The Gunas and Psycho-Spiritual Conditioning (EBI*)
(* EBI - Essential Background Information)
Getting There from Here
When we want to achieve a goal, or travel to a destination, the first thing required is an assessment of our starting point in relation to the goal or destination. The starting conditions inform us of what will be required to achieve that goal/destination, because we must always begin from where we are. But understanding “where we are” spiritually is the tricky part for those seeking spiritual emancipation. Considering that the goal of human life is spiritual emancipation we must first understand what that means, as well as what is required for us to be successful in our effort.
Spiritual emancipation means to become completely free from the influences of the material body and mind, and since the word “spiritual” is probably the most user-defined word in the English lexicon let’s unpack this sentence, beginning with the word “spiritual.”
The first thing to know is that we needn’t do anything to be spiritual or become spiritual, because we already are spiritual, as in spiritual energy.
And what exactly is spiritual energy? First and foremost Spiritual energy is conscious. Additionally, spiritual energy is personal, eternal, and blissful by nature.
Not feeling the bliss? That’s because we’re cut off from that spiritual awareness due to being covered by a material body and the conditioning of our past activities.[1]
As mentioned in an earlier post, there are 8,400,000 types of bodies that filter the consciousness of the spiritual being that animates them. The presence of the spiritual energy can be understood by observing transformations of the body: birth, growth, existence, production of offspring/byproducts, dwindling and death. Death, or the absence of life of the body, is due to the departure of the life force – the spiritual energy.
Material energy conversely, is temporary, without personality, unconscious, and therefore cannot experience bliss. Our bodies are made of material energies, as are our houses, furniture, etc. As much as we like to project personality onto inanimate things, as is done in children’s cartoons, they can never have such characteristics.
Spiritual emancipation therefore means becoming free from these conditioned influences and ways of thinking.
Material Energy and Its Influence on Human Consciousness
The material world is conducted under the various energies of the Lord, and the energies that concern us here are the gunas, introduced in the last post. Everything and every aspect of this material world influences our consciousness as we contact it. This influence is so complete that one translation of the word “gunas” is “ropes.” Just as a person tied with ropes can be completely controlled, a person conditioned by the gunas is as well.
I’ve explained the gunas in great detail in my book “Lessons in Spiritual Economics from the Bhagavad-gita - Understanding and Solving the Economic Problem" from which I borrow the following segment for this introduction:
In this material world the spirit soul is a traveler in a foreign environment. Traveling to foreign places in this day and age often requires immunizations against diseases to which a non-native born may be susceptible. The material energy is likewise infectious for the pure spiritual being. In fact, everything in this material world has an infectious nature that affects the soul. Simply by coming into contact with the material energy the jiva becomes infected by its qualities. This influence is known as the gunas, which can be translated as “ropes”. Imagine how a person bound with ropes can be helplessly pulled this way or that. Just as easily, a person’s consciousness is “pulled around” by these gunas, or material influences.
Lord Krishna explains the nature of the gunas to Arjuna in the fourteenth chapter of the Bhagavad-gita, but before doing so, makes him aware of the tremendous value of this knowledge. The Blessed Lord said to him: “I shall now declare to you this supreme wisdom, the best of all knowledge, knowing which all the sages have attained to supreme perfection. By becoming fixed in this knowledge, one can attain to the transcendental nature, which is like My own nature. Thus established, one is not born at the time of creation nor disturbed at the time of dissolution” [i.e., having achieved spiritual emancipation]. Just as a key that unlocks a prison cell is very important to the prisoner, all of us prisoners in this material world should similarly value this key of Vedic wisdom, for it opens the passages to spiritual freedom that were previously locked by our ignorance.
These gunas are described by Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita in this way:
Material nature consists of three qualities, or modes—goodness (sattva-guna), passion (rajo-guna) and ignorance (tamo-guna). When the eternal living entity comes in contact with nature he becomes conditioned by these modes.” The mode of goodness (sattva) is purer than the others, and it is therefore illuminating and gives understanding. It frees one from sinful reactions through the development of knowledge. By working in the mode of goodness one becomes spiritually uplifted, but also becomes conditioned to the concept of material happiness.
