TYPES OF UNDERSTANDING, COURAGE(Fortitude) & HAPPINESS

Types of understanding.

Sattvic understanding (pure).

The intellect may be considered as having the best type of understanding.if it can readily discriminate among beings and situations in its field of activities .The intellect has various functions like-observing,analyzing,classifying,willing,wishing, remembering and host of others-and yet we find that  the one faculty essential in all of them is the 'power of discrimination'.Without 'discrimination' neither observation nor classification,neither understanding nor judgement,is ever possible. Essentially, therefore, the function of intellect is discrimination which is otherwise called the faculty of right understanding.In short,true understanding has a ready ability to discriminate between action that are to be pursued and actions that are not to be pursued.The Sattvic Buddhi(knowledge) is defined as one which makes known to us,what type of work is to be done,and what type of work is to be renounced,which distinguishes the right from the wrong,which knows  what is to be feared and what is to be faced fearlessly.  Proper understanding'can  make a garden in a desert, can churn out pure success from every threat of failure.Without understanding and courage ,even the best of chances will become utter disaster.Right understanding can convert the greatest of tragedies into chances in a prosperous destiny.

 

Rajsic understanding.

The  'understanding' of the passionate (Rajsic) comes to judge the righteous and unrighteous,what is to be done and what is not to be done,in a slightly perverted(abnormal) manner.Such a Rajsic'understanding'cannot read right judgement ,because it is invariably colored by its own preconceived notions and powerful likes and dislikes.

Tamsic Understanding.

This type of 'understanding' brings sorrow to everyone ,including the individual himself is the 'understanding' of the dull.Actually ,there is no understanding at all ,it can at best,be called only a chronic bundle of misunderstandings,such an intellect runs into its own conclusions,but unfortunately,it always lands up with wrong conclusions only.

It has such a totally unethical understanding that it recognizes his right as wrong .This faculty of coming to wrong judgement is ample seen in the dull,because their entire reasoning capacity is enveloped by complete darkness and egoistic drunkenness.

TYPES OF COURAGE.

The courage is that power within our self which helps us constantly see the goal we want to achieve ,and while striving towards it the courage discovers for us the necessary constancy of purpose to pursue the path ,in spite of all the mounting obstacles that arise on the way .The courage paints the idea ,maintains it constantly in our vision,makes us steadily strive towards it,and when obstacles come ,the courage mobilizes secret powers within us to face them all heroically and steadily.

Sattvic Courage:

The constancy with which one steadily controls one's mind and sense -organs and their activity,through single-pointed attention and faithful concentration is the Sattvic fortitude.

Rajsic Courage.

The constancy with which a person holds on to the duty(actions) for wealth and place,encouraged by his growing desires to enjoy the fruits of each of them is of Rajsic type of fortitude.The constancy of pursuit of an individual will be in these three fields of duty,wealth and pleasure and he will be pursuing one or the other of them with an extreme desire to enjoy the resultant satisfaction,He follows spirituality,only to gain the heavens ,he pursues wealth,so that he may  have power in his life and he pursues his actions with a firm belief and faith that sensuous objects can give him all satisfaction in life.Here fifty percent of the business community falls in this category.

Tamsic Courage.

It is not very difficult to understand this courage because a substantial majority of us belong to this type.The steadiness of purpose with which one does not give up one's dream and imaginations ,fear and agitations,relief and sorrows ,depressions and arrogance is of the Tamsic type of courage.The term dream is used here to indicate unreal imaginations thrown up by a mind that is almost drowned in sleep.To see things which are not there but are delusionary projected by one's own fancy is called a dream.The dull personality projects upon the world of objects a dreamlike value of reality and false joy and then laboriously strive to gain them.Grief ,depression and arrogance -these again are great channels through which human vitality gets dissipated .A man of extreme dullness will constantly keep these things within his bosom, and thereby suffer a sense of self-depletion and inner exhaustion .'Grief' is ,in general,the painful feeling of disappointment at something that has already happened in the past ,while depression generally reaches as a result of our despair regarding our future and arrogance is the sense of lusty imagination with which a foolish man lives his immortal ,low life in the present.

Types of Happiness.

Sattvic happiness.

The happiness which in the beginning is like poison and very painful, but which ,when it works itself out,fulfills itself in nectarine (Amrit) success is unending 'happiness' of the good (Sattvic).in short ,'hapiness' that arises from constant effort is the happiness that can yield us a greater beauty and larger sense of fulfillment.The filmy  'happiness' that is gained through sense-indulgence and sense-gratification  is a joy that is temporary(fleeting),and once that joy is over ,there is a terrible undercurrent that comes to upset our equilibrium and drag us into the depths of dejection(despondency).

The joy arising out of inner self -control and the consequent sense of self - perfection is no cheap gratification.in the beginning ,it's practice is certainly very painful and extremely difficult.But one who has discovered  in oneself the necessary courage and heroism to walk the precipitous 'path'of self-purification and inward balance,comes to enjoy the subtlest of happiness and all-fulfilling sense of inward peace.This ''happiness' arising out of self-control and self-discipline is classified as sattvic happiness. In short,the sense of fulfillment and gladness of heart that well up in the bosom of a cultured man.as a result of his balanced and self-disciplined  life of high ideas and divine  value of life are the permanent (enduring) 'happiness' of all men -of -perfection,of all true  men of spiritual life.

