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These are the gunas. Every state of matter and mind is a combination of these three: tamas, inertia, rajas, activity, and sattva, harmony or equilibrium.
the gunas have no equivalent in any other philosophy I know.
the gunas: all three are states of energy, and each can be converted into the others.
Tamas, the lowest level, is the vast unconscious, a chaotic dumping ground for the residue of past mental states.
There is no choice in tamas, no awareness; this is complete ignorance of the unity of life, ignorance of any other need than one’s own basic urges.
Rajas is what we ordinarily mean by mind, the incessant stream of thought that races along, desiring, worrying, resenting, scheming, competing, frustrating and getting frustrated.
Sattva, finally, is the so-called higher mind – detached, unruffled, self-controlled. This is not a state of repressive regulation, but the natural harmony that comes...
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The rajasic person is full of energy; the tamasic person is sluggish, indifferent, insensitive; the sattvic person, calm, resourceful, compassionate, and selfless.
Yet all three are always present at some level of awareness, and their proportions change: their interplay is the dynamics of personality. The same individual will have times when he is bursting with energy and times when inertia descends and paralyzes his will, times when he is thoughtful and other times when he is moving so fast that he never notices those around him. The person is the same; he is simply experiencing the play of the gunas. As long as he identifies with his body and mind, he is at the mercy of this play. But the Self is not involved in the gunas’ interaction; it is witness
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Because personality is a process, the human being is constantly remaking himself or herself. Left to itself, the mind goes on repeating the same old habitual patterns of personality. By training the mind, however, anyone can learn to step in and change old ways of thinking; that is the central principle of yoga:
First tamas must be transformed into rajas – apathy and insensitiveness into energetic, enthusiastic activity. But the energy of rajas is self-centered and dispersed; it must be harnessed to a higher ideal by the will. Then it becomes sattva, when all this passionate energy is channeled into selfless action. This state is marked by happiness, a calm mind, abundant vitality, and the concentration of genius. But even this is not the end. The goal of evolution is to return to unity: that is, to still the mind. Then the soul rests in pure, unitary consciousness, which is a state of permanent joy.
The Gita does not present a system of philosophy. It offers something to every seeker after God, of whatever temperament, by whatever path. The reason for this universal appeal is that it is basically practical: it is a handbook for Self-realization and a guide to action.
The common answer is that it presents three yogas or even four – the four main paths of Hindu mysticism. In jnana yoga, the yoga of knowledge, aspirants use their will and discrimination to disidentify themselves from the body, mind, and senses until they know they are nothing but the Self. The followers of bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion, achieve the same goal by identifying themselves completely with the Lord in love; by and large, this is the path taken by most of the mystics of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. In karma yoga, the yoga of selfless action, the aspirants dissolve their
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first third, according to this, deals with karma yoga, the second with jnana yoga, and the last with bhakti yoga:
It does not even enjoin material renunciation, although it certainly encourages simplicity. As always, its emphasis is on the mind. It teaches that we can become free by giving up not material things, but selfish attachments to material things – and, more important, to people.
Mahatma Gandhi encapsulates the Gita’s message in one phrase: nishkama karma, selfless action, work free from any selfish motives.
Desire is the fuel of life; without desire nothing can be achieved, let alone so stupendous a feat as Self-realization. Kama is not desire; it is selfish desire.
Work hard in the world without any selfish attachment, the Gita counsels, and you will purify your consciousness of self-will.
This is a mental discipline, not just a physical one,
You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction. Perform work in this world, Arjuna, as a man established within himself – without selfish attachments, and alike in success and defeat. For yoga is perfect evenness of mind. (2:47–48)
each of us has the obligation to act rightly, but no power to dictate what is to come of what we do.
This attitude frees us completely. Whatever comes – success or failure, praise or blame, victory or defeat – we can give our best with a clear, unruffled mind.
The whole point of the path of love is to transform motivation from “I, I, I” to “thou, thou, thou” – that is, to surrender selfish attachments by dissolving them in the desire to give.
“Whatever you do, make it an offering to me” (9:27). Do it, that is, not for personal reward but out of love for the Lord, present in every creature.
“Whatever you eat, whatever worship you perform, whatever you give, whatever you suffer”: everything is to be done and given and endured and enjoyed for the sake of the Lord in all, not for ourselves.
