The Spirit Of Spirituality: Behavior patterns and their consequences

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Behavior patterns and their consequences

Most of us experience moods and behaviors and wonder why we behave in a particular way. Of course, we get the same questions when we see others’ behavior in a particular manner and wonder why.

Each of our moods and related behavior at any point is determined by three factors or components of behavior:

Tamas
Rajas
Sattva

Let us try to understand each of these in detail:

Tamas

This refers to laziness, sloth, inactivity, and a desire to do nothing. How often do we say, “Gosh, I don’t feel like doing anything”, “Let me not do this today. Let me just relax”. At this phase, within us, there is a predominance of Tamas. We are just feeling lazy and do not wish to do any activity.

Is tamas bad? Not really. It depends on when we are tamasic. At night when we want to sleep, we better be tamasic. However, we do not want to be tamasic when we are supposed to be doing something important. We do not want to be tamasic when we want to study for an exam.

However the next step of this phase of laziness or sloth is a feeling of general apathy to anything, a lack of interest in anything, a general feeling of boredom. As this progresses, it is a case of depression, where one does not want anything with this world and in the final stage, it can lead to suicide since the tamasic person does not see anything of relevance in the world.

So, while tamas is good at the right time (sleeping), it can be bad at other times (work) and can be disastrous if it continues. At the same time it is important to note that there is no gradual progression to disaster. It is almost like a exponential progression. A person could be mildly tamasic one day and could rapidly start sinking into the advanced symptoms caused by tamas and before long a tamasic person will end up injuring himself or herself.

Rajas

This refers to a tendency to always do something, the need to be always engaged in something or other. Have we not seen people start doing something shake their head, get nervous that something is not ok, rush to do something else? We have seen people continually shaking their leg or keep playing with a pen or anything they get in their hands. These are the people who can never be still.

While it may seem that the continual activity is a good thing, uncontrolled activity may have its own consequences. This need to always do something could possibly lead to the attention deficit syndrome, where a person cannot focus on any activity. These are the type of people who are almost on a “short fuse”, almost impossible to predict. It is not known when they will blow up because of irritation at not doing something. They are almost like live bombs waiting to explode. As this behavior progresses, it leads to the tendency to hurt others just as an activity or in advanced states kill others just for the fun of it. So, while tamas leads a person inward to destruction, rajas leads a person to outward destruction.

So, is rajas bad? Not at all. When one has work to do, there has to be rajas. When one is participating in a game or sport, rajas is critical. However in excess, it can lead to the issues mentioned above. Again, the consequences of rajas do not come about gradually. It is a vicious cycle, which feeds itself to destruction.

Sattva

This refers to the state of happiness, fulfillment, peace, a sense of feeling some accomplishment. Does it not happen to us many times, when anything we do, we succeed? We seem to be in some high state where are doing no mistakes. At this state, our sattva is at a high level. Sattva is that state where our intellect is in control and we are able to focus exclusively on any activity and we seem to come out fully successful.

Unlike rajas and tamas, which had a negative implication in excess, sattva as a quality has no negative implications. More of sattva can never be bad. A little bit of sattva feeds on itself and starts a positive enrichment process till a point is reached where sattva predominates.

Way to enrich our lives

Knowing that all three factors of behavior are important, we need the ability to monitor our rajas and tamas and ensure that they are in control and never exceed the limits, which lead to the disasters mentioned above. At the same time, we need the ability to continually keep growing the sattva quality.

The above looks nice to read and we nod our heads. But in practice what can we do? It is obvious that all of us are born with a set of traits depending on our previous life’s actions and desires. If in this birth, we are always lazy, indolent, look to just sleeping, this tendency continues in next birth where we will be born in an environment which promotes sloth and laziness. Similar is the case for rajasic and satvic tendencies. Without the ability of a strong intellect, the tendencies with which we were born will only continue. Only a strong intellect can put a check on the innate tendencies and help grow the sattva through a realization that, the past tendencies are a result of utter ignorance and the only need is to gain knowledge of the Self. The knowledge of the Self can only come in a satvic state.

Sattva growth can happen only through a focused study of the scriptures, a continual focus on satsangs (gathering of good people), and a planed defocus on activities and thoughts that are not conducive for spiritual growth. Again, many of these are easier said than done. I have personally struggled to get away from existing tendencies and focus on spiritual growth. In the mornings, I have to battle my tamasic tendencies to continue sleeping against the intellect suggested action of getting up and studying the scriptures. Earlier my tamas always used to win. But of late, my intellect wins sometimes and I do get up. It is a small victory, but hopefully with a positive feedback cycle that can strengthen the intellect and consequently sattva. I have battled against my innate tendency to watch some news or movies, whereas the intellect says, that I should use the time for something better. Over the past couple of weeks that tendency won over and I did not read anything or write anything related to spirituality. Finally today, the intellect won and I decided to post this blog. I believe a slow and steady growth where the intellect wins a small percentage of battles will one fine day snowball into a major victory for the intellect with its consequent ability to lead us on a fully satvic route on the goal of spirituality.

As readers may be aware, 3 of my books on spirituality are available on Amazon.com.

I invite readers of my blog to try any of the books and give me feedback so that I can make changes in the next edition.

1. My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality

My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality