Originally posed in German on 10th July 2024
by Heinz Grill
This article is a continuation of the previous one.
The three determinants of being in nature and human existence, which according to the ancient sankhya philosophy are called sattva, rajas and tamas, can be found in the human body. When these three forces, which can be analogously translated as purity, restlessness and lethargy, are in a favourable relationship, there is generally good mental-physical well-being. Lethargy should, in the best sense of the word, provide rest and recuperation. Restlessness would ideally be a stimulating dynamic, and purity would be ensured when the consciousness can achieve the best possible, objective perception- and thought-processes.
Anyone who researches health issues, will certainly notice that lethargy does not really mean rest and therefore does not have any value for recuperation. Good activity also suffers from unsound restlessness, nervousness and one-sided desire. Zeal and haste therefore prevent a really regenerating dynamic strength. Finally, true purity, which embodies the sattva guna, does not represent extreme forms, but is measured by the growing relationship that leads to a regenerating joy and resulting good health. As a rule, purity always develops from a conscious and alert relationship with a topic, an object or another person. There are, therefore, three forces that people must actually consciously create: healthy calmness, beneficial, dynamic activity and sensitive, alert awareness. Individuals need to bring about these forms anew every day, so that healthy and regenerating life forces can come to unfold.
The guna sattva lives, for example, in a good nervous system which is always ready for new learning steps. In physiological terms, synapses are formed in the brain through good perceptual processes that expand the consciousness and help individuals to acquire new abilities. According to this philosophy, true purity is defined as coming from the consciousness, which is described as ‘light’, when during development it is accompanied by good learning steps and even impulses that raise morality. The guna sattva is therefore carried by the nature and quality of the consciousness.
An example can easily illustrate the form of purity represented by the principle of sattva: fasting for a few days or a well-chosen, specific diet will clear someone’s blood vessels, relieve their digestive system, usually calm the cardiovascular system and therefore, generally, lead to a purer conditioning of the entire musculoskeletal system. With a fast or a specific diet, a very pure level can be achieved. However, every activity that is formed out of the consciousness with meaningful learning steps, and which integrates new synapses in the cerebral cortex, leads to a greater purity than is possible through passive dieting. If people learn, for example, 10 yoga exercises that they were previously unable to master easily and bring them to a good standard, they will gain a brighter radiance and their cerebral cortex will develop further. Well-chosen healthy activity with engagement that expands the consciousness makes people lighter and less dependent on the passions of the body.
In order for people to embark on this learning-oriented, progressive development of their consciousness, they need aims with clear mental pictures and meaningful, integral references. With this people organise the conditions of rising desire and restlessness into healthy, well-aimed activities. Strong rajas or, in other words, a strong desire, which, for example, sits essentially in the human stomach and therefore constitutes a part of digestion, can be the driving force for healthy activity. A strong stomach that copes well with food through the formation of juices, gives people the strength to formulate aims that reach into the future or, in other words, the production of hydrochloric acid and the entire formation of gastric juices can be considerably strengthen and increased if people muster a great desire for far reaching aims. Rajas, the force that drives people forwards and that is very much beholden to the will, has its starting location in the active digestive organs and also the other organs of the pancreas and the gallbladder. In this region, rajas is very much at home and, when people turn restless phases into clearly aimed activity, they utilise it in an exemplary manner.
The third dimension, which corresponds to tamas, also lives in human nature and is mainly located in the deeper digestive system, in the regions of the unconscious. All those subtle absorption processes that take place in the small and large intestine completely elude the consciousness. The more this lower region of the metabolism can remain at rest, the more the uptake of proteins becomes stronger and healthier, and these can then be built up in the liver in an individual, precisely measured way, specific to the body. It should be noted, however, that the frequently perceived mental lethargy is not a real stabilising calm that can provide the forces that build people up.
In the way described, the light principle of being, sattva, that lives in the consciousness directs itself objectively and with careful relationship and learning. In the middle, where the active metabolic processes take place, especially the catabolic, sharp activity of the enzymes, the principle of activity is found, which could spring from the restlessness, the danger of rajas, although it now moves in the dynamic strength of a state of order. In the depths of digestion, where lethargy, tamas, easily unfolds, phases of deep recuperation can develop through a consciously established calm.
It is important for health that individuals learn to use their consciousness to an increasing extent by establishing the right relationship to certain topics, other people and good ideals. If this active, self-chosen taking up of relationship is lacking, the two lower guna forces increase, either rajas with its hyperactivity or even tamas, so that people seem to fall back into their lower digestion and become unendingly lethargic. Individuals need, therefore, meaningful physical exertion and also a consciousness-forming activity, that strengthens their sensitive nerves.
In a very simple way, make sure that the digestive system is given sufficient rest so that the parasympathetic nerves can intervene naturally and the anabolic processes can take place undisturbed. It is then good to pay attention to straightening up out of the middle of the spine, as the catabolic processes, which tend to correspond more to rajas, gain in this way a natural, health promoting dynamic. Exercises for straightening up out the middle have already been described and should be practised repeatedly in every phase of life, whether in young or older years. Thirdly, it is very important to consciously take up a relationship with the most ideal topics possible, because if this is lacking, individuals can only fall back into one-sidedness.
It is also important for health that all aims, projects and resolutions that have been started can be guided to a meaningful result because if the vice of not following intentions through becomes habitually established, individuals fall back into a lethargy and into a lack of self-confidence. They often develop depression and lose a lot of life force. The principle of making decisions, setting aims, realising them and completing them in a sensible way, with a good result, is therefore extremely important for the organism of life force.
For the next article, simple exercises will be described in relation to the three states of being.
