Read it till the end, even if you are an advanced sadhak and you will realise how gunas affect your sadhana
Dear Sadhaks! Have you ever wondered why you feel totally stressed out, depressed, and very anxious at some moments, even if you are doing sadhana regularly? Do you feel very tired just after waking up, or feel tired all day, procrastinating much in daily work? At times, you start getting wild thoughts, totally negative thoughts that a sadhak should never have? Sometimes, a tendency to do something bad, even if your conscience says not to do it, etc.? Do you often get doubts, start fearing to face something, have this escape mentality in case something is going against you? Sometimes feeling very greedy and using shortcuts to get success in life or in spiritual pursuits?
If all of these above answers are true, then you must understand that at those times, your level of energy or prana shakti goes down and starts dissipating from the lower chakras, especially Mooladhar and Swadhisthan. These chakras are mainly responsible for tamo guna within us. When there is an increase in tamo guna within you, you feel very tired, sleepy, low in excitement and energy. You might also feel like not talking to anyone and staying away from the public, sudden introvertness. Sometimes, in the initial days, a sadhaka feels that his introvertness feeling is related to spirituality, which might or might not be wrong. When actual Vairagya comes, then he will always feel blissful and most when he is alone. But in case of depression, he keeps feeling bad all the time. So in such cases, attention must be given aptly and necessary healing steps must be taken. Sometimes, the sadhaka might feel very excited about doing something or taking a new initiative, then suddenly he feels that it is going in the opposite direction and a huge negativity engulfs him.
So in all of these above cases, necessary steps must be taken to address immediately. Before delving into more, like it would actually happen to anyone, let’s first know the simple steps to quickly come of it.
Steps to increase Sattva Guna and remove all negativity
Identify
Yes! The very first and foremost step to tackle such a situation is to identify it when you are under such influences. The moment you identify that “This is not the real me. And a lot of negativity is not mine,” then 50% of the solution is done. Because Sattva Guna, as per the yogic shastras, is directly related to pure knowledge and intelligence. The moment you start thinking, you are utilizing your “Vijnanmoy Kosha” (4th of the 5 koshas encircling the soul), and it is also related to your visuddhi chakra. This kosha is responsible for intelligence and cleansing purposes. You might also take a diary and note down your feelings, whatever is coming to your mind. If you are an expert in diary writing, you will easily recognize the pattern in the subconscious mind, which is giving you trouble.
Take an intention to come out it
This might feel like an unusual or redundant step, but trust me, this is the major thing that will cause your energy shift! You must take a solid determination to “Come out of it”. The stronger the intention is, the more effective you will see the result. If you remember, we discussed that things are happening since tamo guna has increased in your life. Now, when you have identified the pattern, if you have somewhat shackled the process that was draining your training by increasing a little sattva guna. Now, by the determination of coming out, you are increasing your “Rajo Guna”. Rajo Guna is directly linked to the manipura chakra in the navel. This is the fire element, which burns out all the inertness of the earth and water element of mooladhar and swadhisthana respectively. This Rajo Guna at manipura will increase your prana shakti intensely and will suck it out of the lower chakras and prepare to push it to higher centers.
Do Kirtan remembering guru
Now you have almost come out of tamo guna and have intense energy. But this is unstable energy due to its rajo nature and can go down at any time. Now it requires a stable and safe place to stay for a longer time and convert the rajo energy to sattva energy. Thus, we take shelter of the 4th chakra, i.e., Anahata Chakra. Now Anahata Chakra is a very sensitive and subtle chakra. Too much aggressive nature of rajo guna will not touch it. Hence we take shelter of our guru and do kirtan. When we think about our guru and pray to him to let us out of this situation, naturally blessings start to pour to us via Sahasrara chakra in a great amount. When we start doing kirtan by taking his shelter to save us and also to please him, naturally prana starts rising above and our Anahata Chakra starts to blossom. Then sattva guna is established. Now great thinking will come to us, we will be very positive, optimistic, and full of blossoming energy. We will forget all anger, frustration, pessimistic thoughts. We might also identify more of our past bad patterns and habits and get ideas to change them. We might also realize why certain things are happening to us, why some person thinks differently about us, etc. We become very empathetic towards all and start loving all suddenly. There is a great shift of energy here. Those who are advanced sadhakas will feel prana getting more blissful all over the body, giving a sense of fulfillment. Now if we continue doing this kirtan for a longer time, our prana might cross the higher chakras, and we might even go to Bhava Samadhi, enjoying in the divine light of bliss, listening to various naads and newer bhavas. This is not a topic of discussion but some encouragement to the newer sadhakas and explaining the power of Harinaam Sankirtan. All sins get washed away with this. God has imbued all his energy into his divine names.
