CASIRJ Volume 5 Issue 7 [Year - 2014] ISSN 2319 – 9202

Guna-Theory and self management in the Bhagavad Gita

Sandhya Pruthi
MBA & M.A.(Sanskrit, Delhi University)
Address: H-1, New Gobind Pura,
Chander Nagar, Delhi - 110051
E-mail: sandhya_pruthi@yahoo.com

Shrimad Bhagavad-Gita is the greatest book of practical wisdom which tells the various
ways, means and approaches to live a fruitful life devoid of problems. It is the profound treatise
on the principles of management and human behavior. It provides not only the theory of
management but also the very detailed guideline for the practice of its principles for the peace
and bliss. Symbolically, the real kauravas which have to be recognized, fought and defeated by
Arjuna (the bound consciousness i.e. Jiva) in order to regain their lost territory i.e. eternal peace
and a feeling of immortality. The Bhagavad Gita is equipped with all concerned tools to lead a
person in worldly as well as transcendental state of his or her real nature i.e. nothing but ultimate
happiness itself.
To be a successful and efficient manager, we must understand the main lessons of Gita in
the management of Gunatraya by nature which influences and control human nature in its all
activities.
In fact, this very need of preaching‟s of the Bhagavad Gita arise to well manage these
gunas. When Arjuna was in the state of delusion due to the dominance of tamas and was covered
with blindness, ignorance, mental distress, confusion, anxiety and other negative elements that
developed his personality and forced him to act as an ignorant one, though claiming to be a wise
fellow. As stated by Lord Krishna in Bhagavad Gita. 2.12
''It is not that I have never before been incarnated; nor thou, nor these other royal ones! And
never in all furturity shall any one of us not exist!'' 1
The eighteen adhyayas have been arranged for destroying his blindness etc. and to make

tamas to sattva for the enlightenment and at the end balancing them to lead a stable life  is the
him free from all the negative inclinations. In short, managing the three gunas i.e. moving from

message of the Bhagavad Gita for each individual as stated:

"The purusha seated in matter, experiences the gunas born of matter". It gives us a truly
scientific explanation of the working of three gunas as to why the same spirit when expressed
through matter manifests itself differently from expression to expression.
As,when the same water is poured into various bottles to get the ice, each one would look
different from the other. It is not because the water is different but because of the shape and size
of each container. These are but the qualities of the container born out of glass material and when
the same water is looked through the container, the properties of the containers get super-

1
na tvevaham jatu nasam na tvam neme janadhipah !
na caiva na bhavishyamah sarve vayam atah param!! (Shrimad Bhagvadgita Verse 2. 12 )

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imposed upon the contents. Similarly, the one eternal principle comes to express in the various
matter equipments as different individuals but the elements that constitute matter are one and the
same everywhere due to 'the gunas in the state of in equilibrium in prakriti'.
The term guna indicates not actually the 'properties of the material‟ but the 'attitude' with
which the mind functions. The Psychological being in every one of us comes under the influence
of three different climatic conditions that prevalent in our bosom. These three are called the
Gunas: Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. These has been explained in the fourteenth chapter of the Gita
as born of prakriti, firmly bind the imperishable Atman (dehin) in the body. “O mighty armed
(Arjuna)! The gunas inherent in prakriti – sattva, rajas and tamas - imprison in the body the
imperishable dweller.”2
(a) Sattva Guna is defined as:-
"Among these, o sinless one, the sattva guna which is free from impurity, which causes
manifestation of the Atman and which is free from defects, binds (him) on account of attachment
to happiness and attachment to knowledge."3
(b) Rajas Guna is defined as:-

"Know that rajo guna, which gives rise to desires and attachment has the nature of pleasing (the
mind). It firmly binds the soul through its attachment to actions, o kaunteya".4
(c) Tamas Guna is defined as:-

"As for tamo guna, know that it is born of ignorance and that it infatuates all people. It firmly
binds (the soul) O Bharata on account of avoidance of duty, Idleness and sleep." 5
These three gunas function within each of us and them in him subjectively. Diagnosis is
generally accomplished through the observation of the symptoms manifest within ourselves. In
this chapter certain symptoms are enumerated therefore, each seeker of truth must know the art
of diagnosing and they indicate the preponderance of one or the other gunas in a given
individual. The careful study provides us with a secret capacity to manage all wrong impulses,
immoral tendencies, unethical urges and animal passions and keep ourselves safely balanced in
the righteous living, in self-control and in serene purity. Hence, these gunas can be used as the
step of the ladder.

