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The Samkhya Sutras

Kapila·Sanskrit·attributed

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The aphorisms of the Samkhya system, traditionally ascribed to Kapila. They divide reality into witnessing spirit and active matter, and teach that liberation comes from seeing the two apart. The system is notable for explaining the cosmos without a creator.

Now: the complete cessation of the threefold suffering is the supreme purpose of man.

Bondage does not come from time, nor from place, nor from the body: it comes from the failure to discriminate. The self is in truth bound by nothing at all; it only seems bound. As a dancer ceases from the dance when she has been seen by the audience, so nature ceases when she has shown herself to the soul.

Nothing, therefore, is really bound, nothing released, nothing wanders from life to life: it is nature alone, in her many dwellings, who wanders, who is bound, and who is released.

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