What should one do in order to come to this state where we are able to eliminate the psychic suffering which we experience in the form of fear? Meditation, which leads to awareness, which leads to concentration.

This meditation need not be done sitting on the floor with the spine straight and with the eyes closed. It is the process of dharana and dhyana in yoga and the techniques that are taught in the form of chidakash dharana, in the form of this dharana, in the form of that dharana, in the form of this practice, in the form of that practice. They are simply practices which help one understand one’s inner nature.

However, after you are able to understand your inner nature, a different approach has to be adopted and what is this different approach? This is the theme of my lecture. I am coming to the theme now. The theme of my lecture is ‘Become sattwic’ and I can assure you that no one in the world is sattwic.

We do not know what the sattwa nature is. We have never experienced it nor will we ever experience it normally, until and unless we adopt a certain structured discipline in life. Human beings are by nature tamasic predominantly, and rajasic.

The nature of tamas is to remain obsessed by one particular state of being, to remain obsessed in a particular state and not want to change: for fear of losing your sense of comfort and happiness, for fear of losing security, for fear of losing what you have attained.

Even if you are suffering, you won’t want to change your lifestyle because you don’t know what will happen in the next lifestyle. That is tamas and most of us, 99.9% of humanity, is tamasic by nature.

The second quality of every human being is rajas. Rajas means the effort which we make to attain satisfaction. The superimposition of the nature of ‘I’, that is rajasic nature. Manipulation. We are all manipulative people.

Rajas is development of an idea which emphasizes the qualities of the individual being and not the qualities of the universal being – where is the aspect of sattwa in our life? It doesn’t exist.

Sattwa will only come after you have somehow managed to quieten your mind from the thought-hopping that it does all the time. Sattwa is a state which will come when you have stopped your mind from hopping from one desire to the next.

It will come, because the nature of sattwa is of light, prakasha. The nature of sattwa is of effulgence. Only then can we overcome the limitations and the imbalances of the body and mind; only then can we awaken our creative potential.

28 August 1994, Prem Puri Ashram, Mumbai

From the book “Yoga Sadhana Panorama, Vol 7”, pg. 27,28,29, Sw. Niranjanananda Saraswati