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3 Types of Religious Expression
As a follow-up to my post, the Power of Prayer, I wanted to quote an extended passage from Robert Laremy’s excellent Spiritual Cleansings and Psychic Defenses. The book is mainly concerned with traditional African and Latin religious practices, but at various points, he draws useful information out of other religious paths, including Hinduism. From page 17:
Hinduism teaches that there are different types of religious expressions suited to different types of people, no religion being intrinsically superior to the other. The three main types of people are characterized by temperaments, called “gunas”. These gunas are sattva (purity, clarity), rajas (passion), and tamas (inertia). The religious expressions or spiritualities, are: Jnana, karma and bhakti.
Jnana is the path of intelligence, discrimination (in the positive sense of the word), and mental and spiritual growth. It views God as no different from one’s Higher Self. Jnana is the path of sattvic people. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Krishnamurti and Howard Thurman taught different versions of the path of sattva.
Karma is the path of good deeds, the way of redemption through social change. Karma is the path of Rajasic people. It seeks to serve God though active service to other humans, prioritizing spiritual well-being over physical comfort. Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and Albert Schweizer each exemplify the path of karma.
Tamas is the path of least resistance, you give your burden to Jesus, you trust that by continually repeating the name of Krishna in Hinduism or the 99 attributes of Allah in Islam, you will attain liberation not through your own merits, but due to someone else’s merit. Nichiren, Billy Graham and Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada exemplify the path of tamas.
To rephrase it in my own words, a sattvic person might say: “I am equal to God“, while a rajasic person might say “I serve God” and a tamasic person might say, “I surrender to God.” The sattvic is concerned primarily with knowledge, the rajasic with action and community and the tamasic with humility and prayer. The great thing about Hinduism is that it recognizes “different strokes for different folks.”
We don’t need to make value judgements that one approach is better and another is worse. Rather, we ought to figure out what our nature is most inclined towards, and then play to our strengths, while respecting the other approaches.
It seems that most people interested in the occult (and gnosticism) have a very strong inclination towards what’s described as a sattvic temperament, the path of knowledge. These are the people who seek after truths and mysteries and secrets and understanding. I very much fall into this camp myself. If you’re drawn to my writing and my way of thinking about things, then there’s a good chance you do as well, or at least you share an aspect of it.
But at the same time, by forming together into an ad hoc community and focusing on discussion and sharing and action in the “real world”, we are beginning to exercise our latent rajasic tendencies. I know that at times I still find this challenging and sometimes feel the urge to retreat back into my sattvic closet and shut everybody else out. Many of us are supremely individualistic, to the point where we have difficulty even understanding why other people want to join groups.
Besides that though, the biggest stumbling block that I have, and that I see a lot of other people who visit this site share has to do with the third path, the tamasic route of surrender. We hear people say things like “Admit you’re a sinner and surrender your heart to Jesus” and it just doesn’t compute. It’s impossible for us to operate from that platform, because it’s so counter to what we are. Since we can’t understand it from the inside out, we tend to end up villifying it, as I think the case is in Jordan’s post which spawned this whole discussion.
It may not be important to you to understand this “lowest” or “simplest” of the three approaches, but it’s important to me. And here’s why. Because I’m bad at it, and I don’t understand it. The sattvic person places highest importance in knowledge and understanding. To not be able to understand and communicate effectively with others (rajasic) thus becomes a failure of intelligence, an inability to connect fully with the godhead. So what I’m saying is, in order to have a perfected sattvic nature, you must have a perfected rajasic nature, which allows you to fully interact with, understand and communicate with others. And since others includes people of all spiritual temperaments, you must be able to understand the tamasic nature from the inside out.
Anything less is a failure, and a descent into stupidity. And as a proud sattvic-minded spiritual seeker, there’s nothing that gets your goat more than that, is there?
PS. Just for curiousity’s sake, how many people feel this is an accurate depiction of them and their struggles? I’m simply describing myself and what I’ve seen amongst all of our interactions. If it misses the mark for you, let me know why and tell me where your experience differs. How many people who are regular readers of this site would consider themselves (mostly) sattvic, in the sense described here? How many have trouble approaching the other paths? Why? How many are beginning to be able to understand the other paths and how did you get there?
