The Three Gunas:
An Application of Polarity and Threefoldness to the Human Mind
This article relates the Goethean approach of polarity and the concept of threefoldness — conceptualized by Steiner and further developed by Schad — to the three gunas, the three qualities of life from the Samkhya Philosophy and the Ayurvedic tradition.
To begin, I summarise how mainstream science has been applied for the past centuries. Then, I share an alternative way of doing science developed by Goethe. In the sequence, I show Goethe’s theory of Polarity, Steiner’s concept of threefoldness and Schads’ application of to the human body. Furthermore, I present the three gunas and the connection to the polarity and its threefold quality. To conclude I analyse the findings from a series of interviews done by myself related to the three gunas in order to check if reality connects to the theory presented.
Centuries of mainstream science
The worldview based on Aristotelian thinking and Christianity was altered completely by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The concept of the world as a machine substituted the natural, living, and spiritual universe. This new idea became the leading metaphor of the modern age. As Capra affirms: “This radical change was brought by new discoveries in astronomy, physics, and mathematics, known as the Scientific Revolution and associated with the names of Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, and Newton.” (1996, Pg. 19) Galileo eliminated the study of qualities from science, restricting the latter to the study of the phenomena restricting it only to what could be measured and quantified.
This idea of theory-based scientific explanation was the major innovation, which transformed science from being only empirical into the rational
empirical form, which we recognize today as being characteristically ‘scientific’. This has been extraordinarily successful, but it does have the effect of shifting attention away from the phenomenon, with the result that the phenomenon itself begins to take second place in favour of the theory. Paradoxically, science becomes theory-centred instead of phenomenon- centred. (BORTOFT, 2012 Pgs. 31–32)
Therefore, science started to look at the phenomena as an object. However, object thinking hasn’t become just a way of doing Science. Currently it is already part of our life in dimensions one couldn’t expect. It is found in education, technology, politics, religion, and even in the way we interact socially with each other. Through this way of thinking, science manipulates nature by using experimentation to please its desire for answering its questions. As a result, we changed the way we looked at nature diminishing it to an object, disconnecting ourselves from it. It became then, just one more thing that can serve us, just a resource that humans can use. (HOLDREGE, 2013)
One may say that is not a surprise that mechanical science and the object view of nature have become so mainstream. It walks hand in hand with Capitalism, which has its rules based on market growth and wealth accumulation. Even though the word “growth” comes from life, Capitalism has transformed it in a mechanical form of determining human behaviour and competition is the baseline. Because of it, nature and people become an object phenomenon, a commodity in this equation. Economic growth in capitalism reinforces that growth is limitless. In nature, growth comes with boundaries taking into account specific contexts and regulation processes of decay and death and it is not unlimited in an infinite linear growth. As a result, the economy inflates into a bubble that brings us a temporary feeling of “prosperity” which will collapse eventually. Then we have an economic crisis while we wait for the next bubble to form and burst again and the cycle continues. (HOLDREGE, 2013)
As we can observe in economic growth of capitalism, object thinking focus also only on solving a problem, analysing it in detail looking for ways to come up with a formatted isolated solution to the problem. Therefore, it presents a one-sided
view and doesn’t look at the phenomena as a whole. As a result the “perfect” solution encountered will often bring other problems as a consequence just like the supposed prosperity bubble in capitalism. (HOLDREGE, 2013)
Goethe’s approach to science
By the end of the eighteenth century and during the nineteenth century as well a strong wave of opposition to this way of observing the world emerged. Different Poets and philosophers started to shift its focus back to the organic form of nature. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was one of these poets. (CAPRA, 1997)
Although worldwide Goethe is known by his poems and contributions to literature, he actually wanted to be mainly recognized by his way of science. Goethe was against the specific mechanical and disconnected from the phenomenon kind of Science that was being practised. (SEAMON & ZAJONC, 1998)
Goethe proposed that Science should be applied in a more holistic approach
looking at the phenomena as a whole rather than a one-sided object thinking view. Goethe believed that taking into account only primary qualities — what can be measured, weighed and counted — and physical material characteristics was limited and brought as a consequence a negative impact to human wisdom and a science epistemic impoverishment.
In Goethe’s understanding science should be a continuous conversation with the phenomenon. An ongoing process, a “mutual interaction”, where you are open for whatever the phenomenon will show you, without having a pre-fixed problem, hypothesis or expectation. You are present and aware in the moment participating in the phenomenon, influencing it while it influences you back. Just like the following poem illustrates:
“To look at any thing,
If you would know that thing, you must look at it long:
To look at this green and say,
“I have seen spring in these Woods,” will not do — you must be the thing you see:
You must be the dark snakes of Stems and ferny plumes of leaves, you must enter in to the small silences between the leaves,
You must take your time
And touch the very peace
They issue from.”
