DHYAN FOUNDATION

Sattvam rajas tama iti gunaah prakritisambhavaah Nibadhnanti mahaabaaho dehe dehinam avyayam — Bhagvad Gita, Chapter 14, Verse 5                         Yogi Ashwini, When purush (soul) combines with prakriti (creation), in the form of three gunas — satva, rajas and tama — a being takes birth in creation. Light, happiness and gyan are properties of satva, rajas pertains to desires, attachments and resultant actions, and tama is darkness, ignorance and sleep. At all times, all the three gunas are present in a human being, one dominating the other, depending on the desire and state of evolution of being. Ordinary beings are ruled by tama, which is also the guna dominant in animals and other lower beings. When a being leaves the body with the dominance of tama guna, s/he gets the animal yonis and enters into the netherworlds says the Bhagvad G...

Navratri is time when one sees long queues of people outside temples waiting for their turn to make their request before God. Whenever we pray, we ask for pleasure, how many of us ask for pain? Pleasure and pain go hand in hand. Every pleasure comes with a pain and pain comes with pleasure. Usually we only indulge in pleasure, because of which pain is forced upon us in the form of disease and financial and relationship troubles. Earlier generations understood this dynamic and therefore used to inflict pain upon themselves to compensate for the pleasures they had indulged in. This pain usually comes in the form of service, charity and tapa. So, what is tapa? It is one of the five niyamas prescribed in Ashthang Yoga , where you heat the body by giving it pain. A basic purification, it is a means to throw out your negative karmas and expedite evolution. Fasting or upavaas done during the nine days of Navratri is a form of tapa. Do remember bhoga is a never-ending process; there is...