[raincom]

Here are some problems: (a) Don't postulate entities(essences) that don't play any role. That's what natural sciences do; that's also the heuristic of Occam's razor. On the one hand, 'purusha' is an essence; on the other hand, it is "completely inactive". Even Upanishads claim the same: Atman, Brahman don't play the causal role; they are described negatively in terms of existence--neti, neti (not this, not that).

(b) The notion of 'transcendence' is problematic to describe Sankya or any Indian traditions. In Semitic religions, God is outside of the cosmos that was, is and shall be. In other words, outside the space time. That's why He is transcendent. Yet He plays a causal role in this Cosmos; that's why he is immanent. This leads to huge problems in Semitic theologies.

(c) Purusha is "beyond any possible perception that is mediated by the mind or senses". If it is beyond senses, why bother? Isn't how this stuff is sold as transcendent (beyond space time), supra-mundane (beyond the mundane), etc? If one reads the text of Chandogya Upanishad carefully (but not all pages of commentaries), Prajapati makes the claim that Atman/Brhaman is seeable, accessible.

[_1qd4]

In philosophy, this is called the “Newton’s flaming laser sword problem”.

Did Newton have a flaming laser sword?

Sure, he could have had one. But we have no evidence today of that, so for the context of our discussion, let’s ignore it.

And this is where spiritually collides with Newton’s flaming laser sword. But I want to believe that newton had a flaming sword, therefore I want the discussion to be about how this laser sword influenced his writings.

[raincom]

It depends on the goal: whether one wants human knowledge or something exotic/esoteric/supra-mundane/Divine/super-natural knowledge, etc. (In Semitic religions, God's revelation is Divine knowledge, which is independent of human knowledge). If one wants human knowledge, we can't allow fundamental contradictions. But the article has such contradictions; maybe, these contradictions are there in the Sanskrit text or in the 'interpretations' over the last 2000 years.

At least I know, Sanskrit text doesn't talk about 'transcendent'. The transcendent of the interpreters is "Para" in Sanskrit. In Skt, it simply means: other. Even in many Indian languages, the word "para" is heavily used: "paradesi","paraayi vaallu"(in Telugu), etc.

It is like importing Semitic theology to understand these Sanskrit texts. I don't want to blame the Westerners. Even Indian Sanskritists (or the so-called Insiders) are the biggest offenders here. They also bullshit as if they are dealing with some kind of literary text.