September 15th, 2005 at 1:35 pm
Thank you for posting this.
September 15th, 2005 at 1:51 pm
I feel like I express each of the 3 gunas at different times
each has its pitfalls too - intellectual pride may be a danger of the sattvic approach
its good to temper thinking with physical activity and action in the real world too
and when it comes right down to it in the griop of some overwhelming experience i often fall back on teh idea of just trust and surrender as way to get through it - sometimes you have no other option
September 15th, 2005 at 1:57 pm
Yeah, that’s why I included the appeal to intellectual pride at the end of this piece, because it’s *the* trap for the sattvic. I think the way that I’ve been starting to get out of it is just to admit that I’m wrong, and admit how much I don’t know, and will never know. In other words, the sattvic form of surrender. Conversation and debate seem for me to be the early steps of sattvic form of community-action.
On a side note, I’ve been looking at some info which leads me to believe that not all Hindus interpret all the gunas as Laremy does above. Many portray them on a descending scale, where all are necessary, but some are indeed better (more like the Valentinian gnostic description of pneumatic, psychic and hylic). I do of course wonder if this is the classification set up by the sattvic approach though, which is incapable of allowing anything but itself to be the best, despite how necessary the others may be. In any event, Arjuna asks in the Bhagavad Gita how to recognize a man who has transcended the three gunas, and there’s a tranlastion of that passage here.
September 15th, 2005 at 2:33 pm
i was gonna mention the valentinian tripartite division of humanity, too. it’s discussed in great detail in the tripartite tractate:
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/tripart.htm
they were definitely pretty harsh on the hylics, & allowed that most people are psychics, who can go either way. you get the feeling that the author of the text definitely considered h/erself a pneumatic. i do like, however, that they say that ‘each type will be known by its fruit,’ basically that you can’t say that someone is one type or another based on what they say, but instead on how they interact with the world. so it doesn’t matter if we think that some fundamentalist somewhere is hylic or “tamas,” or the way in which someone prays, all that matters is how their inner experiences manifest in the universe.
i’ve never been too keen on these distinctions, tho’, other than as a sometimes useful analytical tool. when you get right down to it, you could use peoples’ zodiacal signs or meyers-briggs types the exact same way.
September 15th, 2005 at 2:34 pm
I’ve not seen it put this way, but I’d say I’m sattvic, I know what ‘god’ is and I know who I am and I know the two aren’t separate from each other. While I don’t believe in redemption through good deeds, I do have passion, or compassion at times, and I help when I feel like it, it is not yours or my duty to do everything for everyone. A Jedi may be obligated to help people in need, but only if it is convenient and does not distract from their duties, and only if those people can truly not help themselves. The path of least resistance as stated above is nothing like giving yourself to the current of the Tao or Force and letting it direct your life. I also don’t believe in redemption through recitation of prayers or the repeated use of names or using a scapegoat. I do sometimes say ‘God blah blah blah’ or ‘Jesus blah blah blah’ not because I’m praying to any such entities, but to get my attention, or the sleeping Godself attention for whatever, usually in frustration. I am now taking responsibility for my reality and exerting my influence and will to shape it, and it works, sometimes slower than you might want it to.
As for talking to people who don’t use the sattvic approach, I have tried that, but in order for you to plant a seed of wisdom, you need to crack open the hard soil of their minds with a pickaxe, when used effectively, can work, but still that seed may get smothered by weeds of ignorance or eaten by the birds of static belief, static group beliefs reinforced by charismatic leaders or the media or whatever. It takes a lot of energy to communicate with these people if you want them to actually hear and digest what you say, so usually it is best left alone, they do what they do and you do what you do. Unless you are stubborn and really want to communicate, go for it.
September 15th, 2005 at 2:39 pm
Daniel:
You’re not describing communication, you’re describing persuasion. Communication also involves listening to what these people say, in addition to (or perhaps in place of) telling them what you think. It’s an important distinction.
