The Brahmana is describing the city with nine gates in the Anu Gita—this city is none other than our own body with nine openings. This city is watered by three rivers called nadis—the ida, pingala and the sushumna. They are perennial rivers and they carry the qualities of sattva (existence), rajas (dynamism) and tamas (inertia). These three rivers are interdependent too. The five elements that constitute the city are signified by these three qualities.
The pair of inertia is steadiness and the pair of steadiness is dynamism. Dynamism pairs up with inertia and steadiness also teams up with dullness sometimes. When the inertia is controlled, dynamism and power manifest. When rajas or activity is controlled, existential nature or sattva expresses itself. The night time is overpowered by tamas and delusion of the mind. It predominates with qualities that are contradictory to existence and is the seat of sinful actions, too. This is the nature of tamas and it appears to afflict large groups of people always.
From this darkness of inertia arises the essence of action, which is the nature of existence too and it is rajas. It spins all beings into actions and it manifests as productivity in all creatures.
Good men consider brilliance of life in all beings, lightness and an intense faith that is the essence of existence is the form of sattva or the essential expression of life. The Brahmana goes ahead to explain the qualities of these three characteristics in detail.
A long list of qualities marks tamas in an individual. Delusion, ignorance, an inability to be magnanimous, indecisiveness about what should be done, dreaming, bullishness, fear, greed, criticising good deeds, lack of memory, immature thinking, having no faith in the Vedic tradition, taking recourse to conduct that is not universally accepted, being blind to reason, not having a good conduct, asserting boastfully about deeds done when they have not been done, assuming knowledge when ignorance is the reality, a hostile personality, cunning mind, lack of faith and stupidity in reasoning, no straightforwardness in behaviour, inability to understand anything, doing actions that only result in mental disturbance, heaviness of personality, no self-control and a downward motion of existence of degraded life—all are signs of a tamasic personality.
The description doesn’t end here. The Brahmana says wherever in the world there is any sign of delusion, the presence of tamas is revealed there. Talking ill of others constantly, insulting gods and the knowers of the truth, vain pride, delusion, anger, unforgiveness and enmity towards all other creatures are significant characteristics of a tamasic personality.
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