We could see the quality of a sattva guna by an inspiring story of a man who made his
living, selling balloons at a fair. He had balloons of many different colors. Whenever business is
slow, he would release a helium-filled balloon into the air. When the children saw the balloon go
up, they all wanted one and come up to him, buy a balloon and his sales go up. All day, he
continued to release a balloon whenever the sales slowed down. One day, the balloon man felt
2
"Sattvam rajas tama iti gunah Prakriti sambhavha!
Nibadhananti maha- boha dehe dehinam avyayam!!" (Shrimad Bhagvadgita Verse 14.5)
3
"Tatra sattvam nirmalatvat prakasakam anamayam!
Sukhasangena badhnati jnana sangena canagha!! " (Shrimad Bhagvadgita Verse 14.6)
4
"rajo ragatmakam viddhi trshna sanga- samudh bavam!
Tan nibadhnati kaunteya karma sangena dehinam!! " (Shrimad Bhagvadgita Verse 14.7)
5
"Tamastvajnana-jam viddhi mohanam sarva-dehinam!
Pramadalasya-nidra bhistan nibadhnati bharata!! " (Shrimad Bhagvadgita Verse 14.8)

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someone tugging at his Jacket. He turned around and a little boy asked, "If you release a black
balloon, would that also fly?" Moved by the boy's concern, the man replied gently, "Son, it is not
the color of the balloon; it is what is inside that makes it go up."
Hence, it is the sattva guna which opens up the door of light for us. It makes our
perceptions positive. Here, the impact of tamas and sattva is clearly visible in the coordination
with rajas of course. Sattva instigates positive thinking and to a positive thinker, attitude can be a
stepping stone to success. But, to a negative thinker, it can be a stumbling-block. In positive
environment, a marginal performer's output goes up whereas, in a negative environment, a good
performer's output goes down.
Thus, the sattvika person has the signs of tolerance, realization of the Divine in every
being, sense of equality in his behavior. His mind is steady and ever faithful. Though sattva is
the most Divine mental attitude which generates the wave of positivity within us, however, it
also binds us by attachment to happiness and knowledge and limits our divine spiritual nature.
As when the mind is purified from all its agitation (Rajas) and the intellect is cleansed of its low
passions and criminal lusts (Tamas), no doubt, the personality becomes purified, experiencing a
greater share of inward peace and happiness. But even this can create bondage on the freedom of
the Absolute self like a golden chain, if sufficiently strong, binds us equally as any iron chain.
Goodness, though it gives us freedom from all vulgarities, it too can shackle us within its own
limitations and a person never wants to move out from their zone rather could think themselves
as the best and becomes the prey of arrogance most of the times.
Now, the diagnosis of Rajas, when A seeker who is striving to conquer his own mind
must know all the subtle inclinations of it by which again and again his mental thoughts run
amuck only to return and act as a saboteur in his own inner bosom. When there is an onslaught of
rajoguna influences in the bosom, man's mind comes to feel choked with a hundred painful
passions. Passions are the main symptoms of the working of rajoguna in the psychological field.
Passions express itself in many various urges, desires, emotions, and feeling. Yet all of them
could fall under two categories of desires and attachments.
Thus, in the Gita lord Krishna makes these two as the very source from which all
passions arise. 'Thirsty' could be the term use for 'Desire'. When an individual is thirsty, the
importance is only of water as it can only quench his thirst. So, Just as a thirsty man suffers for
water to satiate his pangs. So too, a human personality thirst for the satisfaction of any desire that
has come to burn him down. Once the desire is fulfilled, a sense of attachment comes as vicious
passion to smoother down all his peace and joy in his mind. So, the two (a) Desire-for the
acquisition of things and (b) the sense of clinging attachment to things already acquired-are the
volcanoes that constantly throw up their molten lava-contents which scorch the smiling fields of
life in our bosom and once and individual has come under the influence of rajas he expresses
innumerable desires and gets blind in his own attachments. Such a passionate person is crushed
