are understood, the hypnotizing effect of the chaotic cosmos is quelled, and jñâna emerges as the detached awareness of the liberating soul. When the guñas are understood, that liberation is complete. The apparent jackstraw conceptualism of Sâm'khya philosophy applies only to its conceptual husk; when approached and experienced as the exfoliation of Soul by reason, it is a powerful spiritual antiseptic, capable of removing much of the ego's grip upon our experience.

The first layer of the cosmos is understood as the container and cause of the cosmos. To the unenlightened, it is said, the container is Prakriti - Nature Herself - and the cause is Purus:a - the evolving soul. To the enlightened, or awakened individual, the Soul is known as the container, and Nature, Prakriti, is known as the cause. The reversal of these definitions is outlined through reason, and achieved through the six equi-valent samâdhis of yoga.