“They alone see truly who see that all actions are performed by prakriti, while the Self remains unmoved” (13:29).
It is not possible to do nothing, Krishna says; the very nature of the mind is incessant activity. The Gita’s goal is to harness this activity in selfless service, removing the poisonous agency of the ego: “As long as one has a body, one cannot renounce action altogether. True renunciation is giving up all desire for personal reward” (18:11).
Seeing him, I understood that those “who see themselves in all and all in them” would simply not be capable of harming others.
I grasped one of the most refreshing ideas in Hindu mysticism: original goodness. Since the Self is the core of every personality, no one needs to acquire goodness or compassion; they are already there. All that is necessary is to remove the selfish habits that hide them.
That one I love who is incapable of ill will, who is friendly and compassionate. Living beyond the reach of I and mine and of pleasure and pain, patient, contented, self-controlled, firm in faith, with all their heart and all their mind given to me – with such as these I am in love. (12:13–14)
The Gita says, “A person is what his shraddha is” (17:3). The Bible uses almost the same words: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Shraddha reflects everything that we have made ourselves and points to what we have become.
One person with a serious illness believes he has a contribution to make to the world and so he recovers; another believes his life is worthless and he dies: that is the power of shraddha. Similarly, self-image is part of shraddha. One person believes she will succeed in life and overcomes great obstacles; another, who believes she can do nothing, may be more gifted and face fewer difficulties but accomplish very little.
Yet shraddha is not brute determination or wishful thinking.
This is our world. Our lives are an eloquent expression of our belief: what we deem worth having, doing, attaining, being. What we strive for shows what we value; we back our sh...
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Thus shraddha determines destiny. As the Buddha puts it, “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. We are made of our thoughts; we are molded b...
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“Right shraddha,” according to the Gita, is faith in spiritual laws: in the unity of life, the presence of divinity in every person, the essentially spiritual nature of the human being. “Wrong shraddha” is not necessarily morally wrong, merely ignorant. It means believing that there is no more to life than physical existence, that the human being is only a biochemical entity, that happiness can be got by pursuing private interests and ignoring the rest of life.
When a person is devoted to something with complete faith, I unify his faith in that. Then, when faith is completely unified, one gains the object of devotion. In this way, every desire is fulfilled by me. (7:21–22)
Two forces pervade human life, the Gita says: the upward thrust of evolution and the downward pull of our evolutionary past. Ultimately, then, the Gita is not a book of commandments but a book of choices.
Thus the Gita places human destiny entirely in human hands. Its world is not deterministic, but neither is it an expression of blind chance: we shape ourselves and our world by what we believe and think and act on, whether for good or for ill. In this sense the Gita opens not on Kurukshetra but on dharmakshetra, the field of dharma, where Arjuna and Krishna are standing for us all.
Krishna is a symbol of the Atman, Arjuna’s deepest Self.
The Gita does not teach a spirituality aimed at an enjoyable life in the hereafter, nor does it teach a way to enhance power in this life or the next. It teaches a basic detachment from pleasure and pain,
“Yoga is evenness of mind”: detachment from the dualities of pain and pleasure, success and failure. Therefore “yoga is skill in action,” because this kind of detachment is required if one is to act in freedom, rather than merely react to events compelled by conditioning.
if he can establish himself in yoga – in unshakable equanimity, profound peace of mind – he will be more effective in the realm of action. His judgment will be better and his vision clear if he is not emotionally entangled in the outcome of what he does.
Those established in Self-realization control their senses instead of letting their senses control them. If the senses are not controlled,
the mind (or emotions) will follow wherever they lead.
When you keep thinking about sense objects, attachment comes. Attachment breeds desire, the lust of possession that burns to anger. Anger clouds the judgment; you can no longer learn from past mistakes. Lost is the power to choose between what is wise and what is unwise, and your life is utter waste. (2:62 –63
Yet the Gita does not recommend asceticism. It is more a matter of training the body, mind, and senses.
necessary to subdue possessiveness and egocentricity.
The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead. 12 There has never been a time when you and I and the kings gathered here have not existed, nor will there be a time when we will cease to exist.
they come and go. Bear them patiently, Arjuna. 15 Those who are unaffected by these changes, who are the same in pleasure and pain, are truly wise and fit for immortality.
