Deep drunkenness looks much the same as deep awakening
Questioner: One of the chapters is on Sattvik and Tamasik action. So how do you distinguish? And you keep saying in the book that there is a fine line between Sattvik and Tamasik actions.
Acharya Prashant: You see, Tamasik action is when you’re conditioned; when you’re in bondage, yet you feel untroubled by your situation. You say, “I am confident, I am doing the right thing. I am at the right place. I know, I understand. I am just all right.” That is Tamasikta. Like a fellow who cares not at all about the world because he is drunk. And then there is the fellow who cares not at all about the world because he realizes the intrinsic nature of the world. This is Sattvikta .
I said, 'There is a fine line between the two because there is a great apparent commonality, similarity.' What is that? Both these fellows are confident of their situation and do not worry too much about the world. But one is confident because one is totally deluded and the other is confident because he is liberated.
Tamasikta has been taken as the lowest of the three Gunas in Prakriti , precisely because it keeps one comfortable. When one is Rajasik then one is restless, but when one is Tamasik , one is at rest—a very dangerous kind of rest.
Questioner: Inaction, suffering.
Acharya Prashant: No, the fellow becomes insensitive towards his suffering. You could visualize a drunkard sleeping on the railway tracks in all bliss, totally unmindful of the world, totally unmindful of his location, his situation and totally unmindful of the tragedy that very soon is going to fall upon him. That’s Tamasikta. So the fellow is not only at the wrong place, he feels no need to change his place. And unfortunately, most people we see around us are Tamasik in nature, we just feel so comfortable in our skin. In fact, we resist any attempts by life to show us the mirror. We want to tell ourselves, “We are okay” and that we often call as positivity. We want to tell ourselves that things are, if not excellent, then at least acceptable with us and that’s a great problem. That’s like somebody willfully hiding his disease; somebody not being honest enough even to carry out a diagnosis. So that’s Tamasikta .
Sattvikta is when you really are on the right track, when you really understand the ways of life, when you really understand the one within who is a master at self-delusion. And therefore, now you’re no more in bondage; you are actually in the right place. So, that’s Sattvikta and that has been taken as the highest point possible to the mind, and after that,only thing left is to go beyond even Sattvikta and that is the Gunatit state, and that is pure Self, the Truth. That’s how Vedanta puts it.