(MOFFIT, 1962)
Goethe’s idea was not to stop the verbal-intellectual mind. It was to practise active observation beyond the rational mind by opening oneself up for the sensory experience, so that the attention could be focused again on the phenomenon itself and not on one’s pre-defined concepts. The idea was not to use the senses in the empirical sense of gathering evidence, but more in having a holistic ‘sensuous’ experience, by being connected to nature experiencing the senses. (BORTOFT, date unknown)
In Goethean Science, one may not only focus on sensation and thinking while observing the phenomenon, one must also focus on feeling and intuition in order to be able to observe as a whole. By having a holistic approach one can bring attention back into the sensuous experience letting pure phenomenality emerge as well as the phenomenon’s essence and the invisible archetype-pattern (Ur- phänomen). While doing goethean science by observing a phenomenon it is important to look into different parts to find the whole. However, the whole is not the sum of parts. The essence itself can only be found by being present and connected to the phenomenon. (BORTOFT, date unknown)
Polarity and Threefoldness
By observing the phenomena Goethe developed the concept of polarity, which is a dynamic relationship between the opposites. For example, the contraction and
expansion of the breath, the systole and diastole of the heart, symmetry and asymmetry, ideal and real, fantasy and practical thought, right and left. The theory of polarity was developed based on his study on colour where he argued that light arises from the opposition of light and darkness. This pattern of opposites can be observed everywhere, in our bodies, in nature, in life. They are applicable across all domains and areas. (GOETHE, 1988)
“True observers of nature, although they may think differently, will still agree that everything that is observable as a phenomenon, can only exhibit itself in one of two ways. It is either a primal polarity that is able to unify, or it is a primal unity that is able to divide. The operation of nature consists of splitting the united or uniting the divided; this is the eternal movement of systole and diastole of the heartbeat, the inhalation and exhalation of the world in which we live, act and exist.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Goethe’s approach, based on qualitative considerations, recognizes polarity as the fundamental principle to the organization of natural phenomena. For Goethe, a metamorphosis between polarities occurs while nature’s creation are in constant dynamic movement.
Rudolf Steiner noticed that when polarity happens a third property emerges from the oppositions. When the heart goes into systole and back to diastole there is a third element of rhythm arising in the movement of going from one polarity to the other. Therefore a threefold association is developed. (SEAMON & ZAJONC)
Steiner as well as Schad applied the threefoldness theory to the human organism. Steiner classified the human body not only by its physical structure but also by its functions. He divided it into three systems. The nerve-sense system, the metabolic-limb system as a polarity to the first and the rhythmic system complementing as threefold element embodying the poles of the organism showing an active balance between the two. (SCHAD, 1977)
Schad highlights that the threefoldness in the human organism cannot be seen as separate systems, working as a parallel activity, but should be seen as a unified activity, integrating one another. (SCHAD, forthcoming) Steiner (1999: apx. 6), quoted by Schad (Forthcoming, emphasizes the importance of living interconnection and integration of the three systems:
“It is the utmost importance to see clearly the relationship between the activity of the nerves, the rhythmic breathing process, and metabolic activity. These three forms of activity do not lie beside one another but in one another. They permeate and pass over into one another.”
Besides the application to the human body, the concept of threefoldness can also be applied to the human mind. This article attempts to apply the threefoldness approach to0 the three gunas, the three qualities of life from the Samkhya Philosophy and the Ayurvedic tradition.
