It is in the nature of thinking and feeling minds to attempt to explain the totality of human experience. In the absence of a plausible explanation, humanity attempts to improve its understanding until a reasonably satisfactory explanation is found that satisfies both the human head and the heart. Sages around the world have always searched for such explanations. In India, a school of thought known as the Samkhya philosophy is an outstanding example of this universal search for global truth. Samkhya seems to understand the universe of sense perception as resulting from an unseen ultimate reality. Although this reality is totally imperceptible in itself, it is capable of being felt by the human heart and it underlies the entirety of perceptible universe. Samkhya thinking regards the perceptible as a manifestation of the imperceptible underlying reality through some process of successive discretization. It enumerates the sequentially concrete and ephemeral principles emerging from the infinitely subtle and eternal ultimate reality. These principles together culminate in the universe of sense perception.
