Recognizing Nature at Work:
the Gunas and Koshas at play on and off the mat

The world as we experience it according to the Samkhya Yoga philosophy is colored by three animating qualities or gunas. The gunas are the means through which the creative power of consciousness, Purusa, expresses itself as Prakriti, the creative power of nature, in order to see itself and experience the delightful drama of Beingness in form.

The gunas stir up, sustain, and transform this tangible Creation- yet they are innately sprung of the One, indivisible, omniscient truth which possesses everything necessary to create that which is, was, and is going to be. So there is a place beyond the gunas that we are attempting to contact within ourselves in our practice, an experience of freedom from the reinforcement of this notion of a separate self. The sense of separation functions to call us back to remembering the sophisticated and highly specialized expression of Oneness (or Love) as the play of diversity in all of it's terrible Beauty, expressing itself through the gunas' influence.

Through the practices of Raja Yoga, and particularly through the physical techniques of Pranayama and Asana, we can explore the roots of the different experiences and sensations the three gunas negotiate. The dynamic tension between these basic forces is responsible for all of the creative delights and genius of this world and for the very journey of of life with its many opportunities to meet love through-the-mirror.

A "gunathita" is a Yogi who becomes established in great equanimity and poise within the gunas, and learns to go beyond their influence on the various sheaths (koshas) of his/her Being; this is a person who is Free. Such an endeavor would require that one study and immerse themselves in the habits that the gunas give with great consistency. Even if you don't become a "gunathita" in this lifetime, through contemplation of the gunas within your practice you will nonetheless be made extremely wealthy in knowledge of yourself and the workings of Nature!

Rajas guna is active, creates vigor, is light, hot, and dry. It causes individuation, comparison, creativity, impulsiveness, desire, anger, jealousy, willfulness, and attachment. In it's healthy expression rajas activates and creates distinction in order to make us grow beyond perceived limitations. It is the force of "burning away the dross" of darkness or ignorance. It is similar to the Taoist principle of Yang. Rajas guna rules the influence of the Sun in the subtle body.

Tamas guna gives inertia, immobility, darkness, magnetism, weight, cold, cohesion, introspection, sluggishness, stupor, heaviness, depression and shares the qualities of desire, attachment, and willfulness (to a different degree) with its opposite. In its healthy expression tamas dissolves forms in order to give depth, removes the tendency for excessive activity by grounding us, and helps to invoke contemplation in order to renew the essential. It is similar to the principle of Yin. Tamas guna rules the influence of the Moon in the subtle body.

Sattva guna gives lightness of being and purity which stabilizes, harmonizes extremes, and inherently exists as the balance between rajas and tamas in everything. It is also space, cleanliness, freedom from polarity. It sustains and nourishes the finer and subtler expressions of spirit through matter by reducing the chaos and conflict of the excess of the other gunas as inessential into what is essential, optimally functioning, inherently intelligent and self-sustaining. Sattva exists in everything but can always be increased and become more apparent as we choose to take better care of our bodies, mind, speech and relationship to the natural world with our lifestyle activities.

No matter how we experience the gunas operating in our midst, they are united through their origins in Purusa emanating through Prakriti as the animating qualities which bring life into matter, imbuing spirit in nature. The gunas are equal in their power and necessity in combination within all life. In this spirit it is wonderful to explore the mantra which is one of the great peace invocations of the Vedas:

Purnamadah, purnamidam
Purnat purnamudacyate
Purnasya Purnamadaya
Purnam evavasisthyate

This is wholeness, that is wholeness
From wholeness, wholeness is made manifest
taking anything away from that wholeness,
wholeness still remains

According to the Tantric view of the subtle body, consciousness moves from undifferentiated wholeness or Bliss to what is the corporeal "us" via the koshas or sheaths. The koshas comprise all individualistic identity emanating from this undifferentiated wholeness--everything in a body has koshas, but in the human being there are five. We are unique among created beings in terms of one very reflective quality which is allied to us as vijnanamaya kosha, the discriminative awareness or intellect, which gives self-consciousness.

Anandamaya kosha is the Bliss sheath. We experience the "highest" energies through this sheath which gives union within ourselves and an experience of each other as oneness. Our relationship to anandamaya kosha, to Bliss, is what is said to sustain the soul's desire to remain in the body. This includes many kinds of Self-awareness that dissolve the ego, on the basic levels such as laughter, orgasm, creativity, ecstatic experiences and also through sustained meditative absorption. It is the superconsciousness.

Vijnanamaya kosha is the intellect or discriminative awareness. It is what allows us to see things as they are, including the experience of unity in diversity, and diversity as lila or divine play--distinctions intrinsically produced for the joy of experiencing the various moods of Existence. It is comparable to the notion of a conscious, self-aware principle.

Pranamaya kosha is the energy sheath. Prana is availed to us in the breath, it is the energy of consciousness itself whispering to us as each breath from its' abode in the Self that sustains everything. It is that shakti or vital energy which governs the nervous system and functions of the body as the five vayus. Emotions are also in its' dominion and are enhanced by our healthy relationship to it through practices of chanting, asana, pranayama, bandha, mudra, and meditation..anything that brings our attention inward.

