13. Satva, Tamo and Rajo Gunas

 

Three gunas namely satva, rajo and tamas are born out of prakriti (mother nature). They bind the soul with the physical body. They are present in each one of us in different proportions. Satva guna is the attachment to knowledge; rajo guna is the attachment to action and tamas leads to ignorance and heedlessness.

Just as the combination of electrons, protons and neutrons produces materials with a wide range of properties, the combination of the three gunas is responsible for our nature and actions. Though one guna is dominant throughout our lives, one of them can dominate over others at a given point in time. In fact, interactions among people are nothing but interactions between the gunas influencing them.

The natural world operates according to built-in laws and automatic processes. For example, a magnetic dipole placed in a magnetic field aligns itself with the field, and objects attract each other due to gravity. Similarly, many physical and chemical processes follow predictable patterns, and even our own body functions largely automatically. In the same way, karma happens as per the interaction between gunas, not because of any individual karta. Lord Krishna points out this inherent automaticity in the physical world.

While the analogy appears to present a tidy framework to explain the relationship between gunas and karma, the ‘realisation’ of this truth and the transition are possible when our own experiences sink in.

The main obstacle in this path of realisation is ahankaar. Our domestication makes us believe that we are the karta, giving rise to ahankaar. In reality, karma is nothing but the interplay of the three gunas.

Lord Krishna says that this responsibility of self-improvement falls squarely on our own shoulders and no one else can make this happen.