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Alain Danielou – While the Gods Play – On Samkhya and Yoga

The last two Darshana(s) are called Mimansa (profound intuition).

Their object is the hierarchy of creation, the relationships between the different levels of beings, between men, spirits, and gods. Every religious approach, whether ritual or mystic, is part of Mimansa. Two sorts of Mimansa are distinguished:

The first, called Purva Mimansa (preliminary intuition), is, in a certain way, experimental. It concerns the efficacy of rites and the technical means, including invocation and prayer, which allow us to establish a contact with the celestial world and to influence it. We can judge their effectiveness according to the results obtained.

The second Mimansa is called Uttara Mimansa (higher intuition). It includes cosmogony, theology, the study of the celestial hierarchies, and the description of the invisible world of spirits and gods. Included in the Mimansa are the intuition of mystics, the supranormal perception of mediums, and all the relations between man and what is, to him, the supernatural.

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Mahat, universal intelligence, pre-sides over the development of the world. The various aspects of Mahat, called gods or spirits, take part in the organization of the world and rule over the different degrees of the formation of matter and the different types of beings.  The gods are the personification of the forces that rule the universe and control its development, for creation is a living thing which evolves according to a plan contained in its seed.

Creation does not take place in an instant, but is rather a long process of growth and decline.

Each sidereal organism, each type of molecule of matter, each living species forms an entity, a unit corresponding to a pattern evolving through the passage of time. There exists a consciousness, a thinking being that presides over the achievement and development of each species, somewhat as each human "I" presides over the countless cells that make up his body.