under the weight and responsibility of his attachment to things that he already possesses-can
never keep quit, but must necessarily act on endlessly earning and spending, saving and
protecting. Anxious to have more, fearing to loose, he is whipped from action to action.
Restlessly rushing, chained in his actions. Hence, rajoguna also seemingly binds the infinite-self
to play the part of limited being, through and endless array of inexhaustible actions. Though the
self is not an agent (actor), rajas makes him act with the idea, "I am the doer", which is the cause
of ruin.
Tamas also helps to bind the Divine to the mortal flesh. Under the influence of tamas
man's intellectual capacities to discriminate right from wrong gets veiled and he starts acting as if
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under some hallucinations. Lord Krishna says that tamas in the human personality binds to the
lower nature by providing with endlessly misconceptions and miscomprehensions of the true
divine purpose of life and one lives in indolence, heedless of the higher purpose.
People become victims of moha (infatuation) because their knowledge is concealed by
ignorance and if the stubborn nature of the mind is not controlled, it becomes powerful obstacle
in leading a stable life. When tamas predominates the symptoms describe as follows:
“Tamas as the ruling guna produces darkness, sloth, neglect of duties and delusion."6
Hence, after indicating how a mind and intellect would react under the three distinct
influences. Lord Krishna wants us to understand that not only these gunas are effective while we
live in the present body and determine the face of our life, however will be effective even after
death.
One may think here that how one has to undergo the consequences of the qualities
dominant in the former birth even after death?
The embodied soul possesses three bodies i.e. sthula (Gross), Sukshma (subtle) and
Karana (causal).
When the quality us dominant, it becomes dominant in all the three simultaneously. The
gross body is the body made up of food, the subtle body is one made of desire of mind, and the
causal body is one made up of perception. These bodies lay one within the other. The outermost
is the gross body made up of food within lies the desire-body, the mind –body and within that
again is the causal body or the state of origin.
When gunas are at the state of domination, it not only dominates the outermost body
alone but dominates all the three bodies. Therefore when the gross body is cast-off, the other two
stick to the life-element. So, the particular guna‟s dominance at death still remains attached to
them. As a matter of fact, the qualities permeating the subtle and Karana bodies are even more
effective than those permeating the gross body. Therefore when death takes place, the gunas of
the subtle and the causal body drags the soul after them and the person arrives at the place
destined for him. Hence, this explains how and why the gunas at death remains dominant till
another body is secured and even after.
Knowing thus the power and product of these three gunas, we should save our self from
those that could degrade us and try to develop those that would elevate us.
Further lord explains the way to transcend the gunas through an answer to Arjuna.
“Remaining like one unconcerned, undisturbed by the three modes realizing that they
alone are operating throughout creation; not oscillating in mind but ever self-centered”.7
As we have seen, it is natural for sattva to produce light, rajas to produce inclination to
activity and tamas to produce delusion. The gunas are bound to produce these. If a thing arrives,
he does not hate it, and if it goes away, he does not wish it back, such a person is said to have
transcended the gunas. He has no desire to meddle in what he regards is just going on. He simply
looks on with the indifference, as a mere spectator. When the gunas are playing their role, he is
not particular to have only sattva playing its role before him and not tamas, he is neither pleased
to find a sattva inspired things nor angered to find a tamas-inspired thing before him. Whatever

6 "aprakaso pravrittis ca pramado moha eva ca !

Tamasy etani jayante vivrddhe kurunandana !!" (Shrimad Bhagvadgita Verse 14.13)
7 "Udasinavad asino gunair yo na vicalyate!
Guna vartanta ity eva yo vatisthati nengate!!" (Shrimad Bhagvadgita Verse 14.23)