Samkhya is one of the six āstika — which means one who believes in the existence — schools of Hindu philosophy. The Indian Ayurvedic philosophy and practice dates back 5,000 years and it believes that the perfect health can be achieved by finding a balance between body, mind, spirit, and social wellbeing. This balance is a way of cultivating and maintaining our personal and social health as well as the planet’s. (KUMAR, 2007)
The gunas have informed the Indian Culture for thousands of years. The word ‘Guṇa’, from the Sanskrit word ‘ गुण ’, means ‘string, thread or strand’, ‘virtue,
merit, excellence’, ‘quality, peculiarity, attribute, property’. The gunas are used to understand natural objects or phenomena. They are called: tamas, rajas and sattva. (WAYAN, 2017)
Tamas is the state of inertia, inactivity, apathy, dullness, heaviness, control, laziness, confusion, sadness, fear, materiality and ignorance. Tamasic energy helps one sleep, but when in excess can bring depression, darkness and destruction. (KUMAR, 2007)
Rajas is the state of movement, dynamic, action, agitation, excitement, anxiety, determination, greed, anger, self-centeredness. Rajasic energy helps us to get things done, but in excess can create violence. (KUMAR, 2007)
Sattva is the state of balance, harmony, kindness, lightness, simplicity, truth, honesty, lucid, clarity, awareness, creativity and selflessness. Sattvic energy is connected to happiness and joy, peace and love. In nature, it is the aspect of matter closest to the divine Self. (KUMAR, 2007)
Even though they are described, as they were separated categories, the gunas are more like waves spread over a wide spectrum. Every phenomenon (person, action, feeling, thought, etc.) is represented mainly by a guna, but will also contain a small amount of the other two gunas. Because of that, there is the possibility of changing the state of how we feel. Egotism, for example, can be transformed into kindness towards others because even though the rajasic state is predominant when one only thinks about oneself, sattva is also present, which is predominantly kind and selfless. The intention behind an emotion, state,
mood, action and how it is expressed, determines whether it is predominantly tamasic, rajasic, or sattvic. (ROSEN, 2007; GIOVANNI, 2015)
Observing the three gunas, it is possible to see a clear polarity. In one end of the spectrum you can find tamas (darkness and confusion) and in the other end you can find sattva (light and clarity). Rajas appears as a third element configuring the threefoldness since it has movement and creativity as sattva does but in a non-coherent, confused and sometimes violent way just like tamas. In addition, it is very hard to go from Tamas to Sattva without going through Rajas. If one is in a tamasic mode feeling apathy, confusion and don’t feel like doing anything, one can try to get your rajas flowing by doing a sport or working on something one enjoys, for example. That will bring life and energy back, which one can try then to balance it to get to sattva. It is easier to move into egolessness from an energized ego than from a broken one. (ROSEN, 2007; GIOVANNI, 2015)
While writing this paper, I felt the call to check if the reality connected to what I was reading. Therefore, I decided to apply the content in interviews with different people and myself. I ensured people from 5 continents were interviewed individually so then different cultures were represented in the study. Therefore, people from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Japan and South Africa participated.
At first, I presented each guna independently and asked if they ever were in that state of mind or feeling before and if they could tell me about that experience. Then, I asked what kind of feelings they had when in that state. That question was followed by the inquiry if they had a predominant guna in their lives. Finally, I asked about the threefoldness connection to the gunas and if they felt it was easier to go from Tamas through rajas to get to a sattvic state and also if they thought it was possible to have all three at the same time. The results were really interesting. To start, you can find below a list of feelings and words the participants used during the interview in relation to each guna:
When asked about being tamasic, I heard examples that represented every day life like waking up after a nap and being lazy, feeling uncomfortable and powerless during a meeting, being exhausted from work and feeling like not waking up in the morning. In addition, the participants mentioned about longer phases of confusion and heaviness they had when they felt disconnect from
themselves and from the world. Someone pictured as “It is like moving throw heavy water. Everything slows down”.
When I asked if this was a violent state for them, I got a divided response. A few said they couldn’t relate to violence during that state and others said they saw violence mainly towards themselves, by having bad thoughts, thinking even about hurting themselves. Also, one person mentioned that when she is in that state she is usually less patient with others and tend to be meaner and turn into a self-defence/attack mode.
One interesting thing that emerged was what triggered the tamasic mode. A few said it came from within, in a moment of lack of purpose or confusion. Others mentioned that it is always an external trigger like when they experience a moment when they feel they are not being cared for or when they are too long away from social life. When I asked if they thought tamasic energy could be good somehow, a few people said that even though is a very uncomfortable state of mind, sometimes it is important to be able to rest to regenerate, be depressed to be able to recover your ideas and reconnect to yourself and to life.
When I presented rajas, the interviewees felt differently in terms of frequency or how it was triggered. Some mentioned that they have it everyday. Others mentioned that it only comes when they are triggered by something, for example, when somebody says something that bothers them, so they get agitated, in self-defence, alert. Others mentioned that it is usually a phase in their lives when they tend to focus a lot on getting money or have a very active social life. A couple also mentioned that they usually make an effort themselves to get into that stage especially when they are in a tamasic mode.
At the same time, they all had similar feelings when at this stage. They felt very powerful. They believed in themselves, felt free and they were ready to act, to move. They connected it to sports, participating actively in a conversation, working hard, partying. They felt extremely excited when in this state,
sometimes with euphoria and ecstasy. One person said “It feels like we are running, not walking”.
The majority tended to relate this state as a positive one, when they felt happy, moving, with lots of energy. Someone said “I stop thinking, just feel happy and have lots of fun”. Other said: “Feels like bubbling inside”. But a couple, mentioned that even though it felt good to be in rajas, there was a feeling of not being connected to your essence, to reality and to others. In addition, most interviewees mentioned that when they were rajasic their actions were full of energy but very disperse. Sometimes, they showed low coherence and felt like going into different directions.
