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

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In this concluding post on Guna-s , let us now look at the other two

qualities Rajas and Tamas through the 'THE DIVYA CHAKSHU' OF THE

Srimad Bhagavat Gita!

 

Rajo ragatmakam viddhi trsna-sanga-sam-udbhavam,

tan nibadhnati kaunteya karma-sangena dehinam.

Chapter 14 VII

 

Know thou "Rajas" (to be) of the nature of passion, the source of

thirst and attachment; it binds fast, O Kaunteya, the embodied one,

by attachment to action.

 

Swami Chinmayananda's explanation

 

A seeker, who is striving to conquer his own mind must know all its

subtle inclinations by which, again and again, his thoughts run

amuck only to return and increasingly sabotage his inner personality.

 

Know Rajas (to be) the nature of passion – Where there is an

onslaught of Rajoguna-influences in the bosom, man's mind is wrecked

with a hundred painful passions. Passions are the main symptoms of

the working of Rajoguna in the psychological field. Passion

expresses itself in a million different urges, desires, emotions,

and feelings. Yet, all of them can fall only under two distinct

categories: desires and attachments. Thus, in the Gita, Lord Krishna

mentions these two as the very sources from which all passions arise.

 

Gives rise to thirst and attachment – The term used in Samskrta

for `desire' is `thirst'. When an individual is thirsty, nothing,

for the time being, is of as much importance as water, which alone

can satisfy his thirst. Just as a thirsty man would struggle and

suffer, wanting nothing but water to relieve his pangs, so too, a

human personality thirsts for the satisfaction of every desire that

burns him down. Once the desire is fulfilled, a sense of attachment

comes like a vicious passion to smother down all the peace and joy

of the mind. Desire is our mental relationship towards `objects',

which have not yet been acquired, by us and attachment is the mental

slavishness binding us to the objects so acquired.

 

These two - desire for the acquisition of things and the creation of

situations which are expected to yield a certain quota of personal

happiness, and the sense of clinging attachment to things already so

acquired – are the volcanoes that constantly throw up their molten

lava to scorch and raze the smiling fields of life. The burning

lave, that is emitted by these fiery mountains, comprising the

various passions that man expresses in his sensual life, make up the

strafes and struggles to acquire, to possess and to guard what is

already gained.

 

It binds fast the embodied one by attachment to action – When once

an individual has come under the influence of Rajas, he expresses

innumerable desires, and bound in his own attachments, he lives on

in the world manifesting a variety of passions. Such a passionate

being – goaded by his desires for things not yet acquired, and

crushed under the weight and responsibility of his attachments to

things that the he possesses – can never keep quiet but must

necessarily act on endlessly earning and spending, and yet thirsting

for more and more. Anxious to have more, fearing to lose, he becomes

entangled in the joys of his successes, involved in the pangs of his

failures, and joys of his successes, involved in the pangs of his

failures, and lives as an "embodied-one," chained by his own actions.

 

Actions are born of passions. Passions arise form desires and

attachments. And all these are the symptoms of the presence of the

Rajoguna- influences upon our mind. Thus, if Sattvaguna binds us

with its own anxieties for happiness and peace, wisdom and

knowledge, as has been said in the previous stanza, Rajoguna also

seemingly binds the Infinite self to Matter-vestures and makes. It

plays the part of a limited being through an endless array of

inexhaustible actions. Though the self is not an agent (actor).

Rajas make it act with the idea "I am the doer."

 

to be continued

 

Harihi Aum!