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the nature of the happened he takes it as the natural sport of the qualities and does not get upset
by associating himself with their play. He neither welcomes the happiness giving sattva nor hates
the distress giving rajas, he is the same whether they come before him or not, he does not let
himself be disturbed by them. Whether honored or dishonored, whether he has to stay with a
friend or fight with an enemy-he maintains his balance of mind.
Therefore it is evident that those who have gone beyond the gunas are no more under the
tragedies of the subtle and casual bodies.
“Uninfluenced by respect or insult; treating friend and enemy alike; abandoning all
delusions of personal doer ship – he it is who has transcended all triple qualities”.8
At the end lord Krishna tells Arjuna that one serves me with a single minded devotion
goes beyond these three gunas to attain Brahma-hood i.e. his or her pure state of consciousness
he at that state regards himself as one with the Brahma and not different.
The duty oriented service alone can lead one to purify internal organ and understand the nature
of the effects of gunas and all pervasiveness of ultimate cause i.e. nothing but one‟s own
personality.
For as long as the pot exists, the pot space is seen distinctly separate from the space
around, once the pot is broken; its space itself becomes unbounded.
Similarly once life's false identification with body I, mind and intellect are broken down,
in short when the ego is vanished the desire for enjoying the fruit is gone the awareness of the
Infinitude rises up to flood the bosom with the eternal dharma and the unfailing Bliss and when a
state of undisturbed contentedness is attained one must practice worship of God in order to make
that state permanent, otherwise the mind being fickle can instigate short lived attitude of
detachment and the same pleasure loving attitude may rise up again. As said:
"I am making my submission to that First Man- the supreme soul, the supreme lord from whom
the development of the world has been proceeding since ancient times", may he keep me forever
in that imperishable spot".9
In making submission one loses egoism. Giving oneself wholly to God can only occur as
a result of submission to God. Here, one is advised to know God and to serve him with the sense
of (organic) wholeness. Actually Man regards himself as one apart and the rest of the world as
different from himself. „I am someone apart, and this is other than me‟. This feeling of un-
wholeness or brokenness is always in man's mind and it is the same feeling that increases
misconduct. That is the reason why the Bhagavad-Gita states-
„Who knows God with the sense of wholeness knows the whole and after knowing the
whole serves God with the sense of wholeness. To know God as a whole and to serve him as a
whole‟ is the essence here.10
This is the most secret piece of knowledge discussed here. Serving and knowing as a
whole could be understood by this story:
There lived a Master and his two disciples. Their eagerness to serve often led them into
quarrel. To settle this quarrel, the Master told them that one part of his body belonged to one
8
"manopamanayos tulyas tulyo mitraripaksayon!
Sarvarambha parityagi gunatitah saucyate !!" (Shrimad Bhagvadgita Verse 14.25)
9
"tatah padam tat parimargitavyam yasmin gata na nivartanti bhuyah!
tam eva chadyam purusham prapadhyte yatah pravrittih prasrita purani!!" (Shrimad Bhagvadgita Verse 15.4)
10
"Yo mam evam asammudho janati purushottamam!
Sa sarvavid bhajati mam sarvabhavena bharata!!" (Shrimad Bhagvadgita Verse 15.19)

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disciple and the other part to the other disciple. Each was to serve his own allotted portion. One
day the Master was lying at ease with his left leg placed on the right leg.
Suddenly the disciple serving the right leg got angry and began to beat the left leg,
saying, "Who are you to lie on the limb that I am serving? The Master got annoyed at this foolish
devotion and said "My boy! You are serving me as a piece detached; you have to serve me as a
whole. As the right leg is mine, so is the left leg. Although that leg is entrusted to another's
service, still that is also I myself. You stuck the other leg, yet the pain had to be suffered by me
and none else. Your service will be fruitful only if you serve me as whole, however if you serve
me as a piece detached, it will be nothing but disservice to me.
People in this world are serving humanity with the sense of un-wholeness i.e. with the
sense of isolated entities. Whereas, we must keep in our mind that nothing exists in isolation
except that reality. Whatever is here is an expression of that reality, it is God himself and nothing
else.
Worship of the whole may be impossible at one time. The worshipper may serve some
small portions of the world form but, whatever portion is to be served should be with an
understanding that it is pattern of the whole and not different from that. The service of that
particular portion is to be understood as the service of that whole.
Hence, such a clear message it imparts that no one can get a glimpse of unity while living
in the midst of the diversity. The message of the Gita is to create a proper frame of mind which
will enable an individual to grow to the full stature of his height. Nothing exists without the three
gunas as the eighteenth chapter explains three kinds of knowledge, action, agent, intelligence,
and happiness.
Whatever things are there on the earth, in the sky or in heaven are educed with the three
natural gunas. However, with duty oriented mind if an individual leads his or her life with state
of detachment can achieve perfection. Hence the crux of this analysis is to purify mind and be
duty oriented.
The Gita should be looked upon as a practical guide and as a source of inspiration in
achieving wisdom, going beyond the triads and achieving equanimity.
Keeping it in mind one should make an action plan of moving towards the success.

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