Why is tamo-guna needed at all?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
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it is not with karma.
Thank you. So, now, sattva vrata sthamas, balance of three modes is required. Now, is sthamas really necessary? Actually, we, all these three, they comprise material nature.
So, Krishna says, material nature is comprised of these three modes. So, sattva, vrata, sthamas, we can consider them in terms of what they are associated with. Sattva is associated with maintenance.
Vrata is associated with creation. Sthamas is associated with destruction. Now, if you look at the routine course of life, maintenance of things is important.
But there are situations where creation is also required. There are situations where destruction is also required. So, now the problem comes that when maintenance is required, you destroy things.
So, for example, if I have an old habit, if I have an old habit, which is not of the earlier, I want to destroy it. So, destruction of any form that involves a certain amount of sthamas. But, the point is, it is more important for me to sustain whatever good habits I have.
That is where we shall go. When I develop good habits, new habits, that requires rajas. Doing anything new requires rajas.
We shouldn’t stereotype that all sthama-bhune activity is bad. See, when we sleep, sleeping is associated with sthama-bhune. Now, sleep, at one level, what does it do? Actually, we do nothing in sleep.
In modern science and the philosophy of science, sleep is a big mystery. Why it is? That, you know, why do we sleep? We may say that it is for bodily rest and restoration. But, we could have had bodily rest and restoration without having to switch off our machines.
It’s like, nowadays some people have some alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. So, those people are there at some time and then switch off. Suddenly go to some other one and talk with them.
It’s as if they are not there. So, it’s quite a disturbing thing to be there with somebody like that. But, actually, all of us, in a day-to-day course of life, 6-8 hours we are not there.
We are here, suddenly we are not there. Just because it’s a universal phenomenon, does not make it any less unusual, less inexplicable. So, the point is that actually, during sleep, what happens and there are various, many things that happen.
Baldev Vidyavarshan, Vedanta Sutra commentary has a whole section on sleep and dreams. But, suffice it to say, for our discussion, that at a biological level, there is the rejuvenation of the body. That means there is destruction of the tiredness.
So, when we are feeling tired and we take a rest, you know what happens? The tiredness goes away. So, that is constructive. I saw in the roads here in Australia, they repeatedly wrote, a power map can save your life.
So, what is happening?