How Your Mind Shapes Reality: Gunas Explained

Episode Transcript

Debra 00:00
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Jung on Purpose. I am Debra Maldonado.

Dr. Rob 00:06
I’m Dr. Rob. Welcome to the show.

Debra 00:08
And today we are talking about states of mind that shape our reality. And we’re going to introduce, if you haven’t heard of it, the concept in the Gita called the gunas. And so we’ll we’ll talk about that, but before we begin, I do want to ask you to subscribe to our channel if you’re watching us on YouTube. If you’re listening to us on one of the podcast service, we’d love for you to subscribe to our channel, get every episode, and that helps us get more listeners and more people listening to this content. So we appreciate it. So you know, one of the things I learned early on is that I got really, really into my unconscious work, and I was so fascinated with the unconscious. I thought, oh, I just forget about mindset. Ah, that’s simple stuff. I want to go do this deep inner transformation, inner. But then I forgot that the mindset also is important. So it’s not that you just forget about mindset. It’s just that the mindset works really well when you do the inner work, but you’ll have to remember that deep inner work is so profound that many people, and I see this my clients over the years, forget the mindset piece. You know, forget to go back to how you’re thinking, and so it’s not really thinking positive. But we’re going to talk about how we think, and and you said, you know, the types of thoughts arise and how to work with them. So, what do you have to add to that, Rob?

Dr. Rob 01:30
Yeah, the the fascinating thing about the gunas is that they’re very ancient. This philosophy goes back I don’t know a few 1000 years, maybe, and it still holds up today. We can use it to assess our own mindset, our own state of mind, and like you said in the in the beginning, our state of mind creates our reality because it it’s like the lens that we see the world through, that we see ourselves through that we see experience or interpret experience through, so that that state of mind is really important. And the ancient traditions, the wisdom traditions, understood this, and so they formulated these three gunas. And guna simply means quality, quality of mind, quality of nature, and you can apply it actually to any any phenomena, and it operates really well. But for our interest, we’re going to focus on the states of mind and how they translate into what we call our life, our experience, our reality,

Debra 02:43
and also people who do coaching are here to move forward in their life. You know, to find a new purpose, get a new relationship, get a new career, make more money. You know, create something with their life. We don’t just do the inner work to reach enlightenment. We want to have a human life that also, not to say to get things, but to have the most incredible experience in life, and that includes having things that we enjoy in every day. So we have these goals, and you know sometimes we can’t choose the thoughts that we have. They arise autonomously all the time, and if we try to, I always say, trying to get rid of your negative thoughts is like emptying the ocean with a spoon. Like you can’t do it, but you can learn to recognize the state of mind that you’re operating in, and that’s the greatest freedom: is discovering how you can shift states and recognize when you’re in a state that’s not going to give you what you want, and and and that causes misery and and and even disease and and illness in the body if you’re in the a state of mind that isn’t about you know with the gunas we would say the sattva mind the highest way of the clarity. So let’s talk about the gunas, and we’ll go deeper in this guna. What is a guna? It’s. I always think of the Goonies. That show, the movie in the 80s. The Goonies. I don’t think that’s it. I never saw that movie, by the way. But what is the gunas

Dr. Rob 04:11
nothing to do with the Goonies.

Debra 04:13
Okay,

Dr. Rob 04:15
it is a Sanskrit word, and it comes from an ancient Philosophy called prakriti, which means nature, and purusha, which means the divine person or the divine consciousness. So you have essentially spirit and matter, and the philosophy itself is called Samkhya, and Samkhya for those for you yogis out there, you might recognize it as the foundational philosophy of yoga. If we had a time machine and we went back and talked to Patanjali, the compiler of the Yoga Sutras, he’d understand this this concept perfectly. The the gunas. Then, are the qualities that we see in the manifested world, in in the observable universe? We might say, in modern terms, the observable universe, meaning everything we we can experience and see as matter, contains these three gunas that give the give the the appearance, its shape, its form, its qualities. Excuse me. And what guna is

Debra 05:32
meaning? Well, can I just say what the guna meaning is? It’s a it’s a quality or an attribute, and it can also mean a strand or a thread. So the gunas are connected. They’re not on and off switches. They’re all connected through a thread. So let’s start with the gunas, Rob. Start with the the tamas.

Dr. Rob 05:53
Yeah. So tamas is the the first guna, and it translates roughly as inertia, like heaviness, solidness, inertia.

Debra 06:04
I think of it as like a stagnant pond.

Dr. Rob 06:07
Yes,

Debra 06:07
you know that’s like just sitting or muddy, a muddy

Dr. Rob 06:09
pond that you you get stuck in. And we’ll talk about the mental aspects, the mental states that corresponds to tamas. The next one is rajas, which is roughly translated as activity. So I was and it’s

Debra 06:27
spelled R A J A S for people that

Dr. Rob 06:30
yes rajas,

Debra 06:32
and it’s so it’s activity, it’s movement. Where I was thinking stagnation, yeah, and rushing, yeah, like a passionate, like well, we all I think the whole world is Western world is in rajas, always doing, always doing, yeah.

