... shall point out what I mean in my next. By sattwic man I do not mean a moral or an always self-con- trolled one, but a predominantly mental (as opposed to a vital or merely physical man) who has rajasic emotions and passions, but lives predominantly according to his mind and its will and ideas. There is no such thing, I suppose, as a purely sattwic man — since the three gunas go always together in... the formidable brute beast that was Bali, it was his busi- ness to kill him and get the Animal under his control. It was his business to be not necessarily a perfect, but a largely representative sattwic Man, a faithful husband and a lover, a loving and obedient son, a tender and perfect brother, father, friend — he is friend of all kinds of people, friend of the outcast Guhaka, friend of the Animal... in a state of unstable equilibrium — but a predominantly sattwic man is what I have described. My impression of Rama from Valmiki is such — it is quite different from yours. I am afraid your picture of him is quite out of focus — you efface the main lines of the characters, belittle and brush out all the lights to which Valmiki gave so much value and prominence and hammer always at some details and ...
... shall point out what I mean in my next. By sattwic man I do not mean a moral or an always self- controlled one, but a predominantly mental (as opposed to a vital or merely physical man) who has rajasic emotions and passions, but lives predominantly according to his mind and its will and ideas. There is no such thing, I suppose, as a purely sattwic man—since the three gunas go always together in a... formidable brute beast that was Ball, it was his business to kill him and get the Animal Mind under his control. It was his business to be not necessarily a perfect, but a largely representative sattwic Man, a faithful husband and a lover, a loving and obedient son, a tender and perfect brother, rather, friend—he is friend of all kinds of people, friend of he kinds of people, friend of the outcast Guhaka... a state of unstable equilibrium—but a predominantly sattwic man is what I have described. My impression of Rama from Valmiki is such—it is quite different from yours. I am afraid your picture of him is quite out of focus—you efface the main lines of the characters, belittle and brush out all the lights to which Valmiki gave so much value and prominence and hammer always at some details and some ...
... shall point out what I mean in my next. By sattwic man I do not mean a moral or an always self controlled one, but a predominantly mental (as opposed to a vital or merely physical man) who has rajasic emotions and passions, but lives predominantly according to his mind and its will and ideas. There is no such thing, I suppose, as a purely sattwic man—since the three gunas go always together in a... formidable brute beast that was Bali, it was his business to kill him and get the Animal Mind under his control. It was his business to be not necessarily a perfect, but a largely representative sattwic Man, a faithful husband and lover, a loving and obedient son, a tender and perfect brother, father, friend—he is friend of all kinds of people, friend of the outcaste Guhaka, friend of the Animal ... a state of unstable equilibrium, but a predominantly sattwic man is what I have described. My impression of Rama from Valmiki is such—it is quite different from yours. I am afraid your picture of him is quite out of focus—you efface the main lines of the character, belittle and brush out all the lights to which Valmiki gave so much value and prominence and hammer always at some details and some parts ...
... turn to the Divine and many virtuous people have a long run of lives yet to go through before they will think of it. Vices are simply an overflow of energy in unregulated channels. The Sattwic Man and the Spiritual Man The passage through sattwa is the ordinary idea of Yoga, it is the preparation and purification by the yama-niyama of Patanjali or by other means in other Yogas, e.g., s... sattwa is replaced by the cultivation of equanimity, samatā , and by the psychic transformation. It is a very beautiful character that you describe in your letter, a perfect type of the sattwic man, a fine and harmonised ethical nature supported and vivified by a fine and developed psychic being. But still, although it may be regarded as an excellent preparation for the spiritual life, it cannot... spontaneous mastery, the intimate and real knowledge. Obviously [ in sadhana ] the rajasic movements are likely to create more trouble than the sattwic ones. The greatest difficulty of the sattwic man is the snare of virtue and self-righteousness, the Page 427 ties of philanthropy, mental idealisms, family affections etc., but except the first, these are, though difficult, still not ...
... than a sattwic man? That is implied in what I said about the sattwic man having the advantage. Somnath's question seemed to be about the approach to spirituality, Yoga, not as to what would happen to the two kinds of people in the course of the sadhana. But obviously the rajasic movements are likely to create more trouble than the sattwic ones. The greatest difficulty of the sattwic man is the... Augustine had difficulties, but they do not seem to have been of a very violent character, the others are described as having made a total yoke face, I believe. If I had been a predominantly sattwic man, you would have had much less trouble from me, wouldn't you? No doubt. But you are not after all, a thief, debauchee, drunkard or gangster. You may say perhaps that if you had been, you could ...
... distinguishes between the instrument of the work (mind and will), the work done and the doer of the work. The sattwic mind always seeks right harmony and right knowledge and it tends to govern the sattwic man and to guide all the rest of the machine. This is quite distinguishable from the rajasic instrument and will which Page 130 is supported by egoism and desire-soul. The tamasic instrument... the lips at the first touch but there is a secret poison in the bottom of the cup, and it ends in bitterness of disappointment, fatigue, revolt, disgust, suffering, loss, and transience. For the sattwic man, happiness does not depend on outward things but it flowers on what is best and most inward within him. But this happiness is not at first a normal possession; it has to be conquered by self-discipline... 148 Swabhava is normally translated as one's own nature, and, in the ordinary parlance, it refers to one's own nature in Apara Prakriti in which one lives predominantly. Thus one speaks of the sattwic man to designate the individual who dwells predominantly in the nature which is dominated by the sattwa, the principle of light, understanding and predominantly governed by Buddhi and instruments of ...