Jeremy:
I agree. In this case, I happen to think it’s a really useful analytical tool, because it’s a dilemma that I see come up again and again which prevents certain of us from effectively communicating with each other and with others outside of our circle.
September 15th, 2005 at 2:45 pm
No, I’m talking about communication, a lot of people won’t HEAR what you have to say, they just block it out, you might as well talk to yourself or your plant, if they don’t listen to what you say there is no communication. I listen a good deal, I think about what the person said, maybe get them to elaborate. But it tends to happen that other people don’t do the same.
September 15th, 2005 at 2:48 pm
the trap for the sattvic…. i don`t think it`s a trap. to be god is to understand that one`s potential is at hand. so much of the mental ilness i see in my work is the karmic idea of working to be good. who`s to judge? i`m not sure how you can be judged on the merits of another either, the whole idea of judgement creates a spiritual instability when we are striving for balance.
my head is still buzzing from watching vanilla sky on prime time t.v. last night. hard enough to follow without all the commercials.
if you`ve not watched the movie, i would recommend it. tom cruise gets his face bashed in and wears a rubber mask. goes to jail. jumps off a building. a really high building. and his girlfriend keeps changing hair colour which confuses him.
September 15th, 2005 at 2:54 pm
Just because somebody doesn’t understand or agree doesn’t mean they aren’t listening.
September 15th, 2005 at 3:19 pm
the validity of communication is in the response you get.
September 15th, 2005 at 3:23 pm
Not necessarily. Yesterday I had 3,000 visitors to this site, but only heard responses from maybe a couple dozen altogether. That doesn’t mean nobody else heard or was influenced by what they saw here. Things that you hear sometimes take a long time to germinate, and you may never see their fruits.
September 15th, 2005 at 4:20 pm
i don`t think your intention was to draw 3000 responses though. the fact remains that the validity of your communication is in the response you get. many people are responding, in thier minds, as we have this discussion and these thoughts will germinate in thier minds and some will be encouraged to respond but most will never make thier presence known. it doesn`t change the fact that they are responding. we just aren`t able to witness the process. billy graham gets 20,000 people to a stadium to hear him speak. those are a small percentage of the people who hear his ministry.
the validity i am talking about is in direct responses between people communicating actively.
September 15th, 2005 at 7:45 pm
i’m definitely a combination of the sattvic and the tamasic. they feed off each other– like, when i admit i am wrong, or defecient, or sinful or whatever, its a shock to the system that although unpleasant never fails to illuminate a hitherto unnoticed treasure trove of insight into something i hadnt been aware of. (at least more aware of).
this trove is very pleasing to the sattvic person inside.
hooray to tim for pointing out the intellectualist trap. i think jefferson said it best, that ‘the better a topic is known the more simply it may be told’.
if your sattvic cant explain something to a tamasic then you don’t knwo it well enough.
this puts alot of spin on pop culture- that instead of being idiotic perhaps its purveyors know their stuff very well.
then again, human endeavors can be intrinsically complicated. we dont expect quantum physicists to explain things simply, but really, maybe humanity just hasnt thought about it long enough.
September 15th, 2005 at 10:43 pm
Pneumatic, Psychic, Hylic. Awesome. Any idea what primary sources Laremy found those in?
September 15th, 2005 at 11:09 pm
See the Bhagavad Gita linked above, and I’m assuming classical commentary on it.
September 16th, 2005 at 6:38 am
This post is spot on, the stuff I’ve read on the Gunas previously has always tended to view life as a combination of all three but always with the Sattvic as the best. This interpretation strikes me as a much more sensible perspective.
By this definition I definitely place myself primarily in the Sattvic camp, my main motivation in this stuff has always been a desire for knowledge and to understand. Of course along the way I’ve realised I may never reach that desire and in fact the desire itself maybe the thing that most get’s in the way of actually understanding. It’s that classic catch 22 situation, if you have no desire to know you’ll never start looking but if never let go of that desire you’ll never find.
I can relate to your comment regarding falling into the ‘intellectual superiority’ trap and the difficultly of relating to those on a more Tamasic path. I had real problems when I initially read the Bhagavad Gita because I found the whole concept of giving yourself up to a higher power completely disagreeable. However when I thought about it I realised that my whole problem was one of ego, I couldn’t handle the idea of giving up the self and placing control in someone or something else’s hands.
