The intellect may be considered as having the best type of “understanding” if it can readily discriminate among beings and situations in its field of activity. The intellect has various functions — observing, analysing, classifying, willing, wishing, remembering and a host of others — and yet, we find that the one faculty essential in all of them is the “power of discrimination.” Without ‘discrimination,’ neither observation nor classification, neither understanding nor judgement, is ever possible. Essentially, therefore, the function of the intellect is “discrimination,” which is otherwise called the faculty of “right understanding.”

An “understanding” (Buddhi) which is capable of clearly discriminating between the RIGHT field of pursuit and the WRONG field of false proposition, is the highest type of “understanding.” The individual must have the nerve to pursue the right path and also the heroism to defect from all wrong fields of futile endeavour. In short, true “understanding” has a ready ability to discriminate between actions that are to be pursued (Pravritti) and actions that are to be shunned (Nivritti).

An intellect that can discriminate between the true and the false types of work must also be able to function in judging correctly “WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG.” Every moment, we are called upon to decide what responses should be made to the flux of happenings and challenges that continuously take place around us. A Sattwic Buddhi always helps us to arrive at the correct judgement. A person in a mood of anger or with a wounded vanity, suddenly resigns his job only to regret thereafter, the folly of his action. His capacity to judge rightly was mutilated by his bad temper of the moment, or by his exaggerated vanity, and so he comes to regret. Arjuna himself had come to a state of mental hysteria when he complained that this power of judgement had been lost, mainly because of his inordinate attachment to his kith and kin.

WHAT IS TO BE FEARED AND WHAT IS NOT TO BE FEARED (Bhaya-abhaya) — “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Men of indiscrimination, in their false evaluation of the sense-world, hug on to delusory objects and things, fearing nothing from them, and yet, they fear to read and understand philosophy, to strive and to experience the Infinite. A true intellect must have the right “understanding” to discriminate between what is to be feared and what is not to be feared.

BONDAGE AND LIBERATION (Bandham-Moksham-cha) — If the “understanding” is clear, we can easily recognise the tendencies in our make-up that entangle the Higher in us, and curtail its fuller play. To observe and analyse ourselves with the required detachment, and to evaluate critically our psychological behaviours and intellectual attitudes in life is not easy; it is possible only for those who are endowed with a well-cultivated Sattwic “understanding.” If we cultivate Sattwic “understanding,” it can not only diagnose for us the false values and wrong emotions that work in us, but also intuitively discover the processes of unwinding ourselves from these cruel vasanas, and help us to regain our personality-freedom from these subjective entanglements.

To summarise: the Sattwic Buddhi is defined as one which makes known to us what type of work is to be done, and what type of work is to be renounced, which distinguishes the right from the wrong, which knows what is to be feared and what is to be faced fearlessly, which shows us the causes of our own present ugliness in life and explains to us the remedies for the same.

Proper “understanding” can make a garden in a desert, can churn out pure success from every threat of failure. Without “understanding” and “fortitude,” even the best of chances will become utter disaster. Right “understanding” can convert the greatest of tragedies into chances for ushering in a prosperous destiny.

WHAT IS RAJASIC UNDERSTANDING?

O Partha, sa, that; buddhih, intellect; is sattviki, born of sattva; ya, which; vetti, understands; pravrttim, action, the path of rites and duties, which is the cause of bondage; and nivrttim, withdrawal, the path of renunciation, which is the cause of Liberation-since action and withdrawal are mentioned in the same sentence along with bondage and freedom, therefore they mean ‘the path of rites and duties and of renunciation’-; karya-akarye, duty and what is not duty, i.e. what is enjoined or prohibited, [Ast. adds laukike vaidike va (ordinary or Vedic injunctions and prohibitions) after vihita-pratisiddhe; and it adds sastrabuddheh before kartavya-akartavye-what ougth to be done or ought not to be done by one who relies on the scriptures.-Tr.] what ought to be done or ought not to be done, action and inaction. With regard to what? With regard to action leading to seen or unseen, results, undertaken according to place, time, etc. Bhaya-adhaye, the sources of fear and fearlessness, i.e. the cuases of fear and fearlessness, with regard to seen or unseen objects; bandham, bondage, along with its cause; and moksam, freedom, along with its cause. In this context, knowing is a function of the intellect; but the intellect is the possesser of the function. Fortitude also is only a particular function of the intellect.