Rajsic happiness.

That happiness which arises in our bosom when the appropriate world -of-objects comes in contact with our sense-organs  is indeed a thrill that is enjoyable in the beginning ,but unfortunately,it vanishes as quickly as it comes,dumping the enjoyer into a bit of exhaustion and indeed into a sense of ill- reputed sorrowness.Rajsic happiness  arises only when the sense-objects are actually in contact with the sense objects . Unfortunately ,this contact cannot be permanently established ,for the objects and are always variable.And in the subjective mind and intellect,the instruments  that  come in contact with object,are also variable and changing ,the sense organs cannot afford to accept willingly the sense-objects at all times with the same appetite, and even if they do so,the very object in the acceptable sense-organs decays and rotten,raising stink of death.No man can fully enjoy even the passing glitters of joy that the sense organs give him,for even at the moment of enjoyment the joy -possibility in it gets unfortunately fainted by an anxiety that it may leave him.Thus,to a true thinker,the temporary joys of sense-objects are not at all satisfactory,since they bury the enjoyer,long before in a sea of sorrow.This sort of 'happiness' is classified as Rajsic type and is generally pursued by passionate people.

Tamsic(dull)happiness.

The happiness of dull is that which ignores the higher in us,and corrupt the culture in us and when pursuit of such happiness is continued for a long time,it gives to the intellect and spirit a thick crust of wrong values and false ideals and ruins the spiritual sensitivity of the personality .This type of Tamsic 'happiness' satisfies mere  sense-feeling.for such Tamsic 'happiness' arises from sleep,laziness(indolence) and heedlessness.Sleep here means,it is not the psychological condition of everyday sleep-philosophically,the term sleep stands for non-apprehensions of reality,and the incapacity of dull-witted to perceive any permanent ever -existing goal of life.This encourages one to seek simple sense-gratification at the flesh level.Another characteristic of Tamsic nature is the incapability of the intellect to think out correctly that the problems that face it and come to correct judgement.Such inertia of the intellect makes it insensitive to the inspiring song of life,and a person having such an intellect is generally tossed here and there by the passing tides of his own instincts and impulses.The third characteristic is heedlessness (to give attention).As every challenge reaches us and demands our response to it,no doubt,the higher in us truly guides our activities,but the lower,inactive(indolent) mind seeks a compromise and tries to act,heedless of the voice of the higher.When an individual has thus lived for some time carelessly ingoring the voice of the higher,he becomes more and more removed from his divine perfections.He sinks lower and lower into his animal nature  .when such an individual ,who is heedless of higher calls,indolent at his intellectual level completely asleep to the existence and play of reality ,seeks happiness,he only seeks a happiness that deludes the soul,both at the beginning and at the end .such happiness is classified as dull(Tamsic)one.

The above description of three qualities (Gunas) has the impact upon the personalities of all living beings.on the whole ,this is the psychological explanation for the variety of men that we meet with,in the world -of -plurality,not only in their personality -structures but also in their individual behaviour.The three types of beings have been described exhaustively by an analysis of 'knowledge''action' 'agent'(men), 'understanding' and 'fortitude'(courage).

This is only for our guidance so that we know where we stand in our own inner nature and outer manifestations.if we detect,with above mentioned slide-rule of personality ,that we belong to the Tamsic or Rajsic types ,we as seekers of cultural expression and growth ,are to take warning and strive to raise ourselves into the Sattvic state.Remember, and I repeat, Remember,these classifications are given not to classify others,but to provide us with ready -reference to help us in our constant and daily self -analysis and self-discipline.These three Gunas(qualities) have been described because there is no living organism in the world,no creature either on earth or again among the gods in the heaven who is totally free from the influences of these three qualities (Gunas).No living creature can act or work beyond the frontiers provided by these three Gunas ;the play of these three Gunas is the very expression of Prakriti.

But at the same time,no two persons react to the world outside in the same fashion,because the proportion in which these three Gunas (quality) come to influence each one is different at different times.These three Gunas put together are the manifestation of 'Maya'(influence of illusion). individuals differ from one another because of the different textures of the Gunas that predominantly rule over them,it is the 'Maya' that gives them their individuality.An individual cannot ,at any time ,exist without all these three Gunas,Whatever be their relative proportion.No sample of 'Tea' is possible without its three ingredients ,the tea powder,the milk and the sugar,but at the same time,the proportion in which they are mixed together may be different from cup to cup according to the taste of the individual.He who has to go beyond (transcend) the  three Gunas(quality) comes to the experience the very plurality in the world as the play of the one infinite(Almighty or God).So ,let us introspect and evaluate ourselves every day, every minute.Let us avoid the lower Gunas and steadily work ourselves up  towards the achievements of the Sattvic state.Only after reaching the status of the good(Sattvic) one can be introduced into the state of Goodhood-perfection absolute.

With these three measuring rods -the qualities (Gunas) lay the entire community of men under three distinct types.The criterion of this classification is the texture of man's inner equipment's which is explained in Bhagwat -Geeta,to bring into play for his achievements in his fields of activity.