In this stanza, Krishna, the great conversationalist, is summarizing again what he has already mentioned in the previous stanzas. Herein, he is indicating in brief the results gained when a psychological being lives the three gunas severally.
THE FRUIT OF GOOD ACTIONS, THEY SAY, IS ‘SATTWIC’ AND PURE — If we carefully analyse, we shall find that thought is the father of all action. Thoughts are the seeds sown, and actions the harvest gathered. Seeds of weeds cannot but produce weeds; bad thoughts can manifest only as bad actions. And the negative actions in the outside world, fatten the wrong tendencies of the mind and thus multiply the inward agitations.
It is, therefore, true in the logic of our philosophy — and extremely true in the logic of our worldly experiences too — that if one is to live a quiet, contented and cheerful life of service and devotion, of love and kindness, of mercy and compassion, and live thus a “good life,” certainly such a life indicated the Sattwic nature of one’s mind. And such an individual, living such a noble life, must necessarily grow in his inward purity.
It may be asked how one can start becoming good when one is already so bad at present. If actions are the expressions of thoughts, and if the existing mental nature is negative, how can we expect such an individual to bring about a change in the climatic conditions within his bosom? All religions, the world over, answer this question in their injunction and insistence that seekers of truth, devotees of the Lord, votaries of culture — all must strive to live ethically a pure, moral, and noble life.
No doubt, disciplining the mind and changing the quality of thoughts are not easy jobs; but to change to type of actions and to discipline our external movements is relatively easy. Therefore, to practise goodness, to discipline our behaviour, to act the good Samaritan, are all the beginning of this great scheme of self-revival. When noble action is undertaken soon it becomes a habit and this external habit of discipline tends to discipline the mind.
Hence, the insistence, in all cultures, that from childhood, elders must be respected, authority should be obeyed, lies must not be uttered, scriptures are to be read, education must be undertaken, cleanliness must be practised etc. When these are enforced upon the child, it, perhaps, takes them all as varieties of tyranny under which it is compelled to live. In the long run, however, these rules bring about unconsciously a discipline in the minds of the children.
A thrilling joy of mental serenity, a state of minimum agitation, a capacity to direct this mental strength of such a dynamic mind towards any single-pointed self-application — these are all indicated as the fruits of good actions, when the mind grows in Sattwa-guna and purity. Passions and agitations are the impurities in the mind; bad actions increase them; good actions, by their very nature, quieten the mind and sap its passions.
THE FRUIT OF ‘RAJAS’ IS PAIN — This phrase only supports our commentary on the previous one. It has already been said that Rajas is of the nature of passion, giving rise to insatiable desires and extreme attachment, and in our attempts to fulfil them, we get drowned in a multiplicity of actions. (Stanzas 7, 12). Thus, one with a mind under the influence of Rajas, entertains desires, and in order to pacify the stormy conditions, one is forced to act in the world outside striving to acquire, to possess, to keep, to spend, to enjoy, to save, and to preserve what has been saved. Slowly, the individual is dragged into an entombing morass of suffocating death, in a stinking pit of pain and agony. “VERILY THE FRUIT OF RAJAS IS PAIN.”
IGNORANCE IS THE FRUIT OF ‘TAMAS’ — That dullness in action, heedlessness and illusion are the symptoms of Tamas in our subtle-body, has already been indicated. Here it is said that Tamas veils our discriminating capacity and foils our attempts at understanding and rightly judging the world of things and beings and the world of happenings around us.
Rajas breeds agitations in the mind. And Sattwa is that condition within us when the mind has least thought agitations and the intellect is clear and bright in its rational and discriminative powers. In short, Sattwa is the “condition of dynamic quietude” which is the creative moment in man’s inward nature.
AND WHAT ARISES FROM THE ‘GUNAS’?