Manomaya kosha is the mind sheath. Where and what is Mind? It is impossible to pinpoint. However, we are aware of it constantly whether we want to be or not! Manomaya is the mind that is bringing us impressions from the outside world and holds our conditioning as well as our potential to react from that conditioning. It is likened to a quartz crystal which acts as a receiver of frequencies or information, but without the discriminative ability that lends itself towards our speech and actions that result. It is comparable to the Western notion of the subconscious or unconscious.

Annamaya kosha is the body sheath--the skin, muscles, bones, blood, endocrine, internal organs. Our physical strength, flexibility and immunity sit here as the repository of the influences of all the other koshas and our lifestyle choices as well as genetically inherited qualities. Annamaya kosha is the densest aspect of ourselves, with a slower capacity for change and transformation, and perhaps is the most honest reflection of our well-being as the body "is what it is", and is least susceptible to manipulation by our ever-rationalizing Egos! So goes the beauty of the current fascination with Asana throughout the world making us all a little more truthful with ourselves about those things we would like to change and those we must learn to accept.

Practices that create internalized awareness, like meditation, asana, and pranayama cause us to see the interdependence of these qualities in our human form. Looking at these different aspects helps us to find greater freedom, self-knowledge, creativity, courage and compassion for ourselves and others.

At any given time we can observe our predilection towards affection for the different gunas at work in our practice. There are poses that we look forward with great joy to perform, and others we can't wait to get out of before they have even begun. The most tangible but also superficial level that the gunas are acting on is annamaya kosha, the physical body. In a posture like utthita trikonasana for example, the body is asked to bend to one side and become nearly two-dimensional from head, torso, hips, to feet. Sometimes when entering this pose, our attention goes with exclusivity to the leading leg, or the inserting thigh and hip, or the low back, or upper back and neck--or perhaps it journeys along a part here, and then a part there as the pose constructs itself. After the first minute or so as we begin to settle, we recognize areas that we need to activate and others that are overly working. Then there are the areas completely lacking in awareness that a teacher will sometimes find for us to help adjust our focus towards, to give overall stability from that point of focus outwards, ideally in a way which ties together the work of the rest of the body-mind in an asana.

The parts of the body that we most habitually use, both at the active and inactive levels, are flavored by rajas (overdoing) and tamas (underactivity/ lack of awareness or ignorance). In trikonasana, a classic example is tight hips preventing a person from bringing their shoulders back, then reaching too far (rajas) down the leading leg, causing the center of gravity (sattva) to be distended to the back body--missing the work (tamas) in the hips (which is somewhat ironically self-fulfilling) altogether, and endangering the low back and neck as well with too much strain and exertion(rajas) and not enough support or wakefulness (too much tamas) from large muscle groups. It also throws the balance off throughout the whole pose, which makes sustaining it less enjoyable and rewarding. Of course, the toes here are also desperately gripping the floor (rajas), or perhaps the arches of the feet have collapsed and fallen asleep altogether (tamas), depriving the pose of basic relaxation and receptivity (sattva) to the hips and back body that opening the transverse arch and metatarsals can encourage.

The imaginary person in this example has constructed in their pose an inability to deeply insert (lacking rajas) the femur into the hip socket and externally rotate the lead thigh, which would put more attention on the quadriceps, adductors, buttocks and calf muscles via aligning the shin, which are all longing to stablize (make sattvic) this person and move them inward from what is given here as a pose with alot of externalized consciousness, more of a pose done with a wing and a prayer in hope of finding balance by floating between two opposing sides from front to back body without bringing any kind of new aliveness (sattva) or stability to the areas that need it most. In this person, because of the construction of their posture coming largely from the aversion or lack of knowledge (tamas) as to how to approach the hips as a source of support, several other things happen. The rib cage anxiously rounds up at the top side (rajas) because of the lack of "seatedness" in the leading hip and leg, and rather than finding length throughout the spine we see compression now on one side of the low back and nothing happening on the other side at all. In fact, throughout the waist of this person one side is concave, "cut off", inert (tamasic) and there is a shortening of the blood supply to the internal organs and a lack of overall space, although this person doesn't recognize it because they are still focussing on reaching into and sustaining the pose with the most visible bodily structures they can access.

Due to the body's attempt to protect itself from this person's well-intended efforts, they may actually be able to sustain the pose for two or three minutes withsome intelligent coping strategies, but if a great darshan or sight of the soul or some relatively common insight were to come in that instant the staying power of this person would be seriously challenged. This dear person is trying so very earnestly to do the pose "well", however, that they are reaching up with the visible side of their body with considerable effort in the only way they know how, and risking alot in the process.
In the spirit of a recognizing the noble effort towards self-awareness guiding the fictitious person in this example that is at the root of all real practice, may we continue to learn from ourselves how to back off from our tried-and true habits and steer ourselves back to a detached curiosity about how to not repeat the things we know best how to do, in order to gain awareness of some of the patterns through which the universal vitality is trying to apprehend us.