“Who looks outside dreams. Who looks inside awakens.” - Carl Jung
One of the goals of a regular yoga practice is to develop stability, both physically and mentally. Yoga philosophy tells us that the path to cultivating stability is through living a life in balance, of walking the middle path and not allowing ourselves to be drawn to extremes. This sounds simple enough, but in practice we realize how quickly we can get thrown off balance. At times it can seem as if we can’t slow down and we do more than expected—sometimes way more than our bodies can handle. Other times we set ambitious goals but are unable to generate enough energy to get started. Even our minds seem to sway back and forth like a pendulum. Watch your thoughts and you may notice how one moment your mind drifts back to a memory, only to spring ahead to a future fantasy, then wanders back to the past again. Now and then this cycle breaks when we experience a calm state of clarity that is centered in the here and now. Typically, this is short lived, as soon enough our attention starts to swing once again from the past to the future.
Ancient texts in yoga philosophy offer insights into what throws us off balance and ways in which we can cultivate stability. We start by tapping into our energy levels, noticing what is showing up in the body. Do we feel restless and agitated? Or is it the opposite--dull, achy, and tired? Perhaps we are calm, feeling alert but relaxed. Yoga philosophy refers to these different qualities as the gunas, which are the three foundational properties of nature. The gunas, which translates as “strand”, manifest as tamas, fixed energy or inertia; rajas, movement or dynamic energy; and sattva, balanced energy, awareness, and calm. All objects in the universe consist of various combinations of the three gunas, and these energies are always in flux. We can find many examples of the gunas at play in nature: tamas in the solidity of the earth, rajas in wind, and sattva in a tranquil ocean. In humans they manifest as sensations in the body and as thoughts in the mind. Through recognizing and working with the gunas we can learn how to bring them into balance and find stability in our lives.
Rajas is the guna that dominates in our current achievement oriented culture. It is energy that is driven by desire, stirring an intense need to take action toward attaining or avoiding something. Rajas stimulates us to act in the world with excitement, passion, and drive. It is the fuel behind our future fantasies, imbuing the mind with expectations of how things will turn out. When balanced, rajas helps us move through the day with vitality. When excessive, it creates a scattered, agitated mind that blocks us from finding contentment and peace.
Sattva creates a calm state of mind that is centered in the here and now. It fills us with a sense of clarity and tranquility, providing awareness, insight and understanding. We experience sattva in moments of stillness when we feel a profound sense of awareness and connection with the world. Sattva is found in the middle between the extremes of rajas and tamas. Learning to harness the energies of rajas and tamas is the key to cultivating the contentment and peace that is characteristic of a sattvic state.
Tamas is the opposite of rajas, as it has the qualities of density, dullness, and lethargy. When in balance, this guna helps us slow down, rest, and restore our energy. It keeps us connected to the earth. In excess, tamas clouds the mind with ambiguity and confusion, obstructing our connection to feelings and our ability to identify what we need. When tamasic energy intensifies, we experience strong negative emotions that can isolate and lead to harmful or self-destructive behavior.
All of us express our own unique combination of the gunas. They show up in the ways we move and in how we think, as well as our emotional responses, desires, and overall vitality. The three gunas are always present in some combination in our lives, forming the foundation of our attitudes, potential, and aspirations. Even when they dominate, the gunas are not necessarily good or bad. The changing dominance of the gunas provides the stunning diversity that is present in nature. What is important is maintaining a healthy balance between the three, with one or the other being dominant at the appropriate time and in the right amount. We want tamas to dominate at night when it is time to sleep, not in the afternoon when we are at work. Rajas in the morning helps us jump start our day but not at night when a racing mind makes it impossible to fall asleep.
The relationship of each guna can be represented on a continuum with rajas and tamas as points on opposite ends and sattva in the middle. When rajas and tamas are out of balance, our energy swings like a pendulum between extremes, spending very little time in the middle. Rajasic energy moves forward with increasing intensity until it wears itself out, causing our energy to fall rapidly in the other direction toward tamas, where we fall into inertia. To shift back in the other direction, we need to stoke the fire of rajas. When we are unaware of how the gunas dance within us, they pull us back and forth, and the pendulum begins to swing higher and faster. We experience fewer moments of sattva, resulting in diminished awareness, clarity, and joy in life. Until we learn how to manage our energy, we will remain reactive, being tossed around with the fluctuations of the universe. We become stressed and exhausted with stability beyond our reach.
We can gain control by using rajas and tamas as tools to help us balance our energy and find that elusive sweet spot of stability. We start by taking an honest look at how the gunas are interacting in our mind and in our body. We start by assessing the quality of our breath, thoughts, and how we feel physically. Rajasic energy shows up as rapid, uneven breath, with fast and forced exhales. Rajasic thoughts can be agitated, intense, or rapid, sometimes showing up as “to do” lists focused on problem solving. Physically, rajas presents as a restlessness or a desire to move, to do something, to be busy. Tamas is felt as the opposite of rajas: breathing characterized by shallow inhales and sighing, with thoughts that are confused, dark, or ambiguous. Inertia characterizes tamas, so physically we feel heavy and dull, perhaps even achy or stiff, with a strong need to rest. In extremes, tamas creates negative emotions and causes us to become isolated from the world.
Once we have an idea of the guna that is dominating we can balance that energy by introducing the opposite. The agitation of rajasic energy can be tempered with spacious grounding movements of tamas, whereas the heat of rajas can be used to soften the rigidity of tamas. Playing with these opposite energies can moderate the constant swinging between rajas and tamas, helping to slow the swing of the pendulum so that it spends more time centered at the calming midpoint of sattva.
Throughout May we will take a deeper dive into each of the three gunas, exploring in detail how the play of these energies can enhance our lives and help us find more stability. We can use these energies to become aware of the circumstances that cause them to fluctuate, recognizing the unique way each guna shows up in our minds and in our body. We’ll start with a practice that focuses on all three gunas in order to compare and contrast their unique qualities. We’ll move from the grounded, earthy, slower movements of tamas that engage muscles in the feet, ankles, and legs to the twisting and turning movements that generate the heat of rajas. To balance tamas and rajas, we’ll practice deep backbends and inversions, helping us to open into our calm center that cultivates sattva, which is highlighted at the end of our practice with, of course, shavasana.
We are always subjected to the forces of nature. We can’t stop the fluctuations of the gunas, but we can become aware of how their energy controls us. A yoga practice helps us learn how to work with these forces rather than be swept away by them. I invite you to come to your practice with an intention to explore how the gunas dance within you. By harnessing their energy, you’ll slow the swing of your internal pendulum, finding clarity in the middle, perhaps stepping off your mat feeling more grounded and awake.
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