From the mode of passion (rajas) unlimited desires and longings are born. Due to this quality one becomes eager to engage in material activities, eager for the fruits, or results, of activities. Passion however conditions one to continually engage in fruitive activity, with the view of gain and increase. When there is an increase in the mode of passion, the symptoms of great attachment, uncontrollable desire, hankering, and intense endeavor develop. However, work done in the mode of passion eventually result in distress to one’s self and others.
The quality of ignorance (tamas) causes the delusion of the living beings. The result of contact with ignorance is foolish, violent, or wrong behavior, laziness and sleep. Actions performed in the mode of ignorance result in foolishness and misunderstanding. Ignorance binds the conditioned soul, and conditions him to working against his own best interests. When there is an increase in the mode of ignorance madness, illusion, inertia and darkness are manifested.
From the mode of goodness, understanding, knowledge and happiness develop; from the mode of passion, greed and grief develop; and from the mode of destruction, ignorance, foolishness, and illusion develop. From passion comes creation, everything is maintained by the quality of goodness, and the influence of ignorance brings decay, dissolution and destruction.”
Not accepting the spiritual nature of man and considering him as the body alone, modern social theory proposes that human beings develop their character through social conditioning. However, the Bhagavad-gita and Srimad Bhagavatam add significant dimensions to the understanding of human behavior by explaining the influence of the gunas on the understanding, knowledge and behavior of man. Srimad Bhagavatam (11.25.1-5) expands on the information available to us from the Gita regarding the nature or character that the living entity attains by association with the individual modes of nature:
Mind and sense control, tolerance, discrimination, sticking to one's prescribed duty, truthfulness, mercy, careful study of the past and future, satisfaction in any condition, generosity, renunciation of sense gratification, faith in the spiritual master, being embarrassed at improper action, charity, simplicity, humbleness and satisfaction within oneself and detachment from the material mind and of the senses from matter, are qualities of the mode of goodness.
Material desire, great endeavor, audacity, dissatisfaction even in gain, false pride, praying for material advancement, the distortion of the intelligence due to too much activity, the inability to disentangle the perceiving senses from material objects, an unsteady perplexity of the mind, considering oneself different and better than others, sense gratification, rash eagerness to fight, a fondness for hearing oneself praised, the tendency to ridicule others, advertising one's own prowess and justifying one's actions by one's strength are qualities of the mode of passion.
Intolerant anger, stinginess, speaking on the basis of one’s false pride and without scriptural authority, violent hatred, living as a parasite, hypocrisy, chronic lethargy, quarrel, lamentation, delusion, unhappiness, depression, false expectations, fear, laziness and sleeping too much, the failure and disappearance of an awareness of one’s higher (spiritual) self, and the inability to concentrate one’s attention, constitute the major qualities of the mode of ignorance.
All facets of both the material energy and human action are influenced by some combinations of the gunas. Sri Krishna explains that everyone living within the material world is influenced by the gunas, and in the last several chapters of the Gita He further explains their influence on faith, worship, penances, sacrifices, charity, austerities, foodstuffs, time of day and night, knowledge, action, understanding, determination, happiness, work or the performance of action, and the worker.
I explain the gunas in great detail in my Spiritual Economics book, and those wanting to to study this material more deeply can obtain the print book from Amazon here and the eBook here.
The gunas provide great insight into human thought and behavior, and from a sufficiently novel perspective to establish an entirely new field of human psychology. We’ll be getting into greater detail about the gunas and the four types of human beings they produce in the next post.
Rest assured, there is a better way to live.
[1] As previously explained I use the word “conditioned” exactly as commonly understood in modern psychology: “characterized by a predictable or consistent pattern of behavior or thought as a result of having earlier engaged in the same behavior or thought.”