Dr. Rob 06:46
Yes, exactly. And then the third one is sattva, beautiful word. It means clarity. The sattvic mind then is what we’re going to focus on towards the end of the the call. And now these qualities of nature-they’re everywhere. So, if you look out the window, you what you’re seeing is essentially these qualities in action, and everything contains them. So, every action, every thought you have contains these three qualities. It’s simply that one predominates. So, like for

Debra 07:24
example, a simple example people use a lot with transformation is the the the caterpillar creating their little cocoon and being in this state of inertia for a little bit, just kind of reprogramming, realigning their body skeleton, and you know, as one of our coaches say, bug soup, and that would be tamas. It’s kind of inertia. It’s not totally inertia because it’s not not doing anything, but it’s not that active, active. It’s kind of going in, having that space reconnect, re evolving into something else, and then when it breaks free, it’s back to rajas again. It’s it breaks free. It’s moving, but so you see that rajas isn’t bad, but it’s not always. I mean, tamas isn’t bad. It has its its benefits, but it can also be very destructive if we if that is what we’re doing all the time, so if we think about stages, we go in and out of these stages mostly between. Most people go between rajas and and tamas, which is the inertia and the activity. Most people go back and forth through that, and and what we’re doing is we’re not in that state. We’re not. It’s not good or bad. It’s just how are we in those states, and what are we, what what are we, what’s the intention in those states? So, someone who is laying on the couch, watching Netflix all day, unemployed, or working, living in your parents’ basement, not really trying anything, you know, maybe smoking some pot, and you know, just like no activity, no vision. That’s that inertia, and that would be predominant in someone. What do you think their life would be like? What do they think their state of mind is like? And then the opposite would be the super achiever who’s out there, you know, chasing the dream, going after things, and and you know making things happen and creating things, but he could also or she could also be attached to like themselves and and coming from a more ego place when they’re approaching that. So both of those are actually equal. Like, are you laying down? You’re still attached to the ego, or are you chasing something, and a lot of times we’re chasing, we’re running away from the person that’s on the couch doing nothing. The super achiever is that almost like that is in their shadow, and they’re running away from it. So you’re not really free because you’re still tied to those things.

Dr. Rob 09:58
Yeah. So let’s back. Up a little bit because we want to give people kind of the sense of how how does this apply to us in our everyday life? Mental states we know in psychology are really important just for anything you’re doing, right? If you want to be creative, you want to be successful. You have to work with your mind, you have to be able to generate a certain mindset or a state of mind, and sattva is the ideal one. But we have to deal with tamas and rajas first. If we don’t understand how to do that or or what they are, then we can easily fall into that pit of tamas or rajas. So the gunas are not personality types; they’re not persona types or personality types. They describe dynamic conditions of nature and mind. So it’s like how they’re

Debra 10:59
being. It’s a beingness. It’s a state, not a

Dr. Rob 11:03
state. Exactly. Exactly. And what the usefulness of these understanding these these gunas is is that you can assess your own mental state, and consciously, once you understand them, you can consciously then move towards sattva, which is the ideal state of mind, and and it’s so for anyone that’s really has big projects, is doing business, is creative person. This is really useful because they can look at their own state of mind and say, yeah, right now I’m in rajas, I need to do certain things, and we’ll talk maybe a little bit about how we do those things to get to that sattvic mind. And remember, all three are present all the time in your mind, but one predominates. So we’re we’re really really asking then which is predominating in my mental state right now, right. So the let’s let’s begin with tamas then. Like you, the state of inertia. Think of it

Debra 12:07
as the bottom of a corkscrew and winding up. So the tamas is kind of winding downward, and then the rajas is in the middle, spinning in the middle, and sattva is living, like kind of moving out of the the attachment and going to a higher clarity.

Dr. Rob 12:23
Yeah, I also think of them as these two opposing poles. You have tamas, which is inertia, and rajas, which is very active, and then in the middle or the balance of those two is sattva, kind of the the transcendent point between the two.

Debra 12:42
It’s like I always think of the sattva as the observer watching the two, but not the witness mind yet. But kind of like the part of us that’s aware and clear and consciously choosing the state. But for most people of the world, the sattva is very, very a small part of their existence, they’re run by rajas and tamas, and they go back and forth. So, so let’s go to tamas. It’s if you’re you’re in tamas, this might sound familiar to most of us. We all have those states where we have a confusion in life.

