Sunday, September 24, 2006
WHY PEOPLE BEHAVE THE WAY THEY DO?
Each Human Being Is A Peculiar Combination, An Individual
Churchill, at the peak of Cold War described USSR as ‘a riddle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma.’ The same aptly and truly describes a human being too.
Each human being is a peculiar condensation of energies. Each is an individual; another like him does not exist. The reason for this individuality can be understood by delving into some simple maths. For six variables, the five mahabhoots and the sixth, consciousness, the possible permutations are 720. A human being is, however, considered to be an amalgam of 35 ideas. If we consider the possible permutation-combination of 35-ideas, the possibilities are of a magnitude of 1040 (please read this as 10 raised to the power 40).
Human race is only of an order of 109 !!
The Mystery Deepens
All of us have been awfully miserable sometime or the other, unable to comprehend the behaviour of people. Today hopefully this question will be answered.
We now come to the last and most dynamic component of our psychic structure. This is called ‘The Department of Guna’. The importance of understanding the gunas is emphasized by Lord Krishna Himself, ‘By becoming fixed in this knowledge one can attain to the transcendental nature like My own. Thus established [in the knowledge of gunas], one is not born at the time of creation nor disturbed at the time of dissolution.’
Gunas are not peculiar to human beings alone, but the entire creation is pervaded by gunas. The creation is thus also referred as tri-gunamayi maya. Only the Divine is referred as the Nirguna – Nirakaara, i.e. without attributes and without form. If it has form, it will have the three attributes. Gita Chapter XIV is the most comprehensive commentary on the gunas.
There are three gunas – Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. It can be said that prakriti or Nature, is woven in three threads, each one representing a guna. The totality of the gunas remains constant, in harmony with the principle of conservation of energy. Prakriti, thus pervaded by the three strands of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas, can be compared to a girl’s braid in which we may alter the number of hair strands in each partition, yet the total size of the braid remains constant.
Sattva implies goodness, Rajas is passion, while Tamas is ignorance. The mode of goodness is illuminating, and frees one from all sinful reactions. Those established in Sattva become conditioned by a sense of happiness and wisdom.
Rajas, the mode of passion, is born of unlimited desires and longings. A person in this mode is thus bound to fruitive action. Such a person will be forever engaged in activity to fulfill one desire or the other. He would hanker for sense gratification and material enjoyment. A person thus enchained by rajas will never find fulfillment through material desires, and will be reborn again on this earth.
The third guna, Tamas, implies darkness and ignorance and results in modes of madness, indolence, inertia and illusion.
The three gunas are dynamic and are always competing for supremacy. When sattva increases the other two are correspondingly reduced and likewise for the others. A state of equilibrium is, however, always maintained.
Each person has his peculiar and individualistic secret combination of the three gunas, a carry forward of the karmas from the past. We normally operate in an auto-mode, being not aware about the dynamics. This is the sum and substance of Arjuna’s question to the Lord, ‘What impels us to sinful acts against our own will, as if by some higher force?’ [Chapter III – 36]. The Lord replies, ‘ Lust and anger born from Rajo-guna …….’
What does one do to transcend the tri-guna to obtain to a state of Nirguna? The first step is to become aware of this dynamics and know that it is one of the three modes that is active. One should not feel guilty just because one lost his temper. Instead, know it to be Rajas and be just an observer. Leave the gunas to operate as they will, and instead devote yourself to bhakti, says the Lord. If you are not inclined towards bhakti due to your individuality of gunas-combination, but are intellectually inclined to follow the Gyana Marg then know that Vairaagya is the way [XV –3]. If you are Karma-predominant then consciously move towards the higher guna, i.e. give up tamasic for rajasic and rajasic for sattvic.
Earlier you were judgmental about the other person’s act being right or wrong and were miserable asking yourself the question, ‘How could he do like that?’ Hereafter when you view another person’s act in light of predominance of a particular guna your misery will be gone. Now your response can be, ‘Well, I know! He is operating in Tamas (or Rajas)’. You may even thank God for revealing the nature, nay character, of the other person to you. You can now modulate your future response accordingly.
You know now that trying to change the behaviour of others is an exercise in futility. Even others are incapable of changing themselves because they do not know what to change. Rest in peace with your own knowledge, that it is just the gunas operating within their own nature [guna hi gunon mein barat rahey hain).
[It is strongly recommended that you read Chapter XIV –22 to 27 NOW.]
Some More on Individuality
Each of the 35-ideas spoken at the beginning have their own characteristics of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas; for 105-ideas (35x3), the possible combinations will be in the range of 10200!!
You will recall that human race is only of an order of 109 !!
Such is the magnitude when we consider only the qualitative aspects. If for a moment we consider marginal variations in the quantitative aspects of three gunas the possible combinations will tend to infinity.
Hence the concept of individuality. We are individuals. Another one like you does not exist!!!
This is your moment of liberation from all misery.
