The ultimate purpose of spiritual life, of thinking about the Truth of things, of Yoga is to come to that

realisation of Who am I? and correct the wrong identity with the false little i.. to understand
that the Higher Self is my true identity and that there are not trillions of Higher Selves in each
thingthere is only one. Just appears as many.

But the mundane purpose of spiritual life, of Yoga to me, is it makes life better, more bearable, less
burdensome. And it also makes life interesting. Instead of drifting like a clueless fool to whichever
way fate pushes me, I find myself like a curious child, watchful and entranced. Watching the world
but more importantly, watching this mind of mine. Like I am a spectator for whom this entire drama
has been created. I watch myself perform.

It is a different plane of existence.

And so now we continue our discussion of Prakriti.

To recap what weve discussed so far---

The Absolute Reality appears to be this vast Universe (Prakriti) and the Observer (Consciousness).
The Observer in us, that dispassionate Awareness in us, is the core, the centre. It is the immutable,
immovable, constant, still PRESENCE within us. The Eternal Subject. Everything outside of that is
Prakriti. This includes the mind, intellect and body and the world around us. The Eternal Object.

The fact that a stone or a star is Prakriti is easily grasped. That material things are not Consciousness
is easily grasped. But it is not so easily grasped that the mind and the intellect are also not
Consciousness. That the relationships we cling to are not the Absolute Reality also requires some
thought.

And so we have the criteria of how Prakriti is recognised. And so we start applying these criteria to
the ocean and the tree and the car to familiarise ourselves, before we apply the same criteria to our
mind, our thoughts, our intellect and our relationships and Samsara bubble.

I did the easy part. I told you the criteriaPrakriti is that which is constantly moving, changing,
cannot be objectified and has a beginning and an end. And then applied these to the Jagat around
us. You did the hard partdiscussed how the mind, intellect and relationships (Samsara) are also
Prakriti.

As an aside, I had told you that Yoga is a Scientific way of living. If you think deeply about it, the
criteria for Prakriti are scientific. At first glance, when I mentioned it, you would have scratched your
head and thought, what is she on about? But when you saw how I applied it to Jagat and later YOU
applied it to the mind, intellect and Samsarahow exquisitely scientific and well thought out the
criteria are.

Now that the basic idea is in place, we go further.

I will not lie. I have got goosebumps as I write this. I LOVE this topic. It is so very logical, infallible,
useful and captivating. I am so enthusiastic to share it with you!

THE THREE GUNAS OF PRAKRITI

Prakriti is divided by the Masters of Yoga into 3 GUNAS or modes or attributes or tendencies
We have now reached the time to learn 4 new Sanskrit words. Remember it is not for the glory of
Sanskrit (the most glorious language though it is) that I insist upon learning the words, nor is it
because I am a stubborn arrogant person. It is because there are NO equivalent words in the English
language that encompass the total meaning of these words. There are words that give partial
glimpses only. For example, if I were to translate Prakriti as matter- as opposed to
Consciousness, it only gives a partial meaning. You can see it is much deeper.

So the word is Guna. I have given 3 applicable word translations for it above. Mode or Attribute or
Tendency (my favourite). We will come back and discuss this word in more detail. Right now, just
flow with it.

The 3 Gunas of Prakriti are as follows-

Sattva

Rajas

Tamas

These 3 words are something you are going to have to learn, please.

EVERYTHING in Prakriti is made up of these 3 Gunas. EVERYTHING.

While I will briefly talk about Jagat/ the Objective world, in relation to these 3 Gunas, the focus is our
little i, the mind and intellect in particular. Because the objective is to understand ourselves and
our relationship with the world.

I am attaching random little images that I found on Google. Not because they are lovely or totally
accurate, but to give you a feel of these 3 gunas. We will be talking in much depth about them in the
coming few weeks.

Remember, these are randomly searched images from Google. It is not like I totally agree. And we
are going to be discussing far, far beyond the pithy little words here. We are going to completely and
comprehensively study each Guna.