Background
of Historical
Insights:
"The Tao begot One. One begot Two. Two begot Three. And Three
begot
the ten thousand things. The ten thousand things carry Yin
and embrace
Yang. They achieve harmony by combining these forces."
--Tao Te
Ching, XLII,1.
"In the boundless panorama of the existing and visible universe,
whatever
shapes appear, whatever sounds vibrate, whatever radiances illuminate,
or
whatever consciousnesses cognize, all are the play or manifestation of
the
Tri-Kaya, the three-fold principle of the Cause of All Causes, the
Primordial
Trinity. Impenetrating All, is the All-Pervading Essence of
Spirit,
which is Mind. It is uncreated, impersonal, self-existing,
immaterial,
and indestructible,"
--Lama
Kazi Dawa-Samdup, The Tibetan Book of the
Dead.
"All actions take place in time by the interweaving of the forces of
Nature;
but the man lost in selfish delusion thinks that he himself is the
actor."
3:27
"But the man who knows the relation between the forces of Nature works
upon
other forces of Nature, and becomes not their slave." 3;28
"There is nothing on earth or in heaven which is free from these three
powers
of Nature." 18:40
"SATTVA, RAGAS , TAMAS -- light, fire, and darkness
-- are the three
constituents of nature. They appear to limit in finite bodies
the liberty
of their infinite Spirit." 14:5
--
Bhagavad Gita
The Gunas in Interaction
"All three gunas depend on each other, and help
each other in the
process of evolution, and in the process of self-development as the
gross
evolves back towards the subtle.
In the process of bringing each other out, one guna
serves as the
stepping stone for another. A thing which is stable and
tamas--dominated is provided motivation and activity
by rajas
that motion and activity helps in the process of realization,
as the
thing moves to attain its true and essential nature --which is its
light,
its sattva. Hidden by tamas,
sattva takes the help of
rajas to bring itself into light.
The gunas never become separated from each other,
they always exist
as one unit and one pair. When one guna
dominates, the other
two form a pair which remains recessive. But they are never
completely
away or absent. The gunas are
omnipresent. Sattva
makes a pair with rajas. Tamas
makes a pair with
rajas. Only sattva
cannot directly join with
tamas, for rajas is necessary to
convert sattva into
tamas, and tamas into sattva.
Tamas has
no way to approach sattva without rajas,
and sattva
has no way to approach tamas without help of rajas.
Thus,
rajas is the moderator, for without his help neither
sattva
nor tamas can act --for rajas is
activity.
Sattva then can be seen as tamas
transformed by activity into
its ghighest frequencies. Tamas, then, is sattva
transformed
by activity into its lowest frequencies."
--
Harish Johari, Dhanwantari
"In the centre of the Brow Chakra is an inverted
triangle containing
as its seed-sound (bija mantra) the sign of the word
Om.
Om is the principal mantra of
all the Hindu religious
works. Suffice it here to say that it announces the presence
of the
divine.
The triangle (trikona) intimates here, as elsewhere,
the triple nature
of the one being, which is the summum genus of all
classification,
reality transcending thought, beyond the classification of something
and
nothing, beyond the conception of presence and absence, yet three-fold.
The triangle in the Brow Chakra
indicaties that this three-foldness
appears everywhere, and the mind should always take it into account.
In
the supreme reality itself, the Vedantins give the fundamental
triplicity
as reality (sat), consciousness (chit),
and joy
(ananda). The Puranas (ancient legends)
present the gods Shiva,
Vishnu, and Brahma. Even the philosophy of the known world
(the
sankhya) gives qualities or attributes (gunas)
of inertia,
energy, and order (tamas, rajas, and sattwa)."
-- from Yoga
by Ernest Wood
"Before examining these influences, "began Gurdjieff, "and the laws of
transformation of Unity into Plurality, we must examine the fundamental
law that creates all phenomena in all the diversity or unity
of all
universes.
"This is the 'Law of Three' or the law of the three principles
or
the three forces. It consists of the fact
that every phenomenon,
on whatever scale and in whatever world it may take place, from
molecular
to cosmic phenomena, is the result of the combination or the meeting of
three
different and opposing forces. Contemporary thought realizes
the existence
of two forces and the necessity of these two forces for the production
of
a phenomenon: force and resistance, positive and negative magnetism,
positive
and negative electricity, male and female cells, and so on.
But it
does not observe even these two forces always and everywhere.
No question
has ever been raised as to the third, or if it has been raised it has
scarcely
been heard.
"According to real, exact knowledge, one force, or two forces, can
never
produce a phenomenon. The presence of a third force is
necessary, for
it is only with the help of athird force that the first two
can produce
what may be called a phenomenon, no matter in what sphere....
"Returning to the world in which we live we may now say that in the
Absolute,
as well as in everything else, three forces are active: the active, the
passive,
and the neutralizing. But since by its very nature everything
in the
Absolute constitutes one whole the three forces also constitute one
whole.
Moreover in forming one independent whole the three forces
possess
a full and independent will, full consciousness, full understanding of
themselves
and of every thing they do.
"The idea of the unity of the three forces in the Absolute forms the
basis
of many ancient teachings --con-substantial and indivisible Trinity,
Trimurti --Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva,
and so on."
-- pgs.
77-79, In Search of the Miraculous by Peter
Ouspensky
