Three modes (gunas)

According to Vedic scriptures all variety of species of life is created by a combination of three basic modes of material energy, in Sanskrit called gunas. Here is again seen a limitation of other languages because they lack suitable synonym. Closest is probably the Latin word modus. Guna is therefore a kind of modus operandi (means of functioning) of material energy. They are called:

- sattva-guna (harmony, goodness)

- raja-guna (activity, passion)

- tama-guna (inertia, ignorance)

Bodies of individual species can be compared to various apartments or houses of different sizes, shapes and colors temporarily inhabited by embodied soul. Bodily forms limit (under the control of three modes) its freedom of movement and activities as well as possibilities of individual enjoyment.

See also: http://solelyhinduism.blogspot.com/2011/09/development-and-disappearance-of-self.html

http://solelyhinduism.blogspot.com/2011/09/gunas-diagram.html

Gunas Diagram

The Development and Disappearance of Self

Sattva Guna

On the spiritual Path, sattva is an intermediate step from ignorance, coarseness, and subjection to passions — to realization of the Divine.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says much about the sattvic qualities, such as harmoniousness, calmness of mind, subtlety of consciousness, the ability to control own emotions with refusal of the coarse emotional manifestations, prevalence of the state of subtle and joyful love, absence of egocentrism, violence.

From the methodological standpoint, it is important to stress that the sattvic qualities can be developed only if the body is healthy and cleansed from coarse energies. To become sattvic, one needs, among other things, to exclude completely meat and fish from the nutrition.

The sattvic qualities can be steadfast only in a person who has passed fully through the stage of kshatrism, developed vigor, personal power, high intellect, and gained thorough knowledge about the most important in life.

However, Krishna said that one has to go still higher — higher than sattva, to mergence with God, and this calls for new efforts, new struggle with oneself. One has to keep this in mind, since sattva may turn out to be a trap: it captivates one with its bliss attained on this stage. It makes one “relaxed”, offers to abandon further efforts.

But it is impossible to bypass the sattva guna. It is impossible to merge with God without mastering the qualities inherent to this guna.

Raja Guna

Rajas, is responsible for motion, energy and preservation and thereby upholds and maintains the activity of the other two gunas, known as sattva and tamas.

Rajas is the force which promotes or upholds the activity of the other aspects of Nature (prakriti) such as one or more of the following:
1) action,
2) Change, mutation;
3) passion, excitement;
4) birth, creation, generation. I

f a person or thing tends to be extremely active, excitable, or passionate, that person or thing could be said to have a preponderance of rajas. It is contrasted with the quality of tamas which is the quality of inactivity, darkness, and laziness, and with sattva, which is the quality of purity, clarity, calmness and creativity.

Rajas is viewed as being more positive than tamas, and less positive than sattva, except, perhaps, for one who has "transcended the gunas" and achieved equanimity in all fields of relative life. The rajas stage of life gives a slight clue to the realization of the Absolute Truth in the forms of fine sentiments in philosophy, art and culture with moral and ethical principles, but the mode of sattva is a still higher stage of material quality, which actually helps one in realizing the Absolute Truth.

Tama Guna

The classification between sattva, rajas and tamas is seen in various facets (including dietary habits) of Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism, where tamas is the lowest of the three. Tamas is a force which promotes darkness, death, destruction and ignorance, sloth, and resistance.

The result of a tamas-dominated life is demerit by karma: demotion to a lower life-form. A tamasic life would be marked by laziness, irresponsibility, cheating, maliciousness, insensitivity, criticizing and finding fault, frustration, aimless living, lack of logical thinking or planning, and making excuses. Tamasic activities include overeating, oversleeping and/or the consumption of drugs and alcohol.

This is the most negative guna because of its rejection of Karmic law and the central principle of dharmaic religions; that one's Karma must be worked out and not ignored.

The gunas are defined and detailed in Samkhya, one of the six schools of classical Indian philosophy. Each of the three gunas has its own distinctive characteristics and it is believed that everything is made up of these three.

Tamas is lowest, heaviest, slowest, and most dull (for example, a stone or a lump of earth). It is devoid of the energy of the rajas and the brightness of sattva.

Tamas cannot be counteracted by tamas. It might be easier to counteract it by means of rajas (action), and it might be more difficult to jump directly from tamas to sattva.