The 5 Factors

1-8. As the guńas increase their bondage, they express themselves fully in the emergence of the fundamental factors

The stronger the bondage on anything, the cruder the thing becomes.

Puruśa gives freedom to Prakrti to bind Puruśa.

The conscious Puruśa then gets metamorphosed into Mahattattva, Ahaḿtattva, citta, etc., under the ever-increasing binding factors.

and then as the result of the gradually greater and still greater

The increased bondage of tamoguńa creates the following factors in degrees:

1. Ethereal
2. Aerial
3. Luminous
4. Liquid
5. (ultimately) Solid

Even in the latter there are degrees of bondage.

On account of the firmness of bondage, the inter-atomic and inter-molecular distances decrease.

This decrease increases the internal frictions in the material body.

The external pressure of attributional bondage and the internal frictions compel more attributional expressions in the bodies of objects.

Here one should bear in mind that “attributional expression” does not mean the excess of attributional capabilities, but that of the attributional manifestations as well as the attributional diversities.

The ákáshatattva [ethereal factor] has the sound- carrying attribute.

Assume we have 100 units of the ethereal factor as the ákáshatattva. which has the sound-carrying attribute.

This gets metamorphosed into the váyutattva [aerial factor] because of the bondage.

This vayutattva has the touch-carrying attribute, in addition to the sound-carrying attribute.

The sound-carrying attribute wanes in the váyutattva as compared to the ákáshatattva.

But the combined measure of the sonic and the tactual attributes still remains at 100 unites. [50/50?]

1-9. Due to excessive pressure of the guńas, proper balance among the bhútas (five fundamental factors) is lost and jad́asphot́a (explosion of matter) occurs

Even after the transformation of the object body into kśititattva [the solid factor], the onslaught of the binding principle can still continue unabated.

The equipoise of the elements gets lost and jad́asphot́a [explosion of matter] takes place.

As a result of this explosion, kśititattva, due to its excessive internal friction, gets pulverized into subtler elements completely or partially such as:

• ap [liquid]
• tejas [luminous]
• marut [aerial]
• vyoma [ethereal] factors

Its movement undergoes the process of negative saiṋcara.

The resultant subtler elements after the explosion retake the same old path of saiṋcara.

The ethereal element of the Cosmic Mind gets gradually cruder and cruder as per degrees of the ever-increasing flow of the guńas.

• From ákásha, or vyoma, to marut aerial
• From marut to tejas
• From tejas to ap
• From ap to kśiti

The more the progress of these metamorphoses, the more varied the attributional diversities noticeable in the material bodies.

Their dimensions also get shrunk and diminished.

The dimensional contraction means the increase of internal frictions.

This happens due to the excess or magnitude of the external attributional flow.

Due to these excessive internal frictions, explosions take place in the material bodies and they get pulverized into subtler elements.

These explosions owing to hyper-attributional pressure occur only when the degree of the tension of the solid element becomes abnormally high as compared to other elements.

In the absence of any wide disparities (either too high or too low) in the tensional relations of the elements, living organisms come into being instead of explosion.