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Satya Chaitanya

Understanding the gunas is central to understanding

Indian philosophy of leadership and management.

The gunas help us understand what makes us what we

are, our drives and motivations, how to motivate others,

our aptitudes and competencies, performance excellence,

and many other aspects about is.

Leadership Excellence and the Gunas

The Bhagavad Gita, following Sankhya, divides the

world into three gunas.

Prakriti, from which the universe evolves into being,

consists of three gunas: sattva, rajas and tamas. Since

Prakriti itself consists of the three gunas, everything in

creation is made of the three gunas; the whole universe

is a play of the three gunas.

Leadership Excellence and the Gunas

The Gita discusses in detail the three gunas, or psycho-

physical energy forms, that constitute material existence.

Sattva guna is intelligence and goodness.

Rajas guna is the fire of desire or drive.

Tamas guna is dullness or inertia.

Leadership Excellence and the Gunas

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Sattva is the upward tendency which is conformity to

the pure essence of being light, knowledge and

purity.

Rajas, the outward tendency, which constitutes the

natural urge to expansion on any given plane of being.

Tamas, the downward tendency, which is darkness or

ignorance.

Leadership Excellence and the Gunas

From the human point of view:

Sattva is that tendency which leads us to higher states.

Rajas is that which urges us to expansion on the

worldly and human plane.

Tamas is that tendency which makes us remain where

we are or sink into lower existences.

Leadership Excellence and the Gunas

Sattva means balance, order, or purity. This typically

implies that a person with more of sattva has a positive

or even orderly state of mind. Such a person is

psychologically kind, calm, alert and thoughtful.

Leadership Excellence and the Gunas

Rajas leads one to activity.

Rajas is the force that creates desires for acquiring new

things. These desires lead one to activity. Apraptasya

prapti yoga.

Leadership Excellence and the Gunas

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Tamas means inactivity, negativity, lethargy, dullness,

or slowness. Usually it is associated with darkness,

delusion, or ignorance. The quality of tamas also can

imply that a person has a self-destructive or entropic

state of mind. That person is constantly pursuing

destructive activities.

Leadership Excellence and the Gunas

Tamasic people, when they become active, it is out of

fear of losing things they already have: praptasya

rakshanam kshema.

Formore details see: Gita Chapter XIV [guna-traya-

vibhaga-yoga], XVII and XVII.

Leadership Excellence and the Gunas

Satya Chaitanya