The Three Gunas: How Nature Behaves

Prakriti and the three gunas

We must pause for a moment on the three gunas, for an understanding of them is necessary for any clear conception of the working of nature: Prakriti.

First, what “they” are not. The gunas are not effects, but inherent qualities. They are not matter. The creation is not made of three basic “substances” or materials that are the gunas. Nor are they mere qualities or characteristics inherent in the basic “material” of creation. Rather, they are modes of manifestation within the basic energy/vibration of the creation, which at all times is Consciousness.

They are really aspects of the dream of the Cosmic Dreamer in the sense that they are three modes of the apparent “behavior” of the Cosmic Energy, the Cosmic Vibration, of which creation is formed. Tamas, rajas and sattwa are not things or superficial appearances: they are three modes of energy behavior which the basic energy of the creation can take on temporarily–but which itself never is fundamentally or permanently behaving in that manner or quality.

The nature of the gunas

With that in mind we can now consider what “they” are. Everything in the universe is vibrating, magnetic energy that interacts in and upon itself. When the energy of something within creation is heavy, unyielding and unresponsive–basically resistant to any change whatsoever, even if it is eventually forced into change–it is tamasic. If it is always moving, always changing, alway in flux and agitation it is rajasic. If it is to a degree fluidic yet coherent and stable and capable of many variations, yet never unstable or unsure, it is sattwic.

Tamas and rajas cannot be changed, except perhaps to some limited degree or extent. Sattwa is stable yet responsive to outer influence of a sufficient degree and is therefore malleable but not unstable or uncontrollable as rajas. Sattwa alone responds. Tamas and rajas never vary and never fundamentally change and therefore never respond in any significant degree to outside influence or pressure.

Conscious Energy

The conscious energy of the creation can take on these three modes of behavior while remaining absolutely unchanged in its eternal nature. This is possible because the creation is a dream, a thought, a wave in the Cosmic Mind. It is a very real Illusion, the Dreamer alone being Real. It is easier for a yogi to grasp this since he is used to experiencing his subtle energy makeup which to some extent is an inner reflection of the creation outside him.

These gunas are named: Tamas, Rajas and Sattwa.

• Tamas–often translated darkness or foulness, the effect of tamasic predominance being taken as the guna itself–is resistance, stability, what is called in science the inertia of matter. All matter is fundamentally and always resistant; it resists. Its capacity for taking form is due to this constituent.
• Rajas is motion, the capacity of every particle to change its place, and the necessity of so changing it unless prevented; in scientific phrase this is motion, inherent in matter.
• Sattwa is rhythm, the limiting of movement to an equal distance in an equal time on each side of a fixed point, the power and necessity of what is, in scientific phrase, vibration. Hence every particle of matter has resistance, motion, and rhythm.

When the equilibrium of the three is disturbed by the breath of Ishwara, these three gunas at once manifest: tamas appearing as inertia, resistances, rajas throwing every particle of the resistant mass into active movement, thus producing what is called chaos; and sattwa imposing rhythm on the movement of each particle, each thus becoming a vibrating, i.e. a regularly moving, particle capable of entering into relations with the surrounding particles.

All the qualities found in matter arise from the interaction of these three gunas, their endless permutations and combinations producing the endless variety of attributes found in the universe. The predominance of tamas in a body made up of countless particles gives rigidity, immovability, such as is seen in stones and other things that do not move of themselves. The predominance of rajas in a body gives unregulated hasty movements, restlessness, excess of activity. The predominance of sattwa gives harmony, controlled rhythmical movements, order, beauty.

But in the most immovable stone, the minute particles are in a state of unceasing vibration, from the presence of rajas and sattwa; in the most restless animal there is stability of material and vibration of particles from the presence of tamas and sattwa; and in the most harmonious and controlled man there is stability of material and movement from the presence of tamas and rajas.

As the triple nature of Ishwara, Sat-Chit-Ananda, was symbolically represented by a triangle pointing upwards, like a flame, so is the triple nature of mulaprakriti symbolized as a triangle, but now it points downwards, like a drop of water.

From these two triangles is formed the symbol of Ishwara and His universe, often seen in temples, the two interlaced, and a point in the center, the symbol of the One, the whole giving the Great Septenary, the Supreme Brahman and the Universe.

Thus we have before us the second member of the Duality which, as we saw above in the Manu Smriti, is the cause of all things.