Of course the danger with giving yourself up is that you can also suspend all critical judgement and personal responsibility, you’ve really got to have absolute trust in what or who you are giving yourself over to.
I personally think that looking from a Sattvic perspective those on the Tamasic path can often seem far to emotional and irrational, giving up reason to feeling. On the other hand the Tasmasic can see the Sattvic as to cold and analytical, needing to let their hair down a bit and just go with the experience.
September 16th, 2005 at 6:55 am
It’s a very good talk. My question from reading your assay is:
Would you agree that the people who took the third path will have a great chance to become fanatic if they don’t practice the first and the second paths?
September 16th, 2005 at 7:22 am
To me, all three paths are essential for a person to cultivate his/her spirituality although the weight of practicing each path may vary from one to another depending on each person’s situation.
Cultivation of spirituality via sattva will reduce one’s ignorance, via rajas reduce one’s tendency of in-born hatred, and via tamas reduce one’s tendency of self-pride, does, it?
September 16th, 2005 at 1:55 pm
When I got intereste din the occult it all seemed like a giant intellectual gamne to me and I definitely cultivated a strong sense of pride almost verging on arrogance. I enjoyed arguing about religion with people and in general disported myself like a real jackass know-it-all.
Since then I’ve branched out and gotten involved in practices that involve less thinking and analyzing and simply more doing, down to earth stuff. My spiritual develiopment then last 6 years or so has largely consisted of moving backwords from the head back down the spine tothe root.
Back in the mid-90s I was walking around with head the size of a pumpkin and a tiny little heart and stomach and groin like dired fava beans. SO I have need to put a lot of my energy in the opposite direction to correct this imbalance. I’m a little better than I used to be but still way to argumentative and arrogant for my own good.
September 16th, 2005 at 2:48 pm
I don’t fit into any of the three categories. I pursue experience, and I don’t count experience as knowledge. I also like to revel in the “lower levels” because those are the most intense experiences to have. I guess you can label that the “descent into stupidity” but I wouldn’t be upset about such a label. I think it’s absolutely necessary sometimes to be completely illogical and stupid. In fact, I’m pretty good at it– and I think it helps me get some of my kinks out.
September 16th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
Actually, I think pursuing experience IS the rajasic category - direct action in the world. Of course at some point the categories aren’t really important.
September 16th, 2005 at 9:00 pm
I meant that I just don’t hear myself saying things like “I serve God” nor do I see any resemblance between myself and Emerson or Gandhi.
However, I see a slight connection between the gunas/temperaments, and the concept of the Elizabethean “humours”…
September 17th, 2005 at 6:12 pm
This is like Gurdjieff’s Three Ways…the way of the monk (devotion/bakti); the way of the fakir (asceticism/bodily); and the way of the yogi (the intellect). In his parables, all three are incomplete and what he tried to formulate and teach was a “Fourth Way” where each individual tries to develop all three ways within themselves at the same time and he definitely wanted folks to really work on the parts that they were weak in.
I move from the intellect to a great yearning for the way of devotion or submission (bakti). The intellect part always makes me feel embarrassed by or suspicious of the yearning for complete surrender and devotion. Sometimes, though I’m in the material camp and that’s maybe one of those periods right now. I’m doing my best to work through negative assumptions about materialism, to see the value and power in working with and taking advantage of the material (e.g. finances).
September 17th, 2005 at 7:13 pm
Oh cool, that’s a great reference. Thanks!
September 18th, 2005 at 9:14 pm
for some comparison of these three gunas from the view of the famous Buddhist logician Chandrakirti, you’ll find verses and a commentary by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche online here:
http://www.khyentsefoundation.org/pdf/MadhyamakavataraDJKR.pdf
specifically:
pages 89-90 introduce the Samkhya hindu school and the gunas
pages 96, 100, 101 - equilibrium of gunas and dependent
pages 248-249 - refutation of the gunas as a basis for existence of a self
plus a Samkhya school summary in the appendix