How to Use Prakriti for Liberation?
Questioner: We have Saumyadeep here with us. He says, Acharya Ji, why does Shri Krishna attack sattvic quality? We all know that sattva is the highest of all prakriti qualities. All Vedic concepts come under the domain of sattva. The Gita attacks tamas and rajas, which is understandable, but why does the Gita attack sattva as well?
** Acharya Prashant:** Gita or Vedanta have nothing to do with sattva. All this is per se. At most, sattva is useful as a means to move away from all three gunas.
It is a basic mistake to think that Gita or Vedanta have to do with sattvikta. Not at all. Even sattvikta is to be rejected as the destiny while even rajasikta is to be embraced if useful as a means. If rajasikta is about, for example, indulging in action as is commonly understood, then what Shri Krishna is asking Arjun for is rajas. He’s asking him to get into the war. Even rajas is alright if it leads to freedom, Mukti.
Ultimately, you have to move to a gunatit state. All three gunas, all said and done, belong to prakriti, and you have to move beyond prakriti, move beyond your association with prakriti, move beyond your consumption of prakriti. Even sattva can become an object of consumption. Don't we know of so many learned and knowledgeable people whose knowledge becomes their identity, who eat their knowledge? Just as it is possible to get trapped in tamas and raja, it is equally possible to get trapped in sattva.
The Gita is about getting rid of all traps, moving beyond all ensnarement. Be it sattva, rajas, tamas or anything.
Anybody who told you that Upanishads or Gita are about sattva, they are mistaken. No, they are not. Everything and anything in prakriti is fine if it is usable in the context of liberation. It just so happens that, of the three gunas, mostly it is sattvik that is most useful and usable. But sometimes even rajasikta might be useful. Sometimes, in extreme cases, even tamasikta might be useful. Even tamasikta might be useful in the context of liberation, but that is rare. Sattvikta has to do with the right knowledge, and so, in the context of usefulness for liberation, 80-90% of the times, it is the sattvic guna that is useful. But sometimes rajasik guna is also useful, and sometimes tamasik guna is also useful.
A fellow whose major problem is his laziness, he is tied to his laziness and thinks of his indolence as something spiritual. You know, "I don't want anything, I don't desire anything." The thing is that you do want something, and that is perpetual rest, and that's what you're always craving for—a couch potato. One of the ways to liberate this person might be the rajo guna. Make him run, make him run, because his trap is his laziness. Make him run. So in this context, rajo guna might be a useful thing.
It was not without reason that Vivekananda said that this country would benefit better by playing football rather than the Gita. He said that in the context of one particular kid. That kid was probably quite frail and physically unseemly and weak. So he said, "What will you do with the Gita? You, first of all, go and play football."
You see the usefulness of rajo guna here, in the context of liberation?. Similarly, you can think of examples where even tamo guna is useful. Those examples will be relatively difficult to think of because tamo guna is the most, what should I say, the lowest one. So it's rare that you will find this guna useful. But sometimes it can be. In a very approximate sense, you could say that freedom from prakriti is attained only via prakriti. And prakriti means these three roots—sattva, raja, tama.
80% of the time, it is the sattva guna that will be useful, which means you have to listen, read, think, meditate, understand, and reflect. All those things, all those come under sattva guna. 19% of the time, rajo guna might be useful. So that's why you are advised to go to the gym, take up sports, and remain physically active and strong. But 1% of the times, it is also possible that tamas is useful.
Okay, an example has come. Have you heard of Gurdjieff, one of the spiritual teachers of the last century? So one of the things that he used to do was that, was the century, you see, even when you had great advances in psychoanalysis, we were learning of the subconscious. There was also the time of Gurdjieff. His time coincides or, in a very broad sense, with that of Freud, Jung, etc. So we're learning that most of our mind is below eye level, below sea level.
Just as the iceberg is below sea level, similarly, most of our mind is below eye level, which means in a metaphorical sense that we cannot see it, so our bondages too are at a place where they cannot be seen. So even if you clean up the conscious mind, the bondages still remain. And what is there in the unconscious mind that is not visible because it is not on the surface? So the fellow will not talk of it, the fellow will not admit it; it will never come to the surface. So Freud said, "Fine, we will look at dreams." Freud also said, "We will use hypnosis to make this fellow speak out things that are usually hidden."
Gurdjieff said, "We will get him drunk; otherwise, he will not reveal what is there in the depths of his mind." Now, drinking is usually associated with tamas, but Gurdjieff is using tamas for a beneficial purpose. So a fellow will come and say, "You know, I'm such a great person. I never get angry, I never do any such thing, this that." Then you know, "I'm a religious man, so I have never taken even a drop of wine."
Gurdjieff will say, "Okay, bring 40 bottles." And that fellow would either have to run away or keep taking in one bottle after the other, and soon he would be so abusive and so angry.
And Gurdjieff would say, "Watch this, this is who you are. This is where your disease lies, and all your life you have just been pretending. You have been pretending to be a sage, you have been pretending to be a well-tempered person, and all the anger is just hidden. You have been pretending all kinds of countenance and abstinence, and now look at the eruption of sexuality from your unconscious."
The fellow was such a very mild-natured one, a perfect gentleman. Four bottles down, he's erupting, yelling, bellowing, "Where are the prostitutes? I need them!" And Gurdjieff would say, "This, this—watch this. This is who you are, and you have kept it hidden all the time. And all this is rotting in your mind, and this is the neurosis that you are carrying within. How will you ever get healthy?"
Either the fellow at that point would feel so embarrassed and ashamed that he would run away. Some of them actually attacked Gurdjieff. They said, "You have shown us what we never wanted to see, and now we'll never be able to respect ourselves." Some of them actually attacked Gurdjieff. Some of them ran away, and calumnized him. They would go out and then spread all kinds of canards and stories, and say, "Gurdjieff is doing this, that, and evil fellow." He was a very controversial teacher.
But those who remained, they got free. Those who had the honesty and the guts to stay, they experienced liberation—if it can be experienced in that sense. Are you getting it?
So even tamas is not something that is necessarily to be rejected. But I'm not asking you to get drunk and do all kinds of things from the rooftop. We said, "Only in one out of 100 cases, can tamas be useful." Otherwise, most of the times, the guna that takes you out of all gunas, the guna that leads you to gunatit freedom, is sattva.
So you limit yourself to sattva. I have not said anything beyond that, right? And beyond sattva, I have only said, you can, you must go and exercise. So a little bit of rajas is what you need. What do we say? Adyatm and Vyayaam—so that is sattva and rajas. We don't go beyond that, right?
So can you just unhear everything? Is there a button like that? Unhear? Unsee?
Delete it from your history. The entire—see, look at my tendencies. On one hand, I'm asking you to unwatch it, on the other hand, something in me wants to elaborate on it.
The entire field of Tantra is based on these makars. They say that which is forbidden becomes entrenched, so we will go exactly into that which is forbidden.
So there are these makars—madya, maithun, māṃsa—that is the path of Tantra. They say these are the things that will typically take you down, and they’re also socially prohibited. And because they’re socially prohibited, they become the deep disease of suppression inside you.
So we will take that route, and because it is the unconventional route, hence it is called the Vaam marg. The Vaam marg. It is for those who cannot give up their habits. They’re fine—if you cannot give up your habits, let’s go into your habits and explore them.
That's another example of how even tamas can be useful in the process of liberation. But that’s only 1%, 1%. And that too under the careful supervision of somebody who knows how to deliver the dose.
None of you is getting any ideas, right?
Okay, fine.
