ū Ṇ Ṇ🔗

Our center is our true nature. Our true nature is divine. We are one with the universal energy, God, Parāśakti or whatever we want to call it. We cannot describe it. We can just experience it. We experience bliss when our focus is in that central core and not out at the edges of our personality. Throughout life we run away from that center, that core of bliss, that space of completion.

Completion is removing the delusion of incompletion, which makes you cognize the other is separate from you; the delusive cognizance, the delusive cognition.

Our senses lead us towards the periphery where incompletions are, where material objects are. Our inner core is empty: it is śūṇya. But it is also pūrṇa, complete by itself with nothing else needed to top off the bliss. However, the outer periphery of incompletions is forever changing. Nothing is eternal about it. Even when objects are the same, our perceptions keep changing. This periphery is māyā, illusion, tamas, ignorance. Understand, incompletion has no existence. Incompletion is the delusive cognition that stands between you and the Whole. Complete with everything

Our rājasic nature, the restless activity that strives to introduce purpose into something that is essentially without purpose, keeps driving us away from the center of completion into this peripheral darkness of incompletions, tamas and māyā. Rajas always drives us into tamas. Aggression, passion, attachment and aversion eventually take us into delusion and ignorance.

But from time to time we get that spark of intelligence that says— there is more meaning to life than fantasies. We start searching. When we seek our true nature, we move towards our center, the core of bliss. Then something in the external space attracts us and we move out to the periphery.

We keep moving in and out, from center to periphery, from periphery back to center. That is why human beings are called eccentric! They can neither be in the center nor in the periphery. They settle in between and keep oscillating. They are eccentric. They are neither in complete madness nor in completion with their divine consciousness.

The movement towards our core, our true self, ātma is driven by satva. The movement outwards is driven by rajas. When we are fully settled in the periphery, we are caught in tamas. We are no longer human. When we settle into the center which is the space of completion, we go beyond the three guṇas. We become the triguṇa rahita, the Divine one who is beyond the three attributes, who is pūrṇa—complete.

Help the student understand: We can move towards our core, true self, atma only when we are in satva. When we are in tamas, we forget our spiritual nature. When we are in rajas, we have a vague idea; however, even the seeking for spiritual experience becomes an attachment, another pattern, goal and desire. When we settle into our core which is the space of completion, we go beyond the three guṇas

• ❖ Why is the depression of success difficult to address?
• ❖ What causes tamas when we move towards the spiritual path?
• ❖ What are the dangers in being predominantly Rajasic?
• ❖ How does one's gunas or predominant qualities affect our afterlife?
• ❖ What are the benefits of being predominantly satvic?
• ❖ Who is a triguṇa rahita or one who is beyond the three guṇas?