Abhinav Khare deep dives into the seventeenth chapter of the Bhagvad Geeta, where according to Krishna, people with sattvic nature will worship God, people with rajasic nature will worship demons and those with tamasic qualities in them will worship dark spirits
Arjun poses a question to Krishna. He asks, what is the guna in a person who worships God with faith but rejects the scriptures. Krishna then replies that there are three types of faith. With each faith corresponds the inner nature of a person and the dominating guna. According to Krishna, people with sattvic nature will worship God, people with rajasic nature will worship demons and those with tamasic qualities in them will worship dark spirits. He even classified foods according to these. Sattvic food is fresh, rajasic food causes discomfort and tamasic food is bland and old. People who worship with faith are sattvic, those who worship out of desire are rajasic and those who worship without faith are tamasic. Sattvic controls our body, mind and faith without desires, rajasic controls our pride and tamasic controls our urges to harm others. Krishna then teaches the phrase Om Tat Sat to Arjun. Om is the beginning of charity and worship, Tat means the absolute and Sat means praiseworthy action.
अनुद्वेगकरं वाक्यं सत्यं प्रियहितं च यत् |
स्वाध्यायाभ्यसनं चैव वाङ्मयं तप उच्यते || Shlok 15
The austerity of speech are the words which never cause distress, they are truthful and inoffensive, they are beneficial and involve a regular recitation of the Vedas.
Krishna breaks down the three gunas and shows how they affect all phases of one’s life. Sattva is the only guna that can lead the Self to God. Rajas and tamas do not affect a person positively and drag a person farther away from God. Tamas is an evil quality that makes one harm people and rajas is a quality that makes a person greedy and egoistic. Krishna tells that faith and yoga alone cannot lead a person to freedom from sufferings. A profound understanding of scriptures is also required. He does ask Arjun to take the oath of knowledge but he also does ask Arjun to never go against the teachings of our scriptures as it does hold the utmost importance.
About Abhinav Khare:
Abhinav Khare is the CEO of Asianet News Network and also the host of a daily show named Deep Dive with AK. He has a lifetime collection of books and gadgets and has already pinged more than hundred cities around the globe.
He is a tech entrepreneur, who is passionate about policy, technology, economy and philosophy from ancient India. He earned an MS Engineering from the ETH Zurich and an MBA Finance from the London Business School.
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