The Vaidic religion, we have a concept of 3 Gunas or to call them in English QUALITIES. But that word does not justify or clarify exact meaning of what is meant by GUNA. When we talk about sugar being sweet, we say that it is the quality of sugar. Same with salt being salty. Ice is cold and so on. That quality is not what we refer to when we call GUNA in Vaidic religion. When we do any action, that is motivated by one of the 2 Gunas. So, we have 3 Gunas namely SATWIC , RAJASIC and TAMASIC .To explain the 3 Gunas, we can say that the Satwic Guna is PURE or Goodness of heart or selfless action. Satwic Guna when predominant, we do GOOD actions mostly without expecting any reward , but not always. The Rajasic is ACTIVATING , we do action with some expectation and we have Rajasic Guna guiding our action. And the last one Tamasic Gina is laziness or inactivity or even bad activity.
How did this come in existence? In our religion there is no beginning or end of the Universe and there are more than one universe. So at the end of the universe everything goes in to Singularity. All the living things go dormant - but in one singularity. The 3 Gunas and everything else -5 Mahabhutas are all in dormant status and 3 Gunas are in balance. Then when a new universe is to start or the universe starts when there is a DISTURBANCE or what we call GUNASHOBINI . The imbalance leads to origin of the universe. The imbalance leads to rise of self awareness or AHANKAR and then the 5 great elements or Panchamahabhutas.
We all have 3 Gunas and the preponderance of one of them makes us what we are and what action we take. We have 4 classes or VARNA. The idea behind was that whatever Guna is prominent, that determines out life our likes and dislikes and our occupation. But then it the society made it on which family we are born and not on our own ATRIBUTES. The dominance of Satwic Guna and some Rajasic and very little Tamasic would lead to actions like teaching , priest, doctors etc or so called Brahmin. The dominance of Rajasic and some Satwic and little Tamasic would lead to Warriors or Kshatriya . The dominance of Rajasic and Tamasic and little of Satwic would lead to is called Vaishya or businessman. Lastly dominance of Tamasic and very little of Satwic and Rajasic leads to Shudra.
We all do actions and we cannot stop doing action and that leads to impression and or SAUNSKAR and that leads to desire and then again action . This cycle leads to rebirth. We all have actions that we do motivated by one of the 3 Gunas and we all are Satiwic or Rajasic or Tamasic at one or different times . When we party and indulge, we are Tamasic . When we help others or donate money we are Satwic and some Rajasic and so on. The same action may be due to different Gunas. Suppose one does Prayer to get something - it could be due to any of the 3 Gunas . If the reason for the prayer is to be one with God and have His love , then that is Satwic prayer , If the aim of the prayer is to Get something - new Job -money - house or car etc. -then then the Prayer is Rajasic and if the aim of the prayer is to have ill fate come to someone - disease - loss of life or money etc. then the prayer is Tamasic So now you know that we can be Brahman- Kshatriya - Vaishya or Shudra at different times. More on Guna next time.
