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Nature
in the Gita: The Three Modes
by Mukul Shri Goel
In the Bhagavada Gita, Lord Krishna talks about the three gunas (modes of
instinct) that are pre-installed in all beings. These modes of Nature
include sattva
(goodness or purity), rajas
(passion), and tamas
(darkness). All jivas
(souls) and their activities in the universe are bound to Nature
through the three modes, and the ratio of these modes in an individual
forms one’s temperament. In Hindu thought, no one in the perceptible
universe is supposed to escape the three gunas as any soul
outside the range of Nature is defined as Brahman (God) Himself or is
assumed to have reached the state of emancipation.
Our understanding, the process of recalling
memories from the past, making a judgment, adhering to our decision, or
performing an act – all karma derive their functioning from a
combination of the three gunas.
Imagine you have some used textbooks that you wish to donate to a
library or a school. Your initial idea involves no selfish motive; you
are giving your books away as you have already read them and believe
that it would be virtuous to offer them to other students who may now
use them. As you go to your room to pick them up, you observe an
advertisement in a newspaper on your desk, which describes a trade-in
offer for old textbooks. You learn that for each book you exchange, you
may get a discount on a new one. You get attracted to their offer,
suddenly change your initial plan, and get ready for the bookstore in
place of going to the library. Lastly, you feel that the weather is not
‘appropriate’ for going outside and drop all your plans regarding your
textbooks.
You forget the idea of donation, the idea of gaining a discount and
instead get yourself an ice cream from the freezer. Eventually the
textbooks remain in your garage for a few years and become obsolete. In
this hypothetical instance, the human mind got engaged in all the three
inherent modes of Nature in a matter of few minutes. The initial
thought about sharing books with fellow students was sattva, the
decision to exchange them at the bookstore, guided by attachment to
money, was rajas,
but the final act of slackness was tamas.
When the tamas
mode gets activated, even attachment to money is not powerful enough to
make us accomplish a task.
In the context of human actions, sattva
mode represents perfect or ideal behavior, and it involves all good
qualities like truth, honesty, discipline, punctuality, righteousness,
perseverance, politeness, and enthusiasm in work. When we engage in
this mode, there is little concern for our own physical comfort and any
favorable return (profit) for our actions is not to be expected. A
sense of duty, love and sacrifice gets developed, and the sattva doer remains
emotionally balanced in the success and failure (18: 26) of his or her
endeavors to experience lifelong happiness.
In comparison, rajas
karma is money-oriented and calculative, with a tinge of egoism. Work
in this mode is performed to fulfill one’s material greed (18: 27).
When acting in this mode, we care about what is easy and agreeable to
us, and our attachment to material desires reduces our concern about
universal dharma. Though righteous actions may be performed in the rajas mode, the
doer always remains attached to the gains. Tamas mode is
active when we do something in a state of total confusion, when our
intellect starts making wrong judgments, when we lack the understanding
for doing something, or when we lack awareness of our act’s
consequences. It ranges from being lazy and sleepy (14: 8) to being
arrogant, deceitful, and violent (18: 25, 28).
If we use our intellect in sattva
mode, we should be able to fully differentiate between right and wrong
and should also understand how we can free ourselves from the cycle of
death and rebirth (18: 30). Because realization of God is the aim of
life in Hinduism, intellect that is incapable of guiding us towards God
is not classified as sattva,
no matter how exceptional one’s mental abilities in worldly matters
are. As one would expect, rajas
intellect, which focuses on profits, is unclear or confused over what
is righteous. As for tamas
intellect, it is good only at making wrong assumptions. Unlike rajas, tamas intellect is
not puzzled about right or wrong but firmly assumes the wrong to be
righteous. Arrogance and ignorance become strong players, and one
progresses all the way towards darkness believing that he or she is on
the path of Dharma.
In the context of spiritual knowledge (jnana; 18: 20-22),
sattva sees the Self or One God in the entire creation, rajas perceives the
same soul-material in different individuals as being different, while tamas knowledge
focuses on a self-defined limited aspect of creation and assumes it to
be ‘all there is’ – a kind of ‘frog in a well’ scenario. This
classification reflects the level of evolution that is involved in
reaching the sattva
mode. Seeing the Divine in all beings or perceiving the unity in all
life forms is an advanced level feature for the human mind; it is
something that can only be expected from saints. Because knowledge is
believed to be the final result of renunciation, work, and sacrifice,
presence of knowledge at the sattva
level may indicate that the seeker possesses sattva gunas in all
other areas of life as well.
Our eating habits, which are often taken for granted, have also been
highlighted according to the three modes. The food we intake can be
used as a sign of which inherent mode is present in predominance (17:
7). Sattva
mode implies health-conscious consumption and includes items like
fruits, veggies, cereals, and selected dairy products that are
generally good for us. Rajas
mode of eating focuses on taste, not nutrition value. Like other rajas items on Lord
Krishna’s list, rajas
food is attached to sense gratification. It is supposedly tasty in the
beginning but tends to cause disease at the end (17: 9). This category
would include most items on the menu of modern-day restaurants. Tamas
food includes spoiled, tasteless, and unclean items. One who ingests
such items is neither attached to taste nor is health conscious but
eats because of complete ignorance. Many times, the emotion with which
we eat decides the mode, not the item for consumption. If we are
allergic to a fruit, but regularly eat it because it appears tasty, the
same eatable would be counted as rajas.
Along the same lines, a compulsive eating disorder involving the intake
of even clean and nutritious food may be classified as tamas as the
disorder is said to comprise ignorance-born impulses in addition to
taste-born cravings (rajas).
One of the main messages in God-incarnate Krishna’s discourse on Nature
is that all gunas,
including the sattva
ones, bind us. Sattva
binds us to goodness. We may start imagining that we are good and
relatively knowledgeable or may develop a habit of gaining enjoyment
from helping out everyone we meet. Bound to sattva, scholars
may enjoy collecting more and more information or read evermore
material in their area of expertise. There is nothing wrong with
collecting lots of worldly knowledge, but such a habit can impede
further evolution towards God. Similarly, rajas binds to
fruits (results of our action). We keep ourselves engaged in karma for
continual growth of our financial status. Tamas binds to
laziness, ignorance, or slackness. One may enjoy hurting others or
wasting time. The paths through which we may reach beyond the three
modes of Nature form the major focus of Krishna’s dialogue with Arjuna.
Interested readers may refer to the Bhagavada Gita to learn how Nature
can be transcended.
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