Dr. Rob 13:16
Confusion. We talk

Debra 13:17
about this in the midlife after 30. We start to say, “I don’t know if I really like this job anymore or this career that I wanted, and we start to feel a little like apathetic to the world. Maybe some indifference.

Dr. Rob 13:31
Absolutely,

Debra 13:32
and we know we need to do something, but we’re avoiding it. We’re procrastinating.

Dr. Rob 13:37
Yeah, it’s easier to stay for many of us. It’s easier to stay where we are, even though we’re unhappy, and that’s a state of tamas. Essentially, we’re just kind of settling. We we have a heavy feeling about ourselves in life. There’s not much movement, not much dynamic inspiration, a mental rigidity. In other words, where we get locked into this way of thinking, and we get stuck. Right? We we seem we can’t seem to break out of that rigid thinking.

Debra 14:13
We don’t think like open to new ideas or even open to change. And then we’re in that automatic behavior. You’re just kind of going through the motions in life, so it’s it’s you. You might be taking action, but it’s it has no passion to it. It’s just like going up, like taking the the nine to five and coming back on the train and commuting and doing it all over again, and and just thinking, why am I here?

Dr. Rob 14:37
That’s right.

Debra 14:38
And you’re really disconnected from your purpose, which I want to just point out that this is like again not bad. It’s just that you you don’t realize you’re in it until you do, and then it’s like it’s pointing. This is why I feel this bad because I’m in this state of mind of rigidity. There’s no nothing else. Life is. This is just what life is, and we’re not inspired by any. But it’s a calling, you know. We get to that point where we feel like it’s a it can lead to a wake up call.

Dr. Rob 15:06
Yep, and we’ve all been there. And the reason, saying the philosophy, tamas is always present because we need it. It’s also the grounding element. It gives us the solidness of that feeling that we have of, yeah, I’m here and I’m being in life, and so without it, our life would be too airy fairy. It wouldn’t have that solidity to it. So it’s useful, but in as a mental state, when when it predominates, then we get into that mental pit of kind of almost like walking through mud. It’s very difficult for us to make changes in our life, to do things, to really be inspired. And I know

Debra 15:57
it kind of feels like you give up in a way. You get complacent. I think this is this is as good as it gets.

Dr. Rob 16:05
Yes,

Debra 16:06
and and then you get identified with that identity. Like your state becomes a trait. You think this is who I am. I’m someone who never does anything with their life, not capable of anything. And if you think about the kid on the couch living with his parents, he’s feeling that way. He he doesn’t feel inspired. He doesn’t feel change seems too difficult, you know. And so that’s an opportunity for them to. Well, what do you want to do with your life? Like it’s like you’re and there. There, I think people go through those stages and they get to a point where they it’s too painful to just stay there because it’s not a static state. It it’s slower, but it’s just like the the stagnant pond. If it stays there long enough, the the mold will keep growing and on top of the water, and the the water will get increasingly dense and lifeless. And so it’s it’s not that you it stays there. So you if you stay in that state too long, like the harder it is to get out of it, you know. And so so a lot of times people just think it’s been two years. I haven’t had any inspiration. It feels like it’s going to take two years to get back there, and it can just take a moment. And that’s what we’re we’re here to tell you that this is thinking of these states of mind. If you’re in that place right now, kind of feeling a little helpless or hopeless, and or just confused with your life, not knowing what to do, it’s good. It’s good to recognize it. It’s not a good place to be, but it’s good to recognize it. I’d rather be in not taking action at all and not know what I want, then taking action to something that is not good for me or not that’s going to be not aligned with me, you know. So you’re, it’s a chance for you to figure out what you want.

Dr. Rob 17:53
Yeah, and and most people that come to coaching are not in this state of mind because they can be a little

Debra 17:59
despair, you know, kind of

Dr. Rob 18:01
yeah. They might be coming out of it, or or kind of maybe periodically fall into into tamas, but most people that come to coaching they’re in rajas, which is the next

Debra 18:15
yes

Dr. Rob 18:16
state of mind that we’re going to talk about, and this is the state of desire and activity, in other words, we want stuff and we’re going for

Debra 18:27
it. Ambitious, right?

Dr. Rob 18:28
We have ambition, drive, inspiration. We’re moving, right? But if you look out the window, right, and you when you see those cars rushing past your past on the road or on the street-that’s rajas, right? The the person driving that car is in a rajasic state, meaning they’re actively going somewhere. They’re moving by the subway

Debra 18:52
and rush hour in New York City. You see rajas, right?

