- Eknath Ranade (Yuva Bharati, Special Commemorative Volume, 1980, April)
There are three evolutionary stages along the path of man's growth to his full stature. It is quite possible that one may start from scratch and, crossing the two intermediary stages, enter the third and reach one's full height in one's life-time. But a good many people get stuck up in the very first stage of evolution and do not rise higher. A few cross into the second stage, but remain content with that state of existence interspersed with its own charms and do not feel like soaring still higher. It is only a handful of enlightened persons that are seen elevating themselves to the final planes and reach their full height. They do so either by progressing step by step from lower to higher, or by directly entering the ultimate stage, jumping over the intervening gap within a single life-span.
The transition from lower to higher stages of evolution on the part of an individual depends upon proper guidance and enlightenment one may be able to seek and receive in one's life.
These three stages of evolution or elevation are associated with three distinct dispositions of the mind. They are Tamasic (passive or indolent), Rajasic (active or dynamic) and Sattvic (calm and balanced). In other words, it is the frame of mind and consequently, the nature of urge or the kind of motivation behind one's activities that distinguishes people on one plane from those on the other.
In the case of people at the lowest rung of the elevatory ladder, it is the animal hungers that goad them on to action. They do not see anything worth striving for, except the satisfaction of the basic needs which are traditionally known by their symbolic names (1) food or bodily sustenance (2) rest or comforts (3) shelter or security and (4) sex satisfaction or self-perpetuation. These needs are, in fact, nothing but different expressions of the dominant urge for self-survival. It is also to be remembered that all activities directed towards satisfaction of this desire for self-survival are instinctive and do not, therefore, need any schooling, training or guidance.
A time may come when these survival- oriented or need-motivated actions on the part of an individual, having enabled him to meet his primary needs and assured him of physical security, the person may lose all interest in further activity. Even accepting that a person may prefer to continue further and further on that instinctive path by using his intellect and by multiplying intensifying his animal desires, a day may come when these incentives may cease to goad the person to action. In that event, either of the two things may happen. Either such persons may develop complacency, and then their strivings, and along with them their growth, may stop. The growth of many such people gets stunted and they get stuck up as a result of their inertia. Alternatively, finding themselves free from basic wants and in a comfortable position to strive for further achievements, they may take to greater and varied activities. While still continuing; to meet their physical needs, they seek honour, recognition, status, reputation, esteem, power, possessions, glory, excellence as well as love, affection and approbation. This is the transition from Tamasic to Rajasic.
It is evident from the varied motivations enumerated above that the transition from the Tamasic to the Rajasic is, in fact, from selfishness to enlightened self-interest and from mere body- consciousness to social consciousness. It is a distinct vertical progress. The transition is from a lower to a higher plane.
But very soon one realises that pomp, pelf and glory cannot be the be-all and the end-all of man's endeavours. Quite glamorous achievements, though they may appear to be, they all fail to give the sense of fulfilment to man.
Even after cherishing and satisfying the whole gamut of desires, starting from crude animal hungers to lofty aspirations of the refined mind and heart, one suffers from emptiness. Such a Rajasic person, if he gets proper guidance and training, enlightening his path, he transcends that stage and ascends to the ultimate plane of Sattva.
For a person at the height of (Rajas), the motive force for all his actions consists in firstly, the intense attachment to the various objectives, immediate and remote, that he may be keeping before himself from time to time; secondly, the exalted feeling of doership that he may be experiencing, while performing his acts; thirdly, the still more exalted feeling of being engaged in bringing about spectacular impact upon the world and lastly, his eyes being ever fixed on success of whatever undertaking he chooses to take up.
When a person attains that equilibrium of mind and is able to discard all the four aspects of the motive force_ mentioned above, he is to be considered as having entered the final stage of his evolution, ripe enough to rise to his full stature.
The one who transcends one's ego and begins to experience oneness with the universe or, in other words, one to whom all duality has started melting, may be identified as one who has attained the Sattvic state. Though he is also seen as engaged in action with zeal and zest, like ordinary people, he works in 'freedom' unlike others, who work in 'bondage'. He does not require any incentive or motive force like 'attachment to sonic specific goal', or 'ego-satisfaction or 'success of an undertaking', to goad him to action. He works for the joy of it. Being one with the World, his work is in harmony with the design of the universe. The following verse in the Gita defines, in precise terms the qualities that go into the making of a 'doer' on the Sattvic plane.
मुक्तसङ्गोऽनहंवादी धृत्युत्साहसमन्वितः। सिद्धयसिद्धयोर्निर्विकारः कर्ता सात्विक उच्यते ॥ १८-२६
[Freed from attachment, unegoistic, endowed with firmness and vigour and unaffected by success or failure, such a doer is said to be Sattvic.]
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मुक्तसंग्ङोऽनहंवादी धृत्युत्साहसमन्वित:।
सिद्धयसिद्धयोर्निर्विकार: कर्ता सात्त्विक उच्यते ॥१८.२६॥
Freed from attachment, non-egoistic, endowed with courage and enthusiasm and unperturbed by success or failure, the worker is known as a pure (Sattvika) one. Four outstanding and essential qualities of a worker. - Bhagwad Gita : XVIII-26
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