utes, it falls back from the
Supreme. Indeed, such is the nature of the understanding that it rushes
towards attributes and moves among them like fire among fuel. As in the
state called Sushupti (deep and dreamless slumber) the five senses exist
freed from their respective functions, after the same manner the Supreme
Brahma exists high above Prakriti, freed from all its attributes.
Embodied creatures thus betake themselves to action in consequence of
attributes. When they abstain therefrom, they attain to Emancipation.
Some again (by action) go to heaven. The living creature, primordial
nature, the understanding, the objects of the senses, the senses,
consciousness, conviction of personal identity, are called creatures (for
they are subjected to destruction). The original creation of all these
flowed from the Supreme. Their second or succeeding creation is due to
the action of couples or pairs (of opposite sexes) and is confined to all
things save the primal five, and is restrained by laws in consequence of
which the same species produce the same species. From righteousness
(living) creatures obtain a high end, and from sinfulness they earn an
end that is low. He who is unemancipated from attachments, encounters
rebirth; while he who is emancipated therefrom, attains to Knowledge (or
Brahma).'"'"

SECTION CCVI

"'"Manu said, 'When the fivefold attributes are united with the five senses
and the mind, then is Brahma seen by the individual like a thread passing
through a gem. As a thread, again, may lie within gold or pearl or a
coral or any object made of earth, even so one's soul, in consequence of
one's own acts, may live within a cow, a horse, a man, an elephant, or
any other animal, or within a worm or an insect. The good deeds an
individual performs in a particular body produce rewards that the
individual enjoys in that particular body. A soil, apparently drenched
with one particular kind of liquid, supplies to each different kind of
herb or plant that grows on it the sort of juice it requires for itself.
After the same manner, the Understanding, whose course is witnessed by
the soul, is obliged to follow the path marked out by the acts of
previous lives.[695] From knowledge springs desire. From desire springs
resolution. From resolution flows action. From action proceed fruits
(i.e., consequences, good and bad). Fruits, therefore, are dependent on
actions as their cause. Actions have the understanding for their