In the psychology of yoga, ego-consciousness is always in one of three states (or qualities), called gunas: sattva guna, rajas guna, or tamas guna. The three gunas can be compared to the parts of a rose.

Tamas would be the thorns. The ego's defense mechanisms of contraction, inertia, avoidance, negativity, nihilism, all are included in the field of the tamasic. The thorns have a function, but they are not beautiful or kind or inspiring.

Rajas would be the stem and the leaves. The ego's urge to grow, to be active, to achieve, to change, are all part of the field of the rajasic. The rajasic quality can, however, be in the service either of the buddhi, the higher intelligence of the Atman, or still operating under the influence of the lower pleasure and power centers. In the latter case, the rajasic projects will ultimately fail, and lead to a crash, into the tamasic state.

The third guna, sattva, is the rose flower itself. Sattva is beauty, crystalline clarity, love, joy, light, perfection. The beauty of the rose is beyond words. In the sattvic state, the soul silently radiates the divine energy that flows through its presence.

Beyond the sattva, which represents the limit of development of the ego and its transformation into soul, lies the sat. Sat is not a guna. Sat is the ground of Being, the ultimate truth of Being, that appears in the world as an emergent property of the soul, but which was all along the natural state of the essence of the soul, the Spirit, or Atman. Sat is the power that impelled the rose to grow into its perfect state of blossoming as loveliness. Sat would be the fragrance of the rose, the ethereal and divine energy field of entrancing blissful contentment. Sat-is-fact-shunya. The fact of shunya, the boundless blissful openness of the Supreme Real, dissolves all suffering, all illusion, all separateness from Source. All is one at the zero point of non-duality.

To transcend the sattva guna, a Sat Yogi can reflect upon seven connected realizations.

1.Reality is sacred. All is the manifestation of Anuttara, the Supreme One.
2.The belief that there are separate beings is illusion and ignorance.
3.Thus, the idea that “I” am separate from God is illusion and ignorance.
4.The illusion of separateness and difference is the cause of all suffering.
5.Liberation is realized through ending the false differentiating activity of the ego mind.
6.When the awareness is centered in the heart and silent, surrendered to Anuttara, the Transfinite dimension of Super-Intelligence, Blissful Emptiness, and Self-Luminous Fullness Opens.
7.The true bliss of the Supreme Liberation can be realized only here and now.

Beyond the three gunas, arising from the irresistible rose of Self-realization, the all-satisfying love transmitted by the nectarian fragrance of the divine essence will entrance consciousness into the ultimate samadhi of union with the Absolute, the final consummation of the eternal dance of Anuttara.

You are both the dancer and the dance. You are one with the Supreme Being. May this realization flower in your consciousness Now.

Namaste,

Shunyamurti