Ādi-ñīā, Chapter 6
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direction. In our practical experience we never see that inert bricks can themselves construct a big building.
“The example of the water pot cannot be accepted because a water pot has no perception of pleasure and distress. Such perception is within. Therefore the covering body, or the water pot, cannot be synchronized with it.
“Sometimes the material scientist suggests that trees grow from the earth automatically, without assistance from a gardener, because that is a tendency of matter. They also consider the intuition of living creatures from birth to be material. But such material tendencies as bodily intuition cannot be accepted as independent, for they suggest the existence of a spirit soul within the body. Actually, the tree or the body of a living creature has no tendency or intuition; the tendency and intuition exist because the soul is present within the body. In this connection, the example of a car and driver may be given very profitably. The car has a tendency to turn right and left, but one cannot say that the car itself, as matter, turns right and left without the direction of a driver. A material car has neither tendencies nor intuitions independent of the intentions of the driver within the car. The same principle applies for the automatic growth of trees in the forest. The growth takes place because of the soul’s presence within the tree.
“Sometimes foolish people take for granted that because scorpions are born from heaps of rice, the rice has produced the scorpions. The real fact, however, is that the mother scorpion lays eggs within the rice, and by the proper fermentation of the rice the eggs give birth to several baby scorpions, which in due course come out. This does not mean that the rice gives birth to the scorpions. Similarly, sometimes bugs are seen to come from dirty beds. This does not mean, however, that the beds give birth to the bugs. It is the living soul that comes forth, taking advantage of the dirty condition of the bed. There are different kinds of living creatures. Some of them come from embryos, some from eggs and some from the fermentation of perspiration. Different living creatures have different sources of appearance, but one should not conclude that matter produces such living creatures.
“The example cited by materialists that trees automatically come from the earth follows the same principle. Taking advantage of a certain condition, a living entity comes from the earth. According to the  Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad , every living being is forced by divine superintendence to take a certain type of body according to his past deeds. There are many varieties of bodies, and because of a divine arrangement a living entity takes bodies of different shapes.
“When a person thinks, ‘I am doing this,’ the ‘I am’ does not refer to the body. It refers to something more than the body, or within the body. As such, the body as it is has neither tendencies nor intuition; the tendencies and intuition belong to the soul within the body. Material scientists sometimes suggest that the tendencies of male and female bodies cause their union and that this is the cause of the birth of the child. But since the  puruṣa , according to Sāṅkhya philosophy, is always unaffected, where does the tendency to give birth come from?
“Sometimes material scientists give the example that milk turns into curd automatically and that distilled water pouring from the clouds falls down to earth,