How to Conquer the Three Forces of Nature (And Why You’d Want To)

Everything in the universe is a combination of three gunas or traits. Mastering their secrets is the key to a well-lived life.

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The quarrel is becoming alarmingly heated now. Both the jean-and-flannel-shirt man in the red MAGA cap and the football-jersey-and-Nike-shoed jock are red-faced and furious. You can almost smell how badly they want to knock each other down.

Certain one or both will end up in hospital before the night is out, and fearing you might become collateral damage, you hastily leave the venue. You heave a sigh of relief as you hear the crowd inside roar what sounds like a mixture of alarm and excitement.

Not that the two raging opponents can help themselves; it’s just that these sorts of things easily happen when two people of rajasic constitution face off. It’s in their nature, and no-one has taught them how to evolve beyond it.

Now, if two purely tamasic people disagreed over the same issue, they’d probably be too apathetic to even argue the point.

And two purely sattvic people would just enjoy each other’s company. Steeped in bliss, what could they possibly find to disagree about?

The good news is, whether your natural constitution is rajasic or tamasic, you can evolve to that sattvic state where life is more harmonious, and quarrels become a thing of the past.

The Three Gunas

Let me introduce the three gunas (pronounced “goo naaz”), a concept unique to Hindu philosophy and a useful model for understanding yourself and others. The gunas are the three forces of nature. When you consciously work with them they offer you a path to transformation.

The Bhagavad Gita says everything in the universe contains a mixture of these three qualities. The gunas influence everything, including your body, emotions and mind. Understanding and learning how to work with the gunas is an integral part of yoga psychology.

They are tamas (inertia), rajas (activity), and sattva, (harmony or equilibrium.)

Eknath Easwaran in The Bhagavad Gita points out that we see the gunas in the three states of matter in classical physics: solid, liquid, and gas. We also see them in the behaviour of those around us and — if we examine ourselves honestly — ourselves.

A block of ice is tamas: frozen energy. It takes massive energy to hold the water molecules together; it takes more energy to free them. The energy is fixed, imprisoned, rigid until released.

Like that block of ice, tamasic people are lethargic and regressive. They can no more easily unlock their energy than the block of ice can. They’re fatalistic, resist change and dwell in the past. They’re prone to learned helplessness.

When we apply heat to the ice it melts and the energy is released. Unrestrained rajas is like a raging river, powerful and uncontrollable.

Rajasic people are forceful, action-oriented, aggressive and forward-thinking, but lack impulse control.

And when heat turns the water to steam it releases immense potential power, becoming sattvic.

People in a sattvic state are harmonious, balanced, focused on the present and on self-improvement. Their default state is pure bliss. In that state, they’ve no need to quarrel with anyone.

How any event impacts the mind depends on its guna nature. Some events promote states of clarity, and uplift us; others distract or depress us.

Likewise, we determine the guna nature of a person by their reactions, moods, and behaviours.

Almost no-one is purely tamasic, rajasic or sattvic and our guna state constantly changes.

The good news is, you don’t have to fall victim to your gunas. It’s your level of self-awareness, your self-control and your level of maturity that drive your spiritual evolution.

There’s evidence mastering the gunas is rewarding. For instance, in their study on the Impact of Vedic Worldview and Gunas, Aditi Kejriwal and Venkat R Krishnan found that sattva and or a combination of sattva-rajas facilitates transformational leadership.

And when researchers at Gour University set out to discover the effects of the gunas on personality by studying 265 sattvics and 203 tamasics, they found participants with a relative dominance of sattva guna were more compassionate and scored higher on a human flourishing index.

Mixed blessings

Not that the traits of rajas and tamas are entirely undesirable.

Tamasic folk are lethargic, emotional and moody, but they can be a calming influence when things get tense. They can also be intensely — sometimes too intensely — loving. Sure, they’re dreamers and easily dominated, but they can lavish attention on their families.

Rajasic people are rebellious, defiant and may be aggressive. They can often antagonize others. (Remember that bar fight?) But if you need an action-oriented person, dynamic in thought, intention and deed, a rajasic person might be your woman or man. Just be careful not to antagonize them.

The sages say the true point of life is to achieve God-Realization or enlightenment. The means is to transform tamas, balance rajas and develop sattva.

The process is incremental. When you achieve a sattvic state, even if only briefly, you enjoy balance, even if only momentarily. Step by step, moment by conscious moment, you can reach for enlightenment.

Roadmap to Peace

Once you understand how the gunas work, you can better understand and navigate your inner world, and work with whatever life is giving you.

