10 Feb 2022
[Shri J.S.R. Prasad asked:- In the three qualities (Sattvam, Rajas and Tamas), is there any specific quality like Sattvam to be favored and are there specific qualities like Rajas and Tamas to be abandoned completely? In the explanation please throw Your concentration on food items related to these qualities as described in 17th chapter of Gita.]
Swami replied:- Sattvam is knowledge based on awareness. Rajas is power and work based on inert energy. Tamas is static nature based on inert matter. All the three are important fundamental constituents for the creation. These three qualities are represented by the three divine forms of God (Trimūrti). If you stand in this angle, all the three are equally important and all the three divine forms are equally sacred. Sattvam is based on sharp analysis and discrimination. Rajas is dynamic action. Tamas is sleep for rest. All the three are important.
If you take a different angle, which is that these three represent different qualities of awareness, only Sattvam is good whereas Rajas and Tamas are bad. Since Rajas and Tamas are inert, the non-inert qualities of awareness influenced by these two inert qualities naturally include ignorance that is related to inert nature. Sattvam being fundamentally awareness is always without ignorance. A quality means property, which may be inert or non-inert. Burning is the quality of fire and this quality is inert. Analysis is the property of intelligence and this property is non-inert. Hence, the word quality shall not be confused as mere inert or non-inert.
Regarding food items, they are classified into three types based on Sattvam, Rajas and Tamas. In this topic, the word ‘quality’ means the inert quality of the inert food item. All the food items good for good health are termed as Sattvic foods. Good health gives good thoughts and in this way, the good inert quality is influencing the non-inert good thought. The crucial point here is that an inert item causing good physical health promotes good mental health also since body and mind are inter-related. This concept brings the junction of inert items and non-inert thoughts of awareness. By this, we should not confuse that inert and non-inert phases are one and the same. If you are eating wheat food, it does not bring any disturbance to the good health, by which a peaceful physical body results that helps the formation of peaceful, mental behavior. By this, one shall not mistake that wheat is directly converted into good mind.
For example, if one eats chilies, lot of physical disturbance appears leading to emotional thoughts. The chilies are not directly related to the specific nature of the thought. Of course, the food or matter is converted into inert energy and which is again converted into awareness in the functioning nervous system. This is a direct conversion in a fundamental way. But a specific food item converting into a specific quality is not like this fundamental conversion. What I mean is that the wheat is not directly converted into Sattvic quality and the chilies are not directly converted into Rajasic quality. In these conversions, there is an intermediate state called good physical health or bad physical health. This intermediate stage generates the quality. Since wheat gives good physical health, good Sattvic quality appears. Since chilies generate disturbed physical health (bad physical health), such state of physical health generates bad Rajasic quality. When inert energy is converted into awareness such intermediate state is not required. On the basis of the overall way, we can say that food generates not only awareness but also the specific qualities. Of course, food directly generates various physical tissues of the body. The living being as body, individual soul (bundle of qualities) and soul (pure awareness) is the modification of food only and hence, the Veda says that the total living being is from the food only (Annāt puruṣaḥ).
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