Dr. Rob 18:56
And like you say, most of the world is in this state of mind of rajas, and they they consider it. Let’s say most people applaud it and and kind of praise you for it, right? the The workaholic is is seen as maybe like a working hero that they’re so they’re so ambitious and motivated that they do so much, but at the same time, as we’ll see, this is not the best state of mind to be in. So ambitious, right? There’s

Debra 19:29
a go ahead. I was going to read some of that. Restlessness,

Dr. Rob 19:33
mental agitation. In other words, you’re you’re you’re because we’re looking at the state of mind. This the mind in this in this guna is is spinning, like it’s restless, like you you said, right? It’s spinning, and so that you you could be relaxing or trying to sleep, but your mind is still spinning. We’ve all had those restless nights. Where we can’t turn our mind off, it’s just spinning and spinning, and you know we’re trying to get some sleep. Go ahead.

Debra 20:08
Desire for recognition and achievement, competition and comparison, attachment to the outcomes. These all sound very ego esque, and then also that anxiety about the future, and then you’re really dissatisfied with the present, and I think actually both tamas and rajas are kind of that you’re not in the in the moment. You’re like tamas is like like almost like not even want to be present, and then rajas is like I need to run away from being that bum on the couch not to judge anyone, but you know what I’m saying. the the the overachiever doesn’t want to be seen as the person who’s not achieving anything, and so again, that attachment, that restlessness. I mean, I felt that many times when when I first started my own business. You know, the first time before you and I worked together, it’s like I got to get things done. I got to get that book deal. I got to get this done. And you’re, and I remember when I met you, you said, “Where are you going? Where are you going? And I said, “Oh, that’s a good question. It’s like you don’t enjoy the moment. It’s never enough, and no matter how much success you have, it’s never enough, and it keeps getting more. And we could see this in the world. People just keep like almost like being doing anything for success and hurting other people even in the process, and and that feeling of also that never enough racing mind of well when I finally reach this milestone I’ll be happy or I get this I’ll be happy and it’s like if you’re not like you, Rob. You always say if you’re not happy now, you’re never going to be happy. And because the the happiness, depending on the external, we talk about this all the time, is not real happiness. It’s a temporary mirage of happiness that we’ve convinced ourselves. So when we think about the mind, what is the mind doing in rajas? You said it’s obsessing, it’s spinning. What else is happening?

Dr. Rob 22:05
Yeah, it it can be problem solving as well, of course. Just like the tamas has a necessary aspect to it. Rajas, of course, has a necessary aspect to it. It’s the counterpoint to to the tamas, meaning to that inertia, we have activity now. We have active, dynamic movement, and so it’s useful to us because then our mind is inspired. It’s it’s it has plans. It has initiative. It’s the use of the will, right? It’s it’s our ability to assert our desires in the world, and that feels good. And we’re conditioned that way, like from the get go in school. What do they tell us? Work hard so you can get an A, right? Achievement to get an external reward. Very powerful. We’re conditioned, you know, year after year for many years, but there is this dissatisfaction at the end of the road because it’s not the ideal state of mind. It’s not the balanced state of mind, which is the next one.

Debra 23:16
Well, can I just before we go to that? Can I just say when we think about rajas, that mental state, our mind is critical, right? It’s always like you’re not enough, and and you’re in a way you’re running almost like running away from yourself. So you’re running away from that critical mind, thinking if I could just reach this goal, then I’ll think positive again. I’ll I’ll I’ll be I’ll be kind to myself. I’ll congrat. I’ll feel good about myself. I’ll feel better about myself. But that voice is still there, and it’s the tamas. When you’re in tamas, a lot of times we just stop fighting that voice. We’re just like, yeah, I guess I am that. You know, this is who I am. Or we numb ourselves through drugs or alcohol or consuming things or other kind of obsessions that we have that are, you know, just kind of like shutting it out. Where we get very, we’re trying to dull the mind because we we can’t even listen to it. And then the rajas is like, hey, let’s let’s outrun this negative thinking. And and someone was talking about negative or positive thinking. I was watching some video, and they were like, oh, it’s better to just let go of the negative thinking and don’t worry about thinking positive as much, but thinking positive is fine. But dropping negative thinking is going to help. And this is our take on this: is that you don’t want to just push away the negative thinking, and that’s what rajas creates. So if you want to push away or try to clear that belief that you’re not enough, or your critic, your inner critic, those type of things. No, you have to face it. You have to deal with it. You have to get to know it, understand its nature, and understand what is underneath that. That is what’s going to give you escape, and you can only do that.

Dr. Rob 25:00
With a soft mind, which is next state of mind, which is a state of clarity, and we’ve all had that feeling, right? We maybe we get a great night’s sleep, and we just wake up in the morning, and our mind is crystal clear. In the Gita or the Upanishads, it’s described as the mind becomes like a crystal that reflects anything that that is close to it clearly, right? But without attachment, there’s no attachment. That state of mind is really very peaceful. In other words, you can

Debra 25:37
content.

