Saturday, August 18, 2012

The Three Mental Temperaments

The mental temperaments of human beings, known as gunas in Sanskrit, are of three types. Each has a distinct character of its own. They are known as: tamas or inactive, rajas or active and sattva or trans-active.

Tamas is the state of thoughts in inertia; a mood of lethargy, indolence, indifference. Indisposed to activity, in a condition of sloth and sleep and with no intellectual conviction to pursue, nor emotional feeling to manifest, a person steeped in tamas lives a dull, inactive life, with hardly any response to the world.

Rajas is the state of passionate, desirous and agitated thoughts when a person bristles with frenzied actions leading to his involvement in the affairs of the world.