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Rain drop from heavens above is colourless, odourless and tasteless. But when it comes in contact with earth, it acquires colour, odour and taste.
Similarly this cosmos has three qualities, rajas, tamas and sattva. The qualityless Brahman or Atman acquires these qualities when it enters into the cosmos, when it assumes the form of this cosmos, when it becomes the cosmos.
Time, space and causation are the three components of this universe. Each of them has the three qualities. Night is tamasic time. Day is rajasic time. Early hours of morning are sattvic time. Ale houses are tamasic; battle field is rajasic and prayer halls are sattvic. Similarly our activities are governed by the three gunas. Kumbhakarna's sleep and Bakasura's gluttonous eating are tamasic; Ravana's lust and Duryodhana's greed are rajasic; and Vibhishana's devotion and Anjaneya's self-dedication are sattvic.
Every person is a combination of all the three gunas in various proportions. To realise the Brahman, we have to transcend them all and become 'gunatita'. Of the three, sattvic quality helps us to free ourselves from all sin.
To be tamasic is to be lazy; to be rajasic is to be aggressive; to be sattvic is to be soft and kind.
"I was asked by an English friend on the eve of my departure, 'Swami, how do you like now your motherland after four years' experience of the luxurious, glorious, powerful West?' I could only answer: 'India I loved before I came away. Now, the very dust of India has become holy to me, the very air is now to me holy, it is now the holy land, the place of pilgrimage, the Tirtha."--- Swami Vivekananda
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