Foundations · Reading
The three gunas
Sattva, rajas and tamas: the three qualities that make up all of nature.
Awaiting subject reviewWritten from our source material and not yet checked by a teacher of this practice. Read it as reference, and learn the practice from someone who teaches it.
Philosophy
Guna means strand or quality. Sankhya teaches that all of Prakriti, including the mind, is woven from three.
Sattva is clarity, lightness and balance. Rajas is movement, desire and restlessness. Tamas is heaviness, dullness and inertia. All three are always present, in shifting proportion. The Gita describes how they shape food, action, faith and knowledge, and Yog practice aims to increase sattva and, finally, to go beyond all three.
Terms
- Sattva
- Clarity, balance, light.
- Rajas
- Activity, passion, restlessness.
- Tamas
- Inertia, heaviness, dullness.
Ideas behind it
Sources and tradition
- YOG Union App Content Map, 2 November 2026, pp. 2–3, philosophy and foundations