Dr. Rob 25:38
Yeah, you’re content. You’re clear on your in your thoughts, but there’s no rushing. There’s no sense of anxiety, and as well, there’s no attachment to things, meaning you’re not grasping to hold on to things. You’re doing things now. This is not a not a kind of a passive state of mind. You’re actively staying with the things that you need to do, and you’re doing them well with the proficiency and clarity. But you’re not attached to the outcome. And let’s say if you make a mistake or it doesn’t come out the way, things don’t work out the way we want, right? Which is often the case. We’re okay, right? We let it go. It just drops. It’s a wisdom, right? Exactly. It it is like the wisdom, and it is the balance between tamas and rajas. So you have enough activity, but in a calm, grounded state of mind.

Debra 26:41
So I’m going to give you a little story to show this, and what sattva does, like you said, it’s not judging tamas or rajas, it’s not judging the mind. And I think people think meditation is a thing to do to escape the thinking and push it away. What we want to do in meditation is you’re just being in the moment and you’re watching the mind arise, the thoughts arise without grasping them. So I remember we were in New York. We had just moved there. I had a very successful business in Denver. Picked up everything, moved to New York to start over, and I was terrified. I had to start everything over from scratch, get new clients, start my business over after five years or so. We, I was yeah, it was about five years, and so here I was, a little stressed, a little worried, a little beating myself up in my mind that I should be thinking positive. I’m the mindset person. I should know these things. I shouldn’t be afraid. What am I creating here? You know, a kind of doom and gloom thinking. I just had a really bad day of just feeling frustrated. Things weren’t working, and I inst and I just my tendency is to go into rajas to jump away from that negative voice and go, okay, I’m going to do some stuff and makes take some action so that I can get away from that voice and and make it happen so that voice goes away. But this time I decided, you know what? I’m going to just sit with this feeling. I’m going to face this voice and I’m just going to force myself to meditate and purify my mind. And at first it was very hard. I wanted to get up. I was I couldn’t stand the way I was thinking. I was catastrophizing. What am I going to do with my life? And it took about 30 minutes of just sitting there while my mind was having a freakout. But I was kept being present, and then all of a sudden, I had this thought that said, “Remember when you were worried that you were never going to meet someone, and that worked out. This is the exact same feeling, and I thought the mind is always going to find something to chase. And at that moment, every all this anxiety dropped. It was like I was in sattva, having that wisdom and curiosity, going, “Oh, I’m acting for. I was acting from that rajas, and nothing was working because I was so attached, and I was looking for evidence, and I was so you know working against myself. It was like the the tamas was like creeping up, trying to pull me down, and I was like, no, no, I’m gonna make this. And those two, they don’t work alone. Like if you don’t have that wisdom, you’ll go back and forth. So I remember getting up and feeling so clear. It’s like, oh, my mind, this is my mind. It’s not real. It’s always telling me stories, and I stopped believing my thoughts. But I only could do it with the sattva state of mind, because most of us are led by our thoughts. We’re we’re going down a rushing river, like those fast raft rides that you go down the rushing river, and you’re just floating on the tube, and your mind carries you. And sattva is standing on the bank and going, “Let’s look at both sides. Let’s see what’s here, what’s going on. And that non-attachment gave me the wisdom, and it seems so simple. Not attachment. I know that I could practice that, but it’s really hard, especially when you have something you’re really passionate about and you want it to work and you want it to succeed. It’s really, really hard. So that’s that’s an example of how you get to sattva in that moment, and then sattva became predominant. The other the thoughts were still there; they were running, but the sattva was running the show now.

Debra 30:23
The sattvic mind was saying, “Here you clicking clacking over there, a little chicken. Everything’s going to work out. You know, there’s there’s this other thing, and I think one thing too to remember is that, and I think you talk about this a lot too in our trainings, is sattva is not non ego yet. I mean, you’re still, you know, like it’s not purely, it’s not what’s that called transcendence yet. Could you talk about that a little bit?

Dr. Rob 30:49
Yeah, this is a difficult concept for us Westerners to accept because we’re so used to thinking of the brain as the central kind of operating system of consciousness, but the brain is not the center of consciousness. It’s not what produces consciousness. Consciousness is more fundamental. It exists in the universe as the foundation. Then everything we see, experience, and observe is arising from consciousness, so that that means that when we think about these states of mind, we’re understanding that we’re working with the mind, our brain, right? We’re we’re kind of understanding what is the brain doing, what is our my mental state, but who is the observer that’s asking that question? That’s pure consciousness, right? That’s the witness or the the observer in us. And that’s so. Can I just

Debra 31:54
can we? So when I was thinking of the examining the thought, that was a higher state of mind thinking, of self reflection, but it still was not pure consciousness. It was close to it. So I think some people think I’m self aware, and they think that just like like a kind of a lower level awareness of self reflection, that’s not what we’re talking about. That is like a sattvic mind when you’re not attached. But pure consciousness is where we’re completely free. Yeah, yeah. You’re not even identifying as this character. You’re you’re not that in the self reflective mind. When I was talking about sattva, you’re still identifying. Like I was still identifying as myself in that moment, but it is freeing, and that’s really you have to go there first before you can go to enlightenment. So it’s and we will talk about this too. That you can’t go through the the you can’t skip stages. Remember, it’s a string, it’s a spiral. So if you’re in rajas, you can’t just go to enlightenment.

