The Sanskrit term “guna” can be translated in English as “fundamental quality” or “essential tendency”. All objects and beings of the phenomenal world are structured through the dynamic interplay of the three gunas. These are: sattva guna, rajas guna and tamas guna. These three gunas, which are essential, intrinsic characteristics of the Cosmic Illusion, in Sanskrit “Maya“, depend on the Supreme Absolute or, in other words, on God, in Sanskrit Brahman, whose reality is “covered”, or “veiled”, so to speak, by these three gunas, especially for the human beings who have not yet attained the state of Ultimate Spiritual Liberation.
If the gunas are in a state of perfect balance, then no phenomenon takes place, nor is there manifestation, and neither does creation arise. The moment the equilibrium of the three gunas is altered, God’s Divine Creation arises and manifests.
At the level of human consciousness, sattva guna corresponds, for example, to a state of euphoric peace, poise, tranquility, upliftment and serenity. Rajas guna takes the form of activity, passion and permanent dynamism, while tamas guna corresponds to laziness, lack of interest, skepticism, indifference, apathy and stupidity.
The character and predispositions of human beings directly depend on the essential characteristic, in Sanskrit guna, which is predominant at a given moment in the Microcosm of that being. The spiritual seeker must therefore strive unceasingly, until the moment of final success, to overcome one by one all the tamasic tendencies with the help of rajas guna, and then master rajas guna by energizing and amplifying the sattvic aspects in his being. In so doing the aspirant will finally triumph and will even transcend sattva guna, thus revealing Atman, his Immortal Supreme Self.
Within the esoteric tradition that exists in India, we find the concept designated by the Sanskrit term gunattita. In English translation this term means the transcending of all essential qualities or tendencies, guna. This state designates the condition of total spiritual freedom of the yogi’s consciousness from the conditionings of Prakriti, or in other words from the conditionings of the Essential Manifesting Nature. As it is also shown in the famous treatise Bhagavat Gita, such a yogi succeeds in being totally detached from the manifestations of the three gunas and remains unaffected, remains always the same, both in the states of pure, refined pleasure and in the states of pain, such a yogi remains always the same in the state of wealth and in the state of poverty, both in honour and when facing dishonour.
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