Loud recitation of Om
If you are not able to do Kirtan, then loud recitation of Omkar is greatly useful. It quickly enhances our energy upwards, removing all sorts of negativity from us and our surroundings. Same benefits as above, for the advanced sadhakas, the Kundalini will keep on rising, taking us to a state of samadhi, which is beyond all the gunas.
Pranayama
If you are not able to do Omkar, then do some basic Nadi Shodhana Pranayama (kumbhak not required) or Anulom Vilom by quickly inhaling more air inside, but very slowly exhaling the air outside. This increases the net quantity of prana inside, eventually increasing our sattva guna. If the prana is purified fully, a natural state of kumbhak will appear called Kevali kumbhak for higher sadhakas, and they will be in samadhi. Pranayama removes all sins and impurities from us and makes us as divine as the devatas.
Mantra Jap
You can also do Mantra Japa by the method shown by your guru. Eventually, all pranayama kriya will start automatically inside you, and you will greatly benefit as mentioned above, finally getting into Bhava Samadhi.
Arati of God
You can also perform Arati of God by lighting a candle in front of his photo or deity, perform Abhishek of the Shiva Linga in your home temple (if it is there), show Dhup or incense sticks in front of his photo, offer him flowers, bel patra, etc. Chant his mantra. These actions will surely increase your sattva guna, remove all negativity of tamo guna, and guard your aura from all bad influences. Arati actually purifies your aura greatly, and God’s energy gets permeated within your aura.
Physical Exercise
You can do some physical exercises like running, jumping, etc. This will surely remove all tamo guna from you. Surya Namaskara is also a great way to increase tremendous energy inside. Though Surya Namaskara directly deals with prana and increases bodily fire, for beginners, they will really feel strong after that. According to some yogic scriptures, a person doing proper 108 Surya Namaskar daily will never get ill, their face will shine, they can maintain Brahmacharya at will, and eventually attain a status of the devata.
Satsang
Another best way to increase Sattva Guna is satsang. If you are not able to solve things on your own, then take shelter of those who are better than you and can help you in healing yourselves. Satsang is the place where an instant change of heart happens, and we find ourselves blessed in such associations. There is an influx of positive energy and entities around us during satsang. What to say, even Sri Narayana promises to Narada that he always stays in the place where his devotees sing about his glories!
How does it feel when Sattva Guna is increasing?
There are various symptoms a sadhak can feel when sattva is increasing:
1. He might feel that prana or air has started to flow inside his spine.
2. Suddenly, he is feeling very good, and all wild thoughts are gone.
3. He might feel himself lighter, fresh, and blossoming.
4. Bhakti will rise in his heart.
5. Some advanced sadhakas might start listening to naad, see jyoti, or smell something good.
6. Feeling of love and compassion even for the ones you hated before.
7. Feeling of great connect with God and Guru.
8. Better able to analyze any situation with more clarity, lack of fear, and full of peaceful and calm energy, ready to tackle any situation.
Is there any limit to increase in sattva guna?
Yes. The highest limit is that you will come out of all the three gunas and become “Tri-Guna-Tita,” i.e., devoid of all gunas. This is the state of the soul in the highest samadhi. When there is any guna, you are in the material nature and there are form, taste, and feelings. But it is also worthy to mention that there are spiritual gunas as well like Suddha Sattva, Suddha Rajo, and Suddha Tamo, and this makes the spiritual world or the bhava loka beyond this material universe. The forms of God are in Suddha Sattva. But in the highest impersonal form, he is without any guna. For some sects of sadhakas in the jnana marg, they aspire to the complete gunatita state. But we are in the Bhakti Marg, hence we deal with the suddha gunas in the Bhava Loka. But it is worthy to mention that unless the trigunatita state is attained, you cannot retain the suddha sattva state. Hence we first take a dip in the ocean of the formless Brahman in the highest samadhi and then come a little down in the Nitya Bhava loka. Such sadhakas have the power to choose any state they want, but they always aspire to be in the Bhava loka, where the bliss is huge! Like we always aspire to serve Radha and Krishna in the gopi bhava in the Nitya Vrindavan.