Dr. Rob 33:00
That’s right.

Debra 33:01
It’s really not a. Or you’re fooling yourself. It’s a pseudo enlightenment.

Dr. Rob 33:07
Well, in the Gita, Krishna himself recommends not staying in sattva. In other words, sattva is a useful tool that we can use to be in the world and to manage our mind, and like you, like we were just talking about, our our mental state creates our reality, or what we call our reality.

Debra 33:32
So why isn’t it good to be in sattva all the time?

Dr. Rob 33:35
Well, because you’re still an ego, you’re still kind of in the in the individual aspect. Because you could stay

Debra 33:40
attached to it, your goodness and

Dr. Rob 33:43
yeah,

Debra 33:43
your wisdom,

Dr. Rob 33:45
yeah, your

Debra 33:45
insights,

Dr. Rob 33:46
yeah, and of course, if you’re going to be attached, to be attached to sattva is the best, you know, to be as far as far as attachment goes. But ultimately, you want to be able to transcend that, even that. But let’s go back to this. We’re saying that the state of mind creates our reality. Let’s look at how it does that. So in tamas, what can we create in tamas? Let’s say what what do you think we can create in tamas?

Debra 34:18
Sleep

Dr. Rob 34:18
and because it is inertia. Yeah, the tendency is to rest, yeah. I don’t know.

Debra 34:24
What do you mean? I don’t. What are you saying? You mean nothing?

Dr. Rob 34:29
Well, yeah. I mean, as far as creating, if you’re in tamas, there’s no energy, there’s no creativity, and therefore things remain pretty much the same.

Debra 34:39
Well, they kind of create more of what you’re, where you’re at. Like a, like if it’s more laziness, more addiction. I think that’s what you can create. Is like you’re in that downward downward spiral.

Dr. Rob 34:53
And yeah, and again, because there is that rigidity of thinking, you you’re kind of stuck in the. Same pattern, so it might be, it might be a pattern. It might be something you you might even be working, but the pattern is very rigid, and you can’t you don’t see a a way out of it. You’re stuck. You’re stuck in the cubicle. You’re stuck in the in the dead end job, et cetera, et cetera. Now, if you find yourself in that state of mind because often, you know, just through circumstances we might fall into that state of mind. Do not try to jump to sattva, right? Because we’re saying that’s the ideal, but you cannot jump to sattva when you’re in tamas. There’s not enough energy yet. So yeah, you have to

Debra 35:41
feel inspired first, right, or something.

Dr. Rob 35:44
Well, you have to get the the ball rolling, and so you start you start with a simple action. What action can I take? One simple action, whatever it is, even if it’s a small one. What action can I take that’s outside of my pattern here, and I just focus on that. Just get a small win in that, then you start the ball rolling. Yeah, you start to get into rajas.

Debra 36:11
So, for example, someone who let’s say they haven’t worked out in years and they’re gained a lot of weight, and they’re like, “Okay, I gotta, I gotta get back in shape. I, but it just feels overwhelming to them. Like to get fully into rajas, and you know, I want to be clear, and I want to be detached from my body and love my body and all that. So you just start with doing something simple, like I’m going to walk once a week, or you you start in those small places. And what? Why we say small is you want something winnable. So you. you have that because the ego. Remember, we’re in attachment, so you’re playing on that attachment a little bit to inspire you. So you want to have that little win, so it gives you. It starts building up the rajas because rajas is attachment. So in order to get that passion going, you have to be attached to something. You got to get a win. You got to feel like it’s possible. So again, it’s not bad to be attached to your goals if it’s to start getting you out. It’s to get you out of the way because if you’re not attached, you might not have any desire at all. But that gets the ball rolling. So okay, I’m going to take that step. I’m going to get a win. You know what? I walked this week. I’m so proud of myself. Where I’m going to take an action toward trying to get clients. If you’re a coach, or I’m going to do some research about purpose and what I can do in my life. I’m going to look at go to a go to a workshop on you know purpose and just see what’s there and be open. You know, start opening my mind to something different and something small, or download a podcast like ours and listen to a session and be like, okay, with an open mind, those little steps, and be like, oh, it is possible, and that will keep. It’s almost like energy that starts. You have to start kicking yourself because we’re when you’re in tamas, it’s very heavy, and so you need to start building momentum, and then you will get into rajas. It starts spinning. It’s like after a while things gain momentum, but then you have to get to after that because you don’t want to be spinning again. But you want to get the ball rolling, as you say.