Most people did not relate this phase with violence, but they mentioned that when in this state they tend to stop listening to others, they enter a self-defence mode and also start to not respect the time of things or people, everything is in their own time. Someone said “It is just like fire that is strong and powerful but disperse and can burn everything around depending on how strong it becomes. I can consume myself and what is around me”.
About sattva, even though all the interviewees had felt the sattvic quality of life, the majority of answers showed that this is a harder state to be connected to for longer periods of time. That energy mainly appeared when they did specific activities such as meditating, listening to music, connecting to nature by taking a walk into the woods and reading. Still, two people mentioned that they feel that this is the predominant guna in their life lately.
It was interesting to hear that when one is more in a sattvic environment like Schumacher or living a more sattvic experience, for example, working with a group that has sattvic goals is easier to keep the sattvic balance within oneself. In addition, one person stated that when sattva was present all the areas of his life were also in balance and working in a healthy way — their relationships, their work — — and the areas interconnected.
When in this state of mind, all people interviewed declared they felt very connected to themselves and had inner peace. Their mind was quieter and they were more present and generous, thinking about others and not only about themselves — giving more than receiving. They felt a sense of belonging, connecting with something greater, being part of Gaia. There was also a sense of accepting the reality in a positive way, not going against the flow of life, the mindset shifted. Furthermore, it was also a state of not being passive, but acting in a non-violent way.
About having a predominant guna, even though most answered that they did have a predominant guna at the moment, the majority stated that it usually varied throughout the different phases of their lives, shifting between the three gunas. Half said that they felt this shift all the time, inside of the current phase they are in, and even during the same day. The other half felt a more predominant stable guna with small variations in specific moments.
In terms of having them at the same time, the opinion was also divided. Half felt that all three gunas were present as a unity in oneself even though one guna is more predominant carrying the energy in that moment. One person said “It feels essential to have all of them. They need one another. I almost think u can’t have one without the other. Humans are so complex. It is like holding the idea of love and death at the same time”. The other half believed it was not possible to have them at the same time, but maybe following one another. One person affirmed: “They are very opposite to each other. Peace, energy and apathy at the same time? [Having them together] sounds like schizophrenia to me”.
About going through rajas to get to a sattvic state from tamas. Most people agreed that when in tamas, it is better to go through rajas to get to sattva, even if it is just for a brief moment. They affirmed that it was easier because when you are in tamas you have no energy to do anything, you are stagnated. In rajas there is acceptance of yourself and you feel the energy moving. Then, you can try to control this energy, find a balance, a focus and feel more into sattva. For example, one person was in a meeting. She started to feel discomfort with the way the
meeting was flowing. She felt paralysed, stagnated, felt like not doing anything (tamas). Then, she made the effort to express it, got into action (rajas). Afterwards she felt something opened up and she went back to feeling balanced, stable and peaceful again (sattva).
Even though most people agreed it was easier to go through rajas to get into sattva, some also mentioned that they had experienced going from tamas directly into sattva, by for example accepting the tamasic mode. “When I’m in tamas, if I try to act if feels forced. If I just sit by a tree something natural arrives from it into balance.”
By the interviews, it was possible to observe, the polarity presented by Goethe between Tamas and Sattva. While the first is confused and dark, the second is balanced, clear and peaceful. Rajas appeared as a third element confirming the threefoldness and showing elements from tamas (lack of goal and coherence, egotism) and sattva (energy, movement, creativity).
However, it is important to emphasize — as Steiner affirmed while applying threefoldness to the human body and mind — the three gunas are not separate demarcated psychological states. On the contrary, there is an integration. They represent the nature of living, a dynamic movement, capable of flowing through one another. (SUCHANTKE, 2010)
The three qualities of life are extremely unstable and can quickly oscillate between the different gunas. The predominant guna of the mind acts as a lens affecting the way we perceive the world around. Humans have the distinctive capacity to intentionally modify the levels of the gunas in our minds. A guna can be decreased or increased through inner work by changing thoughts, lifestyles and practices or through the interaction and influence of external experiences. (BURGIN, 2008) Gandhi exemplified a life dominated by sattvic values revealing the quiet power of humility and non-violence. (Kumar, 2007)
Satish Kumar in his book “Spiritual Compass” (2007, p. 77 & p.121) emphasizes the importance of searching for a more sattvic way of living to regain the once lost connection to ourselves and to Gaia: “The transformation has to be a transformation in our consciousness and a movement away from our separational, rajasic or tamasic identity to our shared, sattvic, relational identity” “…Gaia can only take place if we maintain a sattvic way of life, then we should be able to share the gifts of Gaia and live happily together without destroying her. Human development is sustainable only within the limits of finite Earth.”
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