What’s the go with the gunas?
First, we suffer
Most of the great contemplative traditions start from the same place: we all suffer. In Buddhism, it’s the First Noble Truth. Christian mystics wrote about the “dark night of the soul”. The Stoics, Taoists and Sufis all deal with suffering.
In Yoga we call suffering duhkha, which means trouble, unease or (here’s a mouthful) unsatisfactoriness.
Thankfully, every one of these traditions explore ways we can work with, and through, suffering.
“Becoming aware of duhkha is the first step toward freeing ourselves from it.”
— TKV Desikachar
One framework in yoga that deals with duhkha, or suffering, and finding balance, is called the gunas.
The origins of the gunas
There were many examples and references to the gunas in the ancient yogic texts, including the Upanishads, some dating back more than 2,500 years. Samkhya, which was a dualistic philosophy that split all of existence into two realities, described the gunas in the classical text called the Samkhya Karika. Later, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (a foundation text of classical yoga) built on the framework of the gunas. Throughout the Bhagavad Gita, another great yogic text, the gunas were referenced in multiple chapters.
The duality of purusha and prakriti
Before we can deal with the gunas, we first have to understand the Samkhya philosophy that divided reality into two parts:
Purusha: pure awareness, the eternal, unchanging consciousness or witness.
Prakriti: the manifestation of all physical, mental and psychological things that can change, including your experience in your body, your environment, your thoughts and your emotions.
If purusha is the seer, then prakriti is everything seen.
(Not to get too technical here, but the concept of dualism stands in contrast to non-dualism, which is where there is no separation between the observer and the observed. But let’s get into that philosophical debate another time.)
Coming back to prakriti, ‘matter’ is made of three dynamic, interwoven qualities of nature:
Sattva: pure, tranquil, illuminating
Rajas: energy, passion, restlessness, attachment
Tamas: stability, heaviness, inertia.
The gunas as woven threads
So far we have worked through quite a few philosophical concepts and terms to help us understand the three gunas. Let’s go deeper to understand how we can understand the gunas.
The idea of everything being woven, like threads, actually comes from the meaning of the word guna, which can be translated as ‘strand’ or ‘fibre’.
Those three strands of the gunas weave together like a rope. With prakriti (everything in the material world) we have three strands that interweave. Sometimes those threads, or gunas, are described as being different colours.
I like to think of the gunas as three coloured threads that mix together to create a beautiful patterned textile. The threads create a fabric of the universe, and our experience of it.
Sattva: white, the thread of harmony
Rajas: red, the thread of activity
Tamas: black: the thread of inertia.
More about the three gunas (or trigunas)
“For yoga practitioners, awareness of the gunas tells us whether we are genuinely moving forward in life (sattva), running in place (rajas), or losing our way (tamas).”
— Rolf Sovik, Yoga International
The three or ‘tri’ gunas all have their own characteristics. These may be experienced as:
Sattva: clarity and balance. This is that sparkly feeling after a wonderful yoga practice, or when you lose all sense of time if you have found yourself in a creative flow. You feel clear, calm and connected.
Rajas: movement and drive. Rajas gets us off the couch and makes change happen. Too much of it becomes restlessness, anxiety and agitation.
Tamas: stability and rest. Tamas grounds us and helps us sleep and recover. Too much of it becomes heaviness, fog and inertia.
The gunas are always shifting. They are dynamic. One may be dominant while the others may be subordinate or suppressed.
For example, rajas never stays still. It either settles into sattva or, more often, burns out and crashes into tamas. That can happen during the day with our natural daily cycles, or when you are dealing with internal or external triggers.
Something to be mindful of, particularly with modern interpretations of the gunas, is that they aren’t feelings that pass through you. Your mind, your senses and the physical world are all made of the gunas, in an ever-shifting mix. The only thing that isn’t made of the gunas is the awareness, or purusha, that notices them.
Why the gunas are relevant to us now
The liberating thing about understanding the gunas is that when you realise your racing thoughts or heavy moods belong to prakriti, you can acknowledge that they aren’t the real you. The real you is the knower, or purusha.
The gunas give us a simple way to read what’s happening and respond wisely:
Too much rajas? More stimulation won’t help. Instead, we can choose to take a walk in nature, keep regular sleep habits, put down our phone, or eat simple, nourishing foods that aren’t too spicy, salty or stimulating. On the mat, we can slow things down with a gentle or restorative practice, practicing calming breath work that incorporate longer exhales.
Too much tamas? To shift lethargy, we can get moving, get out into the sun, connect with loved ones, or choose fresh, light, freshly cooked foods over heavy, processed foods, and avoid overeating. On the mat, a more dynamic vinyasa flow or strong standing poses held with steady effort can build heat and energy. Energising breath practices help too, like ujjayi with an emphasis on the inhale, or kapalabhati (skull-shining breath) if that’s part of your existing practice.
Ayurveda has a simple rule for working with the gunas: like increases like, and opposites balance. Whatever quality you’re experiencing, doing more of that same quality will amplify it, while bringing in the opposite quality helps restore balance.
So if you’re already wired and restless (rajas), then a strong coffee will add more rajas. If you’re feeling heavy and sluggish (tamas), then a big meal will add more tamas. When you’re feeling wired, slowing down can bring the steadier qualities you’re lacking. When you’re feeling sluggish, movement, sunlight and fresh air bring in the activating qualities you need.
“One way to describe resilience is the ability to move efficiently between guna states as appropriate to the situation.”
— Marlysa Sullivan
None of the gunas are bad. We need all three. Sattva is the quality we cultivate because it gives us the clarity to see what’s going on. But even sattva is part of prakriti. The deeper aim is to rest in the awareness that can observe or watch all three.
The gold in the gunas
The gunas can help us adopt a less judgemental, controlling view of our experiences.
Here’s a simple practice. Next time you feel hyped up and wired, recognise that you’re experiencing ‘rajas’, rather than attaching to a story that says, “I’m anxious.”
When you feel flat, notice the tamasic qualities, rather than using a judgemental statement of “I’m being lazy”.
The next time you feel out of balance, or just off, ask yourself, “Which guna is running the show right now?”
Gunas remind us that we can let go of control to find more clarity. The gunas constantly rise and fall, because that’s nature. When we view our experience through the lens of the gunas, we can find freedom from suffering. We don’t focus on controlling the gunas but rather we can see them for what they are: an ever-shifting play of nature, where no state lasts forever.
That’s the gold in the gunas.