The real appearance of the guṇas does not come within the line of our vision. That, however, which comes within the line of vision is but paltry delusion and Vācaspati Miśra explains it as follows:—Prakṛti is like the māyā but it is not māyā. It is trifling (_sutucchaka_) in the sense that it is changing. Just as māyā constantly changes, so the transformations of prakṛti are every moment appearing and vanishing and thus suffering momentary changes. Prakṛti being eternal is real and thus different from māyā. This explanation of Vācaspati’s makes it clear that the word māyā is used here only in the sense of illusion, and without reference to the celebrated māyā of the Vedāntists; and Vācaspati clearly says that prakṛti can in no sense be called māyā, since it is real.[13] CHAPTER II PURUSHA We shall get a more definite notion of prakṛti as we advance further into the details of the later transformations of the prakṛti in connection with the purushas. The most difficult point is to understand the nature of its connection with the purushas. Prakṛti is a material, non-intelligent, independent principle, and the souls or spirits are isolated, neutral, intelligent and inactive. Then how can the one come into connection with the other? In most systems of philosophy the same trouble has arisen and has caused the same difficulty in comprehending it rightly. Plato fights the difficulty of solving the unification of the idea and the non-being and offers his participation theory; even in Aristotle’s attempt to avoid the difficulty by his theory of form and matter, we are not fully satisfied, though he has shown much ingenuity and subtlety of thought in devising the “expedient in the single conception of development.” The universe is but a gradation between the two extremes of potentiality and actuality, matter and form. But all students of Aristotle know that it is very difficult to understand the true relation between form and matter, and the particular nature of their interaction with each other, and this has created a great divergence of opinion among his commentators. It was probably to avoid this difficulty that the dualistic appearance of the philosophy of Descartes had to be reconstructed in the pantheism of Spinoza. Again we find also how Kant failed to bring about the relation between noumenon and phenomenon, and created two worlds absolutely unrelated to each other. He tried to reconcile the schism that he effected in his _Critique of Pure Reason_ by his _Critique of Practical Reason_, and again supplemented it with his _Critique of Judgment_, but met only with dubious success. In India also this question has always been a little puzzling, and before trying to explain the Yoga point of view, I shall first give some of the other expedients devised for the purpose, by the different schools of Advaita (monistic) Vedāntism.