The soul has neither pleasure nor pain; it is the witness of everything, the eternal witness of all work, but it takes no fruits fom any work. As the sun is the cause of sight in every eye, but is not itself affected by any defects in the eye or when a crystal has red or blue flowers placed before it, the crystal looks red or blue, and yet it is neither; so the soul is neither passive nor active, it is beyond both. The nearest way of expressing this state of the soul is that it is meditation.
Vivekanada on Kipala's psychology
Lord Kipala was said to be a vedic sage who lived prior to Buddha sometime in the 6th or 7th century BCE? He greatly influenced, according to Vivekananda, all psychological thought that exists today. It is believed that Pythagoras studied under him and brought those teachings back to Greece later influencing Plato. It is also believed that most of Buddha's teachings are heavily influenced by him and the sankhya philosophy as well.
So what is being said above?
The soul or purusha in vedic understanding...according to Kapila, is the true essence of every human. It is formless [not of nature or prakrti], omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. It is the cause of everything and the witness of everything else that is form...yet it is not affected by any of it. It shines on and reflects the world we see but it is not that which it sees and reflects. It is observer, reflector ...neither active or passive in the events it is witnessing. It is the ever present essence found in meditation.
Vivekananda further describes Kapila's psychology or philosophy like this in 2.6.13 Sankhya and Vedanta in his Complete Works.
By itself the mind has no light; but we see it reasons. Therefore there must be someone behind it, whose light is percolating through Mahat [intelligence] and consciousness, and subsequent modifications, and this is what Kapila calls the Purusha, the Self of the Vedantin.
...the Purusha is a simple entity, not a compound; he [she, they] is immaterial, the only one who is immaterial, and all these manifestations are material.
The soul, Self, or Purisha is the part of the human that is immaterial...it is the only part that is formless. The mind is material and the soul is behind the mind observing, interpreting and causing the response.
...First, the external instruments will bring that sensation to the nerve-centre, to the Indriya according to Kapila; from the centre it will go to the mind and make an impression; the mind will present it to the Buddhi[wisdom] but Buddhi cannot act; the action comes, as it were, from the Purusha behind. These, so to speak, are all his servants, bringing the sensations to him, and he, as it were, gives the orders, reacts, is the enjoyer, the perceiver, the real One, the King on his throne [ the queen on hers, the ruler on theirs], the Self of man, who is immaterial.
The sense organs are the servants of the body and mind and the body and mind are the servants of the Purusha.
Because he is immaterial, it necessarily follows that he must be infinite, he cannot have any limitation whatever. Each one of the Purushas is omnipresent, but we can act only through the Linga Sharira, the fine body. The mind, the self consciousness, the organs, and the vital forces compose the fine body or sheath, what in Christian philosophy is called the spiritual body of man.
It is this body that gets salvation, or punishment, or heaven, that incarnates and reincarnates, becasue we see from the very beginning that the going and the coming of the Purusha or souls are impossible...what goes or comes from one place to another cannot be omnipresent.
The soul or Purusha is infinite and limitless. Because it is immaterial, however, It can only act through form...the form of the fine body or Linga Sharira. This fine body consists of the mind, the psyche ( self consciousness), the organs ...including most importantly the sense organs...and the vital forces like prana. This fine body may be referred to as the spiritual body by Christians.
The soul is onmipresent...and eternal and unchanging. It is stillness and presence. It is that which never leaves but that from which body and mind are reincarnated again and again.
Thus far we see from Kapila's psychology that the soul is infinite, and that the soul is the only thing not composed of nature. He is the only one that is outside of nature, but he has got bound by nature, apparently. Nature is around him, and he has identified himself with it. He thinks "I am the Linga Sharira", "I am the gross matter, the gross body", and as such he enjoys pleasure and pain, but they do not belong to him, they belong to this Linga Sharira or the fine body....
The soul is the only part of the human being that is beyond nature in its formlessness, but It has become overidentified with the nature that surrounds It. It has identified Its infinite Self with nature and both the gross body and the fine body, believing Itself to be that which is finite. It sees the experiences of both the gross and fine body as belonging to It...when they do not.
I read all this last night and highlighted it thinking I would write about it today. I opened up to Michael Singer's podcast today and lo and behold he was basically talking about the same thing. It is so kooky how that works.
All is well.
Vivekanada's Complete Works, Kindle Edition
Michael A. Singer ( March 17, 2025) Beyond the Illusion: Awakening to True Consciousness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzMG7EiOTc8&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=3
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