Dr. Rob 38:15
Yeah, and so what we create then in rajas is very different. In rajas, we have energy, we have ideas, we have ambition, but what we create is often dissatisfaction, like that song “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by the Stones. That was that sums up pretty much the rajasic world, the way the way we live it, like we’re very active. We’re doing a lot of things, but there’s no real satisfaction in it because it’s it’s a kind of an empty state of mind. We’re doing simply to to do right. We think that if I do more, I’ll get more, and if I get more, I’ll be happier, like that. More, more, more, more kind of idea. That’s the rajasic state of mind. So, if you find yourself, if you look at yourself and you say, “I’m in rajas, how do I get out of it? Right? How do I step up to sattva? First, you have to take a breather, calm down. Like take a break, right? Just say, “Let’s take a pause. Let’s see what is going on here. What am I doing? So dip

Debra 39:29
in tamas a little bit, like slow it down a little, almost.

Dr. Rob 39:32
Yeah, yeah. But with the intention of going to sattva, and we we start to kind of really ask ourselves, what is my purpose, right? Because

Debra 39:43
what do I really want? What am I chasing?

Dr. Rob 39:45
What am I doing all this for?

Debra 39:47
Yeah,

Dr. Rob 39:48
and that begins to kind of that self reflective element of self inquiry. Now, self inquiry is a beautiful, great tool. We know it works. At many levels, but in this case, it’s simply instead of the arrows pointing outward towards the world and getting things or rushing towards another place, you start to look inward. That’s meditation, right? You were you were talking about or contemplation. Even it does you don’t have to sit and be a yogi. You can just start to contemplate, to look inward. What am I doing? What is my purpose? What do I really want? And who am I? Who who is the one that is doing all these actions? So the philosophy goes deeper because it talks about that you’re not really the doer, especially when you’re acting out of conditioning. So the well, I don’t want to go too deep into this because that’s another podcast. But but let’s say as you start to slow down and look inward, you start to cultivate sattva, and the sattvic mind then is that one that brings in the wisdom. Then you start to see your purpose clearly. You start to see why. What is the purpose of all this? Why am I doing this? Now, purpose is not like some people might say. Well, it’s your profession or it’s your calling, things like that. In this philosophy, purpose does not mean those things. Purpose means acting without ego intention, which is a strange thought. Again, in other words, like most of us think, well, if I’m not acting out of my like to gain something from my actions, why would I act? But that’s precisely the definition of purpose: that you’re not doing it to get the objects; you’re doing it because it’s an expression of your duty, of your sacred duty in life. That’s purpose. That’s purpose. When you find that, when you find a way to express that through your actions, through your work, through building your business, then you can be very active, but still be in sattva, still be calm inside and focused.

Debra 42:18
Yeah. So you see someone who’s constantly, you know, chasing their goals and their dreams, and they’re always busy. And then you see someone else doing the same thing, and two of them inside could have completely different states of mind, where one is doing a lot but never feeling enough, exhausted. They go into tamas at night because they’re just, or they give up sometimes, and they’re not getting that that kind of that that little carrot with the stick, and or they’re or the other person is non-attached, and it looks like they’re doing a lot, but they feel non-attached, so it doesn’t feel so heavy. You know, we when you feel overwhelmed when you’re really busy, there’s a difference between being productive and overwhelmed. When you’re really overwhelmed, it’s not what you’re physically doing. I mean, how many of us do physical work? Most of us are at a desk doing something on the computer most of the time. Or if you’re a medical profession, maybe you’re running around doing stuff. But for most of us, the overwhelm is in our minds. It’s not actually the physical act. You can even be busy if you let’s say you worked in an emergency room. You can move around and do a lot of things, but your mind can be clear. You’re not so caught up in it, and then that’s actually where you serve people better and you serve yourself better. So when you’re feeling overwhelmed, it means that you’re chasing something or running from the voice that says you’re not enough, and trying to, you know, quiet that voice. And I could tell you, just accept it. We all have critical minds. All of us, we have a critic, inner critic, as some people call it. It’s fine. Let it be there. You don’t have to listen to it. It isn’t even you. It’s just an old habit of thinking-it’s like an old rewiring, and and we get into these states because we believe we’re the mind, and when we believe we’re the mind, the mind is in control, and we don’t want to-we don’t want the mind, our mind, our untamed mind-to run our life. We want to gain into control. The first step is that sattvic. Create that awareness. Create that wisdom. That compassion. That non non attachment. And again, this isn’t transcendence yet, but you’re getting there. And the more you can practice that, is really will be beneficial. So let’s go to like just how practical ways how to get out that before we end. So let’s say you’re tamasic. You feel really stuck. You’re in inertia. You know, I was in that stage many times in my life where I was trying to make a career change. I tried something, it didn’t work, and what do I do now? And you feel kind of like lack of energy, lack of inspiration, not know what’s next. Some people have that when they’re empty nesters, you know, or or passing of someone important to them. They feel this kind of like, what’s next in my life? So you said one manageable action, movement, or simple routine to start to just get the ball rolling, and it doesn’t have to be, you know, figuring it all out in in a in a couple days. It’s like let’s just take some action. Let’s do something that um that inspires you and that gives you that little win. And then rajas, you want to talk about what what people should do in rajas? Yeah, find themselves caught in that hurriedness, that running from the negative voice.

