Lucidity in Inebriety, or Sāṃkhya as a Spiritual Practice

Abstract

We have sought here, if not to rectify, at least to identify, on the basis of contemporary observations, a particular widespread prejudice, according to which classical Sāṃkhya would not constitute a spiritual practice in its own right, but presents a theoretical basis the for the various Indian yogas, beginning with Patañjali’s system, up to Indian contemporary teachings. This paper refers to an inconspicuous but genuine Sāṃkhya soteriological practice, which may still be traced in today’s India. The author tries to interpret this practice in a contemporary philosophical and psychological language as an experience of cultivating lucidity even in the state of complete intoxication and total absence of self-awareness and self-control. The method of spiritual detachment developed by the Sāṃkhya ascetics consists in gaining in every state of consciousness, inebriety included, the position of a pure witness (Puruṣa) not connected neither cognitively, nor emotionally with the content of his experience, governed by Prakṛti (Nature).