When you apply knowledge of the gunas you put yourself on the path to harmony and happiness. You just need some serious self-reflection and a willingness to work on yourself.

Know that all effort adds up. Each little sattvic moment can turn you towards the achievement of the state Taoists call Wu We; where you align with the present and flow with life, rather than resisting it.

When you’re in a sattvic state you sway with the winds of change, rather than rigidly resisting until they break you. You can adjust your moods and behaviours whenever you’re heading towards extremes, or when either of the other two tendencies is too dominant. They also incline you towards, and ready you for, seeking. And what is the power of seeking if not the ability to aspire to and achieve the higher reaches of spiritual evolution, or God, if you prefer?

Certainly, you can give your power to your base instincts, bad habits and impulses. You can laze your life away or cut it short by living in a constant state of high tension until your heart can’t stand the stress.

But you can also resolve to make sattvic choices whenever you can and to remain constantly vigilant against the little devil sitting on your shoulder urging you on to self-defeating actions and attitudes that would drag you down.

The choice is yours. You always have the option of moving in the right direction. Use rajas to take you to sattva if you want to achieve your destiny of everlasting joy, Oneness and fulfilment.

But be aware the choice is not always easy, and it’s difficult to understand the effect of your choice. Still, when tamas or rajas dominate, you have little hope of reaching higher states. The more time you can spend in a sattvic state, the stronger your moral compass. Your character strengths improve, and life becomes harmonious.

Working with the Gunas

In their paper cited above, Kejriwal and Krishnan discuss how organizations can enhance transformational leadership by using the guna framework and by reinforcing the Vedic worldview:

• Design training programmes to develop sattva and reduce tamas.
• Build team-orientation and self-sacrifice for directing energies towards superordinate goals.
• Base organizational policies on a competency framework built around Sattva and a Vedic, orientation.

Meanwhile, as conscious individuals, we can work with the gunas by monitoring:

• how we spend our time
• what we consume
• how we act

There’s also evidence that practising yoga can make you more sattvic. A 2009 trial of the effect of yoga on gunas and self-esteem found yoga gave people higher self-esteem and made them more sattvic.

While few people can remain in a sattvic state for any length of time, you can also cultivate sattva through meditation and spending time in nature.

Sattvic Nourishment

Secondly, you can pay keen attention to the quality of the food, water and air you feed your body and the thoughts, feelings and the input from the five senses you feed your mind.

Watching blood and gore movies won’t help. Did you know studies prove watching violent TV is bad for your brain?

Ask yourself, am I feeding my body and mind with tamas, rajas or sattva?

Meanwhile, pay attention to the effect on your gunas of:

• the music you play
• the people you hang with
• the places you go
• the websites you spend time on
• your hobbies and passions

The principle is simple: the more time you spent in a guna, the more that guna will take root. Expose yourself to more sattva, and sattva will establish itself in your mind and heart.

Monitor to how you feel during and after eating a meal, watching a movie, texting, chatting with friends or reading a blog. Has it inspired, energized or soothed you, or has it left you feeling drained, annoyed, restless, anxious, or depressed?

Above all, consider your diet. Eating healthily is not just good for your physical state, it can propel you to higher states of consciousness.

Rajasic foods promote lethargy and ennui. They include:

• meat
• large quantities of dairy products
• fried foods
• stale and junk food

Tamasic foods excite passion, cravings, and desires They distract the mind and suppress noble thoughts. They include:

• spicy food
• hot foods
• stimulating food and drink
• unrefined sugars
• alcohol

A sattvic diet is:

• vegetarian
• includes loads of fresh fruits and vegetables
• natural
• whole
• relatively bland
• free from artificial colours, flavours or preservatives

Step by step

It’s almost impossible to go direct from tamas to sattva, but you can use rajas as a stepping stone.

For example, if you tend to be moody or depressed, you need to get your rajas flowing. Try raising your energy level through:

• exercise
• cold showers
• healthy eating (or even fasting)
• less TV
• hanging with active and optimistic people
• going to places you’ve never been

Seek harmony rather than excitement. Learn the value of subtler states like serenity, stillness and moderation. Then you find activities like meditation, contemplation and keeping a journal more appealing. Once you love doing them, these activities can help you become increasingly sattvic.

In yoga philosophy, the three gunas are the cosmic dancers. They are what bind the eternal, limitless soul to the physical form. As the philosophers explain it, the soul isn’t subject to birth and death, but the body is mortal and will inevitably die. If the soul is all that is permanent, and sattva is the path to the soul, work on the gunas is clearly the path to a better, clearer life.

Want to avoid unnecessary brawls? Work on your gunas.