Benefits of increasing Sattva Guna
A sadhaka must always observe and try his best to be in sattva guna always. Rajo is an unstable stage and has higher chances of falling down. Tamo guna means depleting or draining energy from lower centers, or in yogic words, apana flowing downwards and creating the way for hell. A sadhaka reverses the flow of apana and prana and unites them in manipura, increasing the fire of Rajo gun. Then he brings this united samana from manipura to anahata chakra and beyond, continuously increasing his sattva guna. When the body is filled with Sattva guna and prana crosses the Ajna Chakra, then kundalini enters deeper and more subtle nadis inside Susumna, giving us a state of samadhi. Then we forget the external nature and become directly aware of our subtle body. The more it keeps rising upwards, the more sattva nature it attains. Finally, we reach our causal body in the world of light, sound, and mandalas. Finally, Kundalini enters the Brahma nadi, and we become devoid of all gunas into Samadhi, attaining our soul nature. Hence the capable sadhaka comes down, though he initially fears any such experiences in the beginning. So we can understand that our body right now is devoid enough sattva guna, that is required for us to attain the soul nature. Hence at all costs, we must endeavor to increase our Sattva Guna. Actually, gunas are nothing but the state of one’s prana. If apana is flowing downwards, then there will be tamo guna predominantly. If both are united at Manipura, then rajo guna predominantly, if the united prana is flowing in susumna and staying more in anahata and above, then sattva guna. Actually, these terms, definitions, and interpretations vary from sadhaka to sadhaka. There is no hard and fast rule for this, since we find many varied definitions in various scriptures. But the most important thing is to identify things in your terms and know when to take what actions.
To be mentioned, when Sattva guna is increasing, you start attracting all positive energy inside you and outside as well. As the philosophy says, “Like attracts Like,” so many higher entities like angels, siddhas, devas, etc., start visiting you sensing your positive energy, and naturally, the room becomes even more blissful. It’s like getting compound interest from the capital principal deposited in the bank account. When Bhagavat Katha, kirtan, etc., are done in a place, the higher entities visit us and make the place more like a pilgrim. So just imagine how powerful and potent the place becomes where Sadguru stays! Hence it is said that all tirthas stay in a place where Sadguru stays and in fact, his lotus feet are the source of all tirthas.
How Sattva Guna decreases
With this vast and vivid discussion, let’s start understanding how Sattva Guna decreases now. But before this, let’s talk more about this topic “Like attracts Like.” Like sattva attracts higher positive entities in your life and surroundings; similarly, tamo guna also attracts entities and persons of similar energy. Now you are smart enough to understand, I don’t want to scare anyone with ghosts and spirits. But you will always see the association of a person. When the person is good, good people are around him and are his friends; when the person is tamasic, you will see his association of tamasic nature. Nowadays, it’s hard to find sattvic persons; hence, a tamasic person might also stay in the life of a sattvik person, but understand that by his influence, their tamasic nature is greatly reducing. Will it impact him? Well, obviously yes! No matter how careful you are, you will get burned while playing with fire. But due to the healing nature of the sattvik person, he gets healed faster. Also, a tamasic person might come into his life due to karmic influences as well. It might be true that his mind is sattvik, but his higher body of karma might not be very sattvik due to past bad actions; hence, tamasic bad events and people are coming into his life. When karma gets over by his sadhana, he will eventually feel bliss and attain his higher goals.
These are some of the points which decrease sattva guna.
Food from a wrong source
We all know about tamasik food like stale food, onion-garlic, meat, fish, etc. But very little is said about food from a wrong source. While the food might be vegetarian and fresh, it might still affect your sattva nature. Why? Because if the person who cooks the food is predominantly of tamo nature, then it will come to you. Food is the fuel that not only makes up your physical body but your higher bodies as well. Hence food affects the mind and prana significantly. Hence Mounibaba used to say, “It’s much better to stay hungry than to eat wrong food. You don’t get disease due to less eating, but more eating of wrong eatables.” Furthermore, the person with whom you sit and eat also affects. Also, the person who sees your food also affects. Food is very sensitive and it attracts energy heavily inside. Hence our dharma shastras have heavily warned and given restrictions on food. If you get money for buying food from a bad source and then cook the food and eat it, you will be affected.
Thus in this current world of Kali Yuga, it is very difficult to get perfect food. Hence our acharyas and gurus have heavily instructed us to consume prasad only and nothing else. Even if it is vegetarian, it can significantly impact you if mixed with tamo guna. Hence in our guru parampara, we always give ahuti first and consume prasad later on. More about ahuti can be read here. – Ahuti Mantra
Not Influencing the Wrong Association
It’s impossible in this current world to avoid wrong association unless you run away from society to the remotest Himalayas. Hence, we must attempt to save ourselves from these wrong associations, which are the powerhouse of tamo guna. Only protecting oneself from these tamo guna won’t work. Only defensive action won’t work. You must be in the mode of attack, not physically but against their tamo nature. All attempts should be taken appropriately to reduce (not remove, since it’s impossible without guru kripa) their tamo nature. Again and again, it will increase, even if reduced at some point, so every time this should be attempted. This will create another pattern within him, that whenever you are near him, automatically tamo will start reducing. So it’s great for you to not absorb their tamo nature and benefit them as well. Or it might happen that they will be irritated by you and never come near to you, that’s also great. Anyways why do we even need such persons who will deplete our hard-earned spiritual treasure?