Dr. Rob 45:39
Yeah, take take a breather, take a break, just sit for a while, and be with the with the uncomfortableness of standing still, right for for a minute. Because when you’re rajas, it’s very uncomfortable to be with yourself, just to sit, and so you you kind of find that space, even if it’s a little five-minute break, and ask yourself, why am I doing this? And you

Debra 46:08
kind of like interrupt it. It’s like a pattern interrupt. You interrupt the pattern. It’s like you’re running and just like

Dr. Rob 46:14
yeah.

Debra 46:15
And take breath. Take a couple breaths. Take a walk around the block. Take a long walk.

Dr. Rob 46:22
Yes.

Debra 46:23
Close down your computer for the rest of the day. Take the day off.

Dr. Rob 46:26
Okay.

Debra 46:27
Right, and you’ll be more productive when you come back versus if you don’t. And then, and then sattva. How can they practice being in sattva?

Dr. Rob 46:37
Yeah, the sattvic practice is. It’s almost like you find that thread again. Back to thread, right where we began. That these gunas are like a thread. You find the thread of peacefulness, of creativity, of inspiration, of openness in in the Big Five personality test. There’s a scale on that’s called openness, and openness just means that you’re you’re not judging, you’re not making judgments about good and bad, you’re simply being present to whatever is arising. That little thread, then you start to cultivate it. How can I expand this? How can I step into this openness with life, with every situation? And again, it’s not passive. Doesn’t mean you have to just sit still all the time. You can do very active work, but because your mind, your mental state is in sattva. You’re clear on what you’re doing, and what happens is really interesting. It’s almost like when you’re in the zone, or I think that’s what people mean by being in the zone, is that anything you try and anything you do hits the mark. You don’t have to exert a lot of energy, and so it’s a way of working of being in the world that’s more creative, more in the flow, beneficial to your mind body, keeps you healthy. You’re breathing well. You’re eating well. You’re you’re treating yourself well, and you’re connecting to other people in a much better way, more genuine, right? What people call authentic that is expressed through sattva.

Debra 48:30
I think one of the things that helped me is because we’re also self-critical. I mean, we all do. No matter how much work you do, that the mind is the ego mind does not change. You can’t fix it. It is has a nature of negativity of of not enough of being attached. It’s just nature, and so it’s always looking at you and the world with hard eyes, like very critical negative eyes, and try to look at yourself with soft eyes, like even if you really screwed something up or you wish you would have gotten further in your career than you have now. Maybe you missed an opportunity, or messed up a relationship, or even if you really did screw up, get into a fight with someone, like just a you know kerfuffle with someone, and you’re just like, oh, like why did I do that? Just have compassion for yourself. Look at yourself with soft eyes, and that softness creates openness, and that openness creates wisdom, and that’s really you can’t force wisdom. You can’t run from negativity to gain positivity. This, this, these gunas are there to help us and navigate ourselves in our mind in the world and see where we’re at. So, as you go through your day, I wonder where you are right now. Maybe a lot of people go into the kind of the sattvic mind when they listen to our podcast. The kind of relaxed, and it’s so funny. I heard this rumor that, or this people research that people go watch crime documents. For relaxation, the true crime binging those. I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s good or not. I don’t. Maybe they think my life isn’t that bad if they watch them. But I recommend something positive. Read a great book. I love the Gita. If you find a good English translation that’s very simple, Eknath Easwaran has a really great interpretation of the Gita. It’s called the Essential Gita. If you want to get started on just exploring that for yourself, really full of very simple ideas about working with the mind. And yeah, and again, if you don’t control your mind, it will control you and your life and your level of happiness. And it’s not what’s out there; it’s what your mind is telling you what’s out there. That’s like the main, the main lesson is that we can’t. We try to change the world, but we just need to change our state of mind.

Dr. Rob 50:52
Love that. That’s it. All

Debra 50:55
right. Well, thank you for joining us for another episode of Jung on Purpose. Don’t forget to subscribe. I know I say that a lot, but it’s very important for us and for more people finding our show. We hope you enjoyed it, and we will see you soon. Take care, everyone.

Dr. Rob 51:10
See you soon.

Debra 51:11
Bye bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai