ABSTRACT
Samkhya does not even have a concept of God in its system, and it is frankly devoted to the achieving of absolute independence of man as a spirit from phenomenality and finitude, with which a man normally but mistakenly identifies himself. Perfection of man is thought in the west to lie in the perfection of his physical and mental - intellectual, aesthetic, moral, etc., - attributes as well as in his freedom to develop his uniqueness as a person. In all cultures there are various aberrant personalities, psychopaths, sex maniacs, libertines, saddist, masochists, as well as tramps, who carry on various anti-social or asocial activities and contribute to crime and general social ill-health. The philosophical basis for the largely psychological approach of Yoga to the constitution of a human personality is given by Samkhya. Spirit actually does nothing positive to stimulate change in matter, it merely acts as a catalyst, so to say, for matter to undertake its own transmutation.