Aum, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti
*******************************
Churchill, at the peak of Cold War described USSR as ‘a riddle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma.’ The same aptly and truly describes a human being too.
Each human being is a peculiar condensation of energies. Each is an individual; another like him does not exist. The reason for this individuality can be understood by delving into some simple maths. For six variables, the five mahabhoots and the sixth, consciousness, the possible permutations are 720. A human being is, however, considered to be an amalgam of 35 ideas. If we consider the possible permutation-combination of 35-ideas, the possibilities are of a magnitude of 1040 (please read this as 10 raised to the power 40).
Human race is only of an order of 109 !!
The Mystery Deepens
All of us have been awfully miserable sometime or the other, unable to comprehend the behaviour of people. Today hopefully this question will be answered.
We now come to the last and most dynamic component of our psychic structure. This is called ‘The Department of Guna’. The importance of understanding the gunas is emphasized by Lord Krishna Himself, ‘By becoming fixed in this knowledge one can attain to the transcendental nature like My own. Thus established [in the knowledge of gunas], one is not born at the time of creation nor disturbed at the time of dissolution.’
Gunas are not peculiar to human beings alone, but the entire creation is pervaded by gunas. The creation is thus also referred as tri-gunamayi maya. Only the Divine is referred as the Nirguna – Nirakaara, i.e. without attributes and without form. If it has form, it will have the three attributes. Gita Chapter XIV is the most comprehensive commentary on the gunas.
There are three gunas – Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. It can be said that prakriti or Nature, is woven in three threads, each one representing a guna. The totality of the gunas remains constant, in harmony with the principle of conservation of energy. Prakriti, thus pervaded by the three strands of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas, can be compared to a girl’s braid in which we may alter the number of hair strands in each partition, yet the total size of the braid remains constant.
Sattva implies goodness, Rajas is passion, while Tamas is ignorance. The mode of goodness is illuminating, and frees one from all sinful reactions. Those established in Sattva become conditioned by a sense of happiness and wisdom.
Rajas, the mode of passion, is born of unlimited desires and longings. A person in this mode is thus bound to fruitive action. Such a person will be forever engaged in activity to fulfill one desire or the other. He would hanker for sense gratification and material enjoyment. A person thus enchained by rajas will never find fulfillment through material desires, and will be reborn again on this earth.
The third guna, Tamas, implies darkness and ignorance and results in modes of madness, indolence, inertia and illusion.
The three gunas are dynamic and are always competing for supremacy. When sattva increases the other two are correspondingly reduced and likewise for the others. A state of equilibrium is, however, always maintained.
Each person has his peculiar and individualistic secret combination of the three gunas, a carry forward of the karmas from the past. We normally operate in an auto-mode, being not aware about the dynamics. This is the sum and substance of Arjuna’s question to the Lord, ‘What impels us to sinful acts against our own will, as if by some higher force?’ [Chapter III – 36]. The Lord replies, ‘ Lust and anger born from Rajo-guna …….’
What does one do to transcend the tri-guna to obtain to a state of Nirguna? The first step is to become aware of this dynamics and know that it is one of the three modes that is active. One should not feel guilty just because one lost his temper. Instead, know it to be Rajas and be just an observer. Leave the gunas to operate as they will, and instead devote yourself to bhakti, says the Lord. If you are not inclined towards bhakti due to your individuality of gunas-combination, but are intellectually inclined to follow the Gyana Marg then know that Vairaagya is the way [XV –3]. If you are Karma-predominant then consciously move towards the higher guna, i.e. give up tamasic for rajasic and rajasic for sattvic.
Earlier you were judgmental about the other person’s act being right or wrong and were miserable asking yourself the question, ‘How could he do like that?’ Hereafter when you view another person’s act in light of predominance of a particular guna your misery will be gone. Now your response can be, ‘Well, I know! He is operating in Tamas (or Rajas)’. You may even thank God for revealing the nature, nay character, of the other person to you. You can now modulate your future response accordingly.
You know now that trying to change the behaviour of others is an exercise in futility. Even others are incapable of changing themselves because they do not know what to change. Rest in peace with your own knowledge, that it is just the gunas operating within their own nature [guna hi gunon mein barat rahey hain).
[It is strongly recommended that you read Chapter XIV –22 to 27 NOW.]
Some More on Individuality
Each of the 35-ideas spoken at the beginning have their own characteristics of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas; for 105-ideas (35x3), the possible combinations will be in the range of 10200!!
You will recall that human race is only of an order of 109 !!
Such is the magnitude when we consider only the qualitative aspects. If for a moment we consider marginal variations in the quantitative aspects of three gunas the possible combinations will tend to infinity.
Hence the concept of individuality. We are individuals. Another one like you does not exist!!!
This is your moment of liberation from all misery.
Aum, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti
*******************************
# posted by Abhay Gupta @ 8:33 AM 
