In this article, we look at gunas. According to the Indian philosophy, all matter is made up of three qualities or gunas - sattva, rajas, and tamas. These can be thought of as moods that dictate how we operate every day - how lethargic we are when we hear the alarm go off in the morning and hit the ‘snooze’ button, or how we get up in the morning and go for a exhilarating run or sit and meditate in the morning. Tamas is inertia; Rajas is energy; and Sattva is balance. A seeker of liberation is urged to go beyond these three qualities of the material world. Swami Chinmayananda says
By unswerving devotion to Me, a man crosses over three Gunas - I am the Abode of Brahman, Eternal and Immutable, of everlasting Dharma and Absolute Bliss.
Three Gunas - Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 14, Verse 10
रजस्तमश्चाभिभूय सत्त्वं भवति भारत | रज: सत्त्वं तमश्चैव तम: सत्त्वं रजस्तथा || 10||
rajas tamaśh chābhibhūya sattvaṁ bhavati bhārata rajaḥ sattvaṁ tamaśh chaiva tamaḥ sattvaṁ rajas tathā
Sometimes goodness (sattva) prevails over passion (rajas) and ignorance (tamas), O scion of Bharat. Sometimes passion (rajas) dominates goodness (sattva) and ignorance (tamas), and at other times ignorance (tamas) overcomes goodness (sattva) and passion (rajas).
Story of the three robbers from the Gospels of Sri Ramakrishna
The key aspects of the three gunas are explained in Swami Ramakrishna’s Gospel. A merchant is traveling through a forest, returning after a good day of business. In the forest he is confronted by three robbers. Once they have robbed him of his money and jewelry they are debating the fate of the merchant. The first robber says that they should kill the merchant. The second robber says that there is no point in incurring sin and they should just tie the merchant to a tree and leave. They eventually tie the merchant and leave. After a couple of minutes, the third robber returns, unties the rope and releases the merchant. He takes the merchant to the edge of the forest and then asks him to find his way. When the merchant requests the third robber to come to his house, the third robber refuses
and says that he will be unable to enter the city as he would be recognized by the police.
In this little parable, the first robber is a personification of tamas - someone who wants to destroy you; the second robber is a personification of rajas - someone who binds you to the world; and the third robber is a personification of sattva - someone who liberates you from bondage. Finally, sattva is also a robber and cannot lead us to the absolute consciousness (the home in the parable). One has to go beyond all these three gunas for attaining liberation.
Gunas as weather and seasons
The three gunas are extensively analyzed in the Bhagavad Gita and other texts.
Sattva is responsible for thinking, knowing, and perceiving functions of the sentient beings. It embodies knowledge and balance.
Rajas is responsible for doing or activity. It embodies the energy within us.
Tamas embodies inertia or inactivity. It embodies ignorance.
These three gunas are often mis-interpreted as a hierarchy where one has to move from being a tamasic person to a rajasic person and then to a sattvic person. The three gunas are not categorizations of people, but are qualities or attributes that are exhibited by all. We may have days when one of the gunas might predominate e.g., feeling lazy today and just want to watch TV (tamasic) or feel like going for a hike on this beautiful sunny day (rajasic); feel so calm and tranquil and want to meditate (sattvic). In this sense, the gunas act like the weather modulating our behavior within a day and from one day to the other. When one of these gunas predominates over the others in a person the gunas act more like the season - most days are sunny in summer or this person is always active or rajasic. However, just as we can have a gloomy day in summer a rajasic person can also feel tamasic.
Gunas can also be viewed as a mindset. The Bhagavad Gita in Chapter 17 expands on the three gunas and applies it to the food we eat, the sacrifices we do, the austerities (or tapas) we undertakes, the charities we give, and the way we worship. For example, when one gives to charity with a disdain it can be viewed as tamasic, when one gives to charity with pride wanting to be recognized as a key donor it can be viewed as rajasic, and finally when one gives with all humility it can be viewed as sattvic.
The table below shows the different characteristics of the three gunas.
