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Yoga dictionary. Purusha
This is the original pure consciousness of the universe, which contemplates the female aspect-Prakriti. Purusha in interaction with Prakriti and under the influence of the gunas begins to create the material universe. Purusha in its original state is beyond the influence of the gunas. This state is called Nirguna.
“Purusha” in Sanskrit means ‘spirit’. In the Yoga sutras, Patanjali Purusha is represented as the original pure consciousness of the living entity, the attainment of which is the goal of yoga. In this case, it is not quite correct to talk about the attainment of this state as the achievement of something. The original nature of the living entity is not something that can be achieved or cannot be achieved. This primordial state of consciousness is already present in everyone, and it is only under the influence of the modes and individual karma of each living being that the illusion of Ego is created. Continue reading
Yoga dictionary. Vikalpa
Translated from Sanskrit “vikalpa” means “fantasy”, “imagination”. In the yoga sutras Patanjali gives a detailed explanation of such phenomena as Vritti. In the Sutra of the fifth Chapter of the first, Patanjali describes their effect on the mind. In A. Bailey’s version of the translation, the Sutra reads:”there are five States of mind, and they are subject to pleasure or pain, they are painful or not painful.” Later in the sixth Sutra of the same Chapter, Patanjali enumerates the five kinds of Vritti. In A. Bailey’s version of the translation, the Sutra reads: “These modifications are right knowledge, wrong knowledge, fantasy, passivity and memory.” Among the other five types of Vritti, Patanjali mentions here such a phenomenon as Vikalpa, which in A. Bailey’s translation means “fantasy”. In Swami Vivekananda’s version of the translation, “vikalpa “is”verbal illusions”. Krishnamacharya offers the meaning “of vikalpa” as “imagination”. Continue reading
