Weekly definition - Prakriti and the three Gunas (temperaments) ...

[Guest guest]

Let us now discuss what are the qualities ( gunas) born of

Prakriti ?

 

 

Na hi kascit ksanamapi jatu tisthatya-karmakrta,

karyate hyavasah karma sarvah prakrtijai-gunaih.

Chapter 3 V

 

Verily, none can ever remain, even for a moment, without performing

action; for, everyone is made to act helplessly, indeed, by the

qualities born of Prakriti.

 

Swami Chinmayananda explains this verse thus :

 

Man is ever agitated under the influence of the triple tendencies of

Unactivity (Sattva), Activity (Rajas) and Inactivity (Tamas)

inherent in him. Even for a single moment he cannot remain totally

inactive. Total inactivity is the character of utterly insentient

matter. Even if we are physically at rest, mentally and

intellectually we are active all the time, except during the state

of deep-sleep. So long as we are under the influence of these three

mental tendencies (guna-s), we are helplessly prompted to labor and

to act.

 

Therefore, not to act at all is to disobey the laws of nature, which

shall, as we all know, bring about a cultural deterioration in

ourselves. If there is a creature who remains inactive physically,

he will get dissipated in his thoughts. Therefore, the Gita advises

him to act vigorously with a right attitude of mind, so that he may

avoid all internal waste of energy and learn to grow in himself.

 

The three Gunas ( SATTWA , RAJAS AND TAMAS)

 

Sattvam rajas tama iti gunah prakrti-sambhavah,

nibadhnanti mahabaho dehe dehinam avyayam

Chapter 14 V

 

Purity, passion and inertia – these qualities (Guna-s), O! Mighty-

armed, born of "Prakrti", bind the Indestructible Embodied One fast

in the body.

 

SWAMI CHINMAYANANDA'S EXPLANATION

 

Guna-s born of Prakrti

 

SATTWA , RAJAS, TAMAS .

 

The concept of Sattva is rather that of perfect purity and

luminosity, the opposite of "foul-darkness" called Tamas, and

distinctly different from the "Dusky-cooler" or Rajas. We find in

our literature that these guna-s are associated with-light (Sattva),

red-color (Rajas) and darkness (Tamas).

 

The term guna also means `rope,' by which, the spiritual beauty of

life in us is tied down to the inert and insentient Matter-vestures.

In short, guna-s are the three different influences under which

every human mind has to play in such an endless variety at different

moments of its changing environments.

 

These guna-s are born of Matter. Produced by Nature, the "Field,"

they generate a feeling of attachment, and successfully delude the

indwelling Self and chain It as it were, to the cycle of birth-and-

death, in a stream of constant change and pain. The guna-s have no

separate existence as attributes inherent in a substance. All that

we can say is that they are as many different mental climates in

which the minds behave so differently from each other, according to

their given moods, governed by the predominating guna-s at any

particular moment of observation.

 

These guna-s, like chords, as it were, bind the Spirit to Matter and

create, in the Infinite Spirit, the painful sense of limitations and

sorrows. The Infinite and All-pervading Spirit can never be

contaminated by the dreamy projections of a delusory world-of-

Matter. The ghost that emerges from a post cannot leave its marks on

the post. Even after murdering dozen people in my dream, my hands

that were dripping with blood cannot, when I wake up, carry any

bloodstains. While dreaming, no doubt, the "dream world" or my own

imaginations was real to the dreamer in me. But, on waking, the

waker in me cannot have any marks left over on him from the dream.

Similarly, the Eternal Life, functioning in Matter, gets, as it

were, bound to the limitations and finitude of Matter, and this

delusory experience is continued as long as the guna-s bind It to

and entangle It in Matter.

 

Now it becomes evident how a clear understanding of what constitutes

the guna-s and how they bind us to Matter will provide us surely

with charter of freedom, a scheme for getting ourselves freed from

the tentacles of our own imaginations.

 

The embodied-self, though Indestructible and infinite, in Its

identifications and attachments with the body, feels the changes in

the body as Its own changes. This delusion is maintained, in each

one of us, by the play of the three guna-s in us.

 

to be continued ...

 

Harihi Aum!