Figure 1: Attributes of the three Gunas - Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas
Conquer or Be Conquered: Influence of Affect, Moods, Emotions, and Feelings
The notion of gunas closely resembles the use of the word mood. Mood is often defined as a state or quality of feeling at a particular time. Moods are different than emotions. Moods generally can last for days and are not caused by specific events. On the other hand our emotions are usually caused by specific events and typically lasts only for a few seconds or minutes. For example, when a driver aggressively changes lanes and gets in front of you, you might get furious and shout at the driver or you may just not show any reaction. Both these emotions are triggered by a specific event. However, your mood on the specific day mediated your emotion.
Emotions are physical states that arise as a response to external stimuli. Feelings are mental associations and reactions to emotions. In the previous example, the feeling of anger was physically manifested with your face turning red and you shouting at the other driver. The chart below shows the differences between these three concepts.
Figure 2: Moods, Emotions, and Feelings (Source: Mood vs Emotion and Emotions vs Feelings)
From a practical viewpoint we need to understand whether we are always slaves of the gunas (or moods, emotions or feelings) or can we proactively act in ways that change our gunas (and moods, emotions, and feelings). The answer to this question comes from some of the recent studies in psychology and neuroscience by Lisa Feldman Barrett. In her book on “How emotions are made: The Secret Life of the Brain” she details a step-by-step approach to controlling and changing our feelings, emotions, and moods. She introduces the concept of affect - that gives rise to feelings, emotions and moods. According to her
Emotions are not reactions to the world; they are your constructions of the world.
Using neuroscience she shows that our affective state predicts our emotional response - in other words our mood influences our senses and what we see, smell, taste or hear. This is the exact reverse of the traditional explanation where our sense organs capture the perceptual input that is then processed by different parts of the brain to produce the appropriate responses.
The notion of affect is analyzed across two dimensions
Valence (how pleasant/unpleasant you feel); and
Arousal (how calm or agitated you feel.
The diagram below shows the four quadrants based on the two dimensions. The bottom right quadrant with high valence and low arousal is more like sattva; the bottom left quadrant with low valence and low arousal is more like tamas; the two upper quadrants with high arousal are rajas - where the right top quadrant is more like sattvic rajas (or “good rajas”) and the left top quadrant is more like tamasic rajas (or “bad rajas”).
Figure 3: Valence and Arousal mapped to the three Gunas (Source: Adapted from the book on “How emotions are made: The Secret Life of the Brain” )
In her book Lisa Barrett also gives guidance on how to change our emotions
Keep your body budget (such as heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, temperature, hormones, metabolism, etc.) in good shape
eat healthy
exercise (incorporate some mind-body exercise like Yoga)
get enough sleep
reduce time in noisy environment - get more greenery and natural light surroundings
Becoming more “emotionally intelligent”
Master emotion in the moment
Re-categorize how you feel
Deconstruct the self
Abandon the idea that you know how others feel
The steps around maintaining your body budget through exercise, healthy eating etc., mirrors how Gita and the Yoga tradition urges us to change our diets and the way we eat and exercise to change our guna’s. The Ayurvedic tradition discusses how the notion of guna’s and dosha’s are affected by diet, lifestyle, breathing etc. as shown in the diagram below.
Figure 4: Cultivate a Balanced Mind (Source: Balanced Mind)
In conclusion, are we slaves to our guna’s or moods, emotions, and feelings? The answer is an emphatic "No". We can actively change them through our behavior. Quoting Lisa Barrett
Human beings are not at the mercy of mythical emotion circuits buried deep within animalistic parts of our highly evolved brain: we are architects of our own experience.
Key Takeaways
3 Gunas
Sattva
Rajas
Tamas
The adventures of the three Gunas
Feelings, Emotions, Moods, Affect
How emotions are made?
Valence – Pleasant and unpleasant
Arousal – activation and deactivation
Cultivating a balanced mind
Exercise for the week
Identify which guna (or mood) is determining your behavior
Actively try to change your mood in any given instance and also more permanently
Change your food habits and see its impact on your physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing
Additional Links
Cultivating wisdom: The Power of Mood, TED talk by Lisa Feldman Barrett, 2018
You aren’t at the mercy of your emotions – your brain creates them. TED talk by Lisa Feldman Barrett, 2017
The theory of constructed emotion: an active inference account of interoception and categorization – Lisa Feldman Barrett in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
How emotions are made – Lisa Feldman Barrett (9 videos)
The adventures of the three Gunas – Playlist (14 videos)