Influencing doesn’t mean debating or maybe sometimes in some cases in a healthy way. But the thing is that they should feel that they are talking with a strong person who cannot be moved easily and the opposite might happen. Generally, it is advised to stay humble in front of everyone and maintain a calm spiritual nature. But in most cases, sattvik people get scared of the tamo guni natured persons and these tamo people influence them heavily. Hence maintaining a strong nature defies that. The very thing that you are scared of opening up is the significator of tamo nature, which is creating fear in you due to draining apana at the weak mooladhara chakra. Hence as said above “Like attracts Like,” you are attracting tamo natured people in your life. When you are fearless outside and inside and know how to raise energy instantly, nothing can impact you. You are the son of Nectar! Who in these three worlds can scare you? Raise your energy vibrations heavily within in such cases and become fearless completely. This is more than enough. Higher saints feel utmost compassion for tamo natured people, hence by coming under their influence, great change is being felt. You will be amazed to see that when you raise your energy in front of them, their thought process is getting changed heavily as if hypnotized by some divine magic. See the guru in each one of them!
Working with too much expectations of results
People with a tendency to take too many shortcuts to achieve their goals quickly without wanting to put in much effort heavily reduce their sattva nature. Due to excessive lust and greed for the result, their rajo nature increases, which ultimately degrades to tamo nature, leading to frustration, anger, tiredness, and ultimately procrastination. Hence, it is very important to identify any such patterns within us as quickly as possible and get rid of them. There is no shame in accepting it, since we are sadhaks. A lot of even more negative traits come to the observation of the sadhak, and he happily removes them from his samskaras. Hence in the Gita, it is always advised to work in Niskama Bhava, without expecting any result of the work and sacrificing all results to God. The sadhak feels tremendous bliss with an increase in sattva guna and creates no new karma. These expectations of results and desires are the reasons for repeated births and deaths.
Sleeping too much
I know you might be thinking, if we are under tamo guna, then feeling tired and sleeping is a natural way to counter it, right? Trust me, this is one of the major patterns seen in sadhakas in the initial days. Most of them find themselves sleeping more after a few months of sadhana. Due to the stirring of prana, many bad samskaras pour out, increasing tamo guna. Hence, they feel sleepy, and interestingly, they start having more dreams than earlier. They even remember their dreams, which are more vivid and seem to convey more messages. Hence, they feel their sleep is spiritual and they should do more. However, no healing or very little healing happens in the body when such sleep occurs with more dreams. Healing only occurs in deep sleep, which arises in Sattva guna. But due to tamo guna, deep sleep rarely or never arises in such a person. Forget about healing; they worsen the situation by sleeping more. As per Saroday Shastra, Lord Shiva says that during sleep, the length of the breath becomes 60 fingers, and maximum energy is drained during this moment to heal the body. But if healing is not happening due to a lack of deep or dreamless sleep, we are just losing the energy, gaining nothing. Hence, such persons find themselves more tired after sleeping and feel very negative after waking up. And as explained above, “like attracts like”; due to an increase in tamo guna, many things get attracted while sleeping and give bad dreams, and sometimes they wake up after nightmares. The solution is to increase the sattva guna first by the steps mentioned above and then sleep while taking the name of God. Never sleep during the day!
Bad Eye or Evil Eye
Whether you believe it or not, the concept of the evil eye or “nazar” does exist and can heavily influence us! Those whose aura is very strong, minds free from all doubts and fear, cannot be easily affected by the evil eye. But otherwise, people suffer from significant issues. Tamo Guna greatly increases within, and all symptoms explained at the top happen. As we progress in sadhana, we are able to understand if we are under any evil eye or evil influence. Sometimes, out of excitement, we share our success story or anything interesting happening in our life or any important ongoing work with someone, but we never know how they took it internally. Hence it’s always advisable to share things with persons whom we trust the most. And sharing sadhana secrets with others is very risky unless we are at a very high stage and sharing some very past events just to increase the faith of others in the process.
There are various ways to remove these influences like bathing with salt-coffee mixed water, etc. But the above-stated steps like kirtan and all with strong intention will work like magic. Yajna is also a great way to purify ourselves.
Others
There might be other reasons like issues from dead ancestors or pitra dosha, displeasure of the Ista Devta, bad planetary influences, black magic, curses, etc., that might be reasons for not reducing tamo guna. In any such cases, the stated remedies above will work like magic. Depending upon the nature of the issue, the remedy will take time to solve. But it will surely be resolved sooner if taken regularly.
Maha Mantra to raise energy instantly
As a conclusion, always remember the mantra to raise energy in case of any downfall is – “Identify – Strong Intention – Action in remembrance of Guru”
Use this strategy in loop always, since our samskaras will always try to keep us down.