Brief look at Gunas

Maya grips us through the play of time, nature (svabhava), guna and action. In order to evolve, and understand ourselves and others, it is essential for us to learn about the role of gunas or qualities.

We all have all three gunas in us – tamas, rajas and sattva, in various degrees in our lives, and each guna has a role to play. Also, at different times of the day different gunas influence us. (We need tamas to get good sleep, rajas to be active and sattva to learn and study, for example.) Different gunas are dominant in different times of our lives too.

When certain gunas are dominant in us, our mind, behaviour and lives get propelled in a particular direction. Pujyapad Puri Shankaracharyaji explains how this acts out in our behaviour or attitude.

Gunas in a Tree

Pujyapad Puri Shankaracharyaji asks us to visualise a tree as he explains the gunas.

There is an energy that creates fresh leaves, one that nourishes the leaves and another that sheds off the leaves, naturally. These are three types of energies and can be compared with electrons, neutrons and protons.

– The active energy that creates the fresh leaves is rajoguna. It is the one that reacts, and gives birth.
– The one that nourishes and induces growth is sattva guna.
– The energy that causes leaves shed off on their own is tamoguna.

Sattvaguna and tamoguna are not active. All activity is induced by rajoguna. When rajoguna moves towards sattva guna it activates it, and similarly, when it moves towards tamoguna it activates that too. Sattva guna gives light. Rajoguna creates activity and tamoguna gives stability.

How dominant gunas express themselves

How is our guna determined?

When all the factors influencing us keep changing, our gunas are bound to change too. In such a situation, how would we know what guna actually dominates our nature?

One assesses the predominant guna of a person by determining how the three gunas are being utilised or employed, when respectively dominant. How something is utilised is most important. Goodness can also be applied inappropriately for wrong things. Similarly, bad qualities can be employed for good purpose. The qualities of a warrior can be used for the protection of the country or can be misused for creating problems.

Our attempt must be to use our gunas to benefit ourselves and others. Efforts can be made to attain such qualities through self-purification.

Confusing tamoguna with sattvaguna

Very often the laziness of tamoguna is wrongly confused with detachment/spiritual inclination of sattva. We must be attentive when assessing our own nature or that of others. These days when a person is called “sattvika”, it is often implied that the individual would just suffer atrocities silently. This is not sattvaguna, but a clear sign of tamoguna.

Gunas described as a lamp

Tamoguṇa is the body of the earthen lamp (stationary, solid).
Rajoguṇa is the ghee in the lamp (moving, liquid).
Sattvaguṇa is the wick or cotton.
Shuddha sattvaguṇa is the flame.

We can observe that the first three gunas, while opposing, support one another, working together to ultimately create the light.

Madhu-Kaitabha

Rajo and tamoguna are like the asuras Madhu and Kaitabha. Madhu who talks sweetly, represents desire/attachment (raga) and Kaitabha represents abhorrence or dislike (dvesha). Madhu-Kaitabha steal the knowledge of vedas and shastras, distancing us from sattvika jnana-vijnana.

In the Shrimad Bhagavatam it is explained how the asruras Madhu-Kaitabha stole the knowledge of vedas and shastras from Brahmaji. Bhagavan Vishu took the avatara of Hayagrīva, eliminated these asuras, and returned the wealth of knowledge to the embodiment of sattva guna – Brahmaji.

Rajoguna entangles us in worldliness and tamoguna increases moha or attachment, and laziness. The dominance of rajas and tamas, prevents us from assimilating the knowledge of vedas and shastras. The combination of rajoguna and tamoguna can make us ferocious (terrorists have this combination too).

Where rajoguna and tamoguna thrive, people start becoming rajasika and tamasika. This leads to destruction of wisdom of the vedas and shastras. In such a situation, the nation gets destroyed and jnana-vijnana suitable to aryas (noble people), becomes extinct. People devoid of good qualities celebrate. This cultural downfall is only worsening in Bharata.

Light of Sattvaguna

Sattvaguna is the vigraha or embodiment of Bhagavan. It is dear to Him and manifests as light or knowledge. It takes us towards detachment.

We must attempt to work towards developing a nature that is shudha sattivika – to benefit ourselves and others. While, there must not be excessive attachment to sattva either.

We bring in the light to deal with the darkness of our dominant tamasika and rajasika forces. With the dominance of sattvaguna, we can gain discernment (viveka) and knowledge (vijnana).

Pujyapad explains that it is impossible to move directly from a tamasika to sattvika nature. We shall have to go through a rajas dominant phase as we slowly make efforts.

All that we consume, influences us and we must learn about the various aspects which would help us in reducing the grip of rajoguna and tamoguna in our lives to benefit ourselves and those others around us.

We must remember that Atma tattva is beyond the gunas, and is the Ultimate Goal.

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