Bhagavatgita a detailed study chapter14 The three gunas

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9.satthvam sukhe sanjayathi rajah

karmaNi bharatha

 

 

jnaanam aavrthya thu thamaH pramaadhe sanjayathutha

 

Arjuna,

Satthva causes attachment to happiness, rajas to action and thamas causes

attachment to negligence by shrouding knowledge through ignorance.

 

 

satthvam sukhe sanjayathi- satthva is also binding because it attaches one to

the happiness that comes out of knowledge, secular and spiritual. This can be

explained as follows.

 

A

scientist or a musician or an artist gets the joy through his work and it is

satthva if he is dedicated to his work

and gets the satisfaction from work itself. If he is under the sway of rajas he

will not get pure joy because he will be hankering after fame and money through

his work. His joy is equal to that of a

seeker of spiritual knowledge as he experiences the pure joy of the self though

he is now aware of it as such. But this makes him wedded to his work and

prevents him from going beyond to the absolute reality through it, which is

achieved only through offering his work to the Lord. But he is not very far

from the goal and will attain it in course of time when he detaches himself

from his work and does o it as karmayoga.

 

Similarly

a man of spiritual knowledge may also get attached to the learning itself and

fail to apply it for self evolvement. As the Lord has said manushyaaNaam sahsreshu kaSchith yathathi sidDhaye yathathaam api

sidDhaanaam kasSchith maam vetthi

thathvathaH (Ch.

7.3) , which implies that mere learning of sastras is not enough. There is

a story to illustrate this.

 

Bharadhvaja

asked Indra to extend his life span so

that he can learn all that he wanted to. Indra

agreed. After this happened twice Bharadvaja asked Indra how much more

time it will be for him before he learns everything. Indra pointed out a mountion

and the sage asked Indra does it denote

what he has learnt so far but Indra showing him a small mound said that it is

the amount of knowledge he has gained and the mountain is the amount he has yet

to learn. Hence attachment to knowledge

is also a hindrance to salvation.

 

A

spiritual aspirant should cast off the attachment even towards good tings like

learning sastras or doing rituals. This

means not giving them up but to do them

as a service to the Lord and acting as his instrument, considering everything

as His will.

 

The

statements that rajas causes attachment to actions and thamas to indolence has

been explained in the previous slokas been reitrerated here for emphasis.

 

10.rajasthamaScha abhibhooya satthvam

bhavathi bhaaratha

 

rajah satthvam thamaSchaiva thamaH

satthvam rajah thaThaa

 

Satthva

overpowers rajas and thamas (at times) and rajas overpowers satthva and thamas

while thamas overpowers satthva and rajas.

 

These

three gunas are present in everyone and at different times each one of them

subdues the others and becomes predominant depending on the previous karma and

the present way of life. As they are mutually opposed to each other an

individual is under the influence of only one of the gunas at a time. When he

is exhibiting the tendency of satthva, the rajas and thamas are subdued and become

unmanifest. Similarly it is the case with other two gunas.

 

IT

is advised to cultivate satthva and subdue rajas and thamas for spiritual

progress. For this one must know how they manifest. This is explained in the

next three slokas.