The best enriching philosophy on the planet Earth is Kapila’s Sāṅkhya!
Do you know why?
Because Kapila has no patterns.
Kapila is established in completion—the space of pure perception! No patterns are involved in the processing of information through the senses. The fire is seen as the fire. Not even an iota of the idea of heat or cold is superimposed on it! Superimposing any idea on life takes away the joy of life. The great news for human beings is that māyā (illusion) can be transformed. Perception can be transformed. You can become enlightened!
O humanity! I am here to give you the great news! Perception can reach completion! When you bring completion into the perception, a moment of perception can literally bring enlightenment!
The futility of our constant movement between past and future and back again is the greatest wonder of all.
Let me give you an example. Recently I visited the cremation grounds in Vārāṇasi with a group of disciples. When we were watching the dead bodies burning in front of us for some hours, some people were just sleeping, some were affected and were feeling nauseated, and some were not at all affected by the same scene of the body burning part by part in front of our eyes. What is the difference? It is just the processing of information with patterns. The possibility of perception!
That is the reason why the great Masters have always urged their disciples to wake up. Jāgṛat is the word used to awaken them. This is not the call to wake up from sleep but the call to wake up into completion! It is the call to emerge from the non-existent reality of processed facts or patterns into the truly existent Truth of self-experience.
Most of the time we exist in our past or future. We are constantly caught in the experiences of the past, under the excuse of learning from them. But in actuality, we are caught in guilt, regret or pleasure from remembering the past memories. The future is just as unreal as the past. Yet, we build castles, we plan, we dream, and we fantasize about the future without the capacity to execute any of it. We are not even sure we will take our next breath. How can we control events of the future when we cannot control our next breath? The futility of our constant movement between past and future and back again is the greatest wonder of all.
Now, I am giving you the best possibility of perception. Listen! Bring integrity in your thinking. Your eyes, your senses will not forget the reality even at that moment, and will not cognize heat or cold, pain or pleasure. Many times, due to lack of integrity our mind and body cognize their own facts, their own concepts.
The only truth, the only true reality, is the truth of this very moment. As long as we are in this present moment, we have a pure perception without any patterns, only then we are truly complete and integrated. The present moment never ceases to exist. In fact, that is all that does exist. The present moment alone is sat, truth, everything else is asat, untruth.
One who realizes this truth and acts out of completion, says Kṛṣṇa, is enlightened.