... s" mind, that stands in your way. You have said, "A sattwic fellow would do it also, but on other lines." Will you tell us how? I would prefer to wait till I have the said sattwic man in my hand. The sattwic man would have less vital rush, more balance, harmony, even working out of the Force—He might do less surprising things or rather give them a less surprising appearance, but possibly he ...
... of his turbulent passions, desires and egoisms, the burden of his restless self-will, the yoke of his rajasic nature. At the top presses down upon life the harmonic regulative law or dharma; the sattwic man attempts to erect and follow his limited personal standards of reasoning knowledge, enlightened utility or mechanised virtue, his religions and philosophies and ethical formulas, mental systems and... fixed channels of idea and conduct which do not agree with the totality of the meaning of life and are constantly being broken in the movement of the wider universal purpose. The dharma of the sattwic man is the highest in the circle of the gunas; but that too is a limited view and a dwarfed standard. Its imperfect indications lead to a petty and relative perfection; temporarily satisfying to the ...
... the difference of the gunas that determines the character of each of these elements. The sattwic mind that seeks always for a right harmony and right knowledge is the governing instrument of the sattwic man and moves all the rest of the machine. An egoistic will of desire supported by the desire-soul is the dominant instrument of the rajasic worker. An Page 500 ignorant instinct or the ...
... of desire, to perceive and worship a nobler godhead than the ego or than any magnified image of the ego, to become a right thinker and a right doer. This too is not in itself enough; for even the sattwic man is subject to the bewilderment of the gunas, because he is still governed by wish and disliking, icchā-dveṣa . He moves within the circle of the forms of Nature and has not the highest, not the ...
... always to action and has little value except for the sake of action or else for a fine satisfaction of the mind's play and vigour. But here the type proposed for admiration is the self-possessed sattwic man for whom calm thought, spiritual knowledge and the inner life are the things of the greatest importance and action is chiefly of consequence not for its own sake, not for its rewards and fruits, ...
... mind, in the sensational being delicacy, just acceptivity, moderation and poise, a vitality subdued and governed by the mastering intelligence. The Page 686 accomplished types of the sattwic man are the philosopher, saint and sage, of the rajasic man the statesman, warrior, forceful man of action. But in all men there is in greater or less proportions a mingling of the gunas, a multiple ...
... aesthetic and emotional mind, in the sensational being delicacy, just acceptivity, moderation and poise, a vitality subdued and governed by the mastering intelligence. The accomplished types of the sattwic man are the philosopher, saint and sage, of the rajasic man the statesman, warrior, forceful man of action. But in all men there is in greater or less proportions a mingling of the gunas, a multiple ...
... personalities have a strong ego of one kind or another—for that matter it does not need to be a big personality to be ego-centred; ego-centricity is the very nature of life in the Ignorance—even the sattwic man, the philanthropist, the altruist live for and round their ego. Society imposes an effort to restrain and when one cannot restrain at least to disguise it; morality to control, enlarge, refine ...
... infrarational Nature which he inherits from the animal. He could then live securely in his best human self as a perfected rational and sympathetic being, balanced and well-ordered in all parts, the sattwic man of Indian Philosophy; that would be his summit of possibility, his consummation. But his nature is rather transitional; the rational being is only a middle term of Nature's evolution. A rational ...
... essential nature, he was being led by his sattwic rajasic nature the norms of which he knew as his dharma. This Dharma is the ethical dharma, an ensemble of ethical principles and rules by which a sattwic man seeks to regulate his life. When this ethical Dharma failed to lead him, and contrary ideals pressed forward to claim his allegiance, he was perplexed and bewildered. Taking advantage of this ...
... ignorant, inert or moved only in a little light by small motive forces, the rajasic or sattwo-rajasic man struggling with an awakened mind and will towards self-development or self-affirmation, and the sattwic man open in mind and heart and will to the Light, standing at the top of the scale and ready to transcend it. ...
... personalities have a strong ego of one kind or another—for that matter it does not need to be a big personality to be ego-centred; ego-centricity is the very nature of life in the Ignorance,—even the sattwic man, the philanthropist, the altruist live for and round their ego. Society imposes an effort to restrain and when one cannot restrain at least to disguise it. Morality's highest business is to control ...
... infrarational Nature which he inherits from the animal. He could then live securely in his best human self as a perfected rational and sympathetic being, balanced and well-ordered in all parts, the sattwic man of Indian philosophy; that would be his summit of possibility, his consummation. But his nature is rather transitional; the rational being is only a middle term of Nature's evolution. A rational ...
... moment take a violent revenge for its rejection and suppression. For, always, the play of the lower nature is a triple play, and the rajasic and tamasic qualities are ever lying in wait for the sattwic man. "Even the mind of the Page 198 wise man who labours for perfection is carried away by the vehement insistence of the senses." Perfect security can only be had by resorting to something ...
... as a means of his increase and natural self-development. Dominated by sattva , man seeks in the midst of the strife for a principle of law, right, poise, harmony, peace, satisfaction. The purely sattwic man tends to seek this within, whether for himself alone or with an impulse to communicate it, when won, to other human minds, but usually by a sort of inner detachment from or else an outer rejection ...
... thinks he has realised what he ought to have realised, he no longer has either the aspiration or even that elementary humility which makes one want to progress. You see, one who is known here as a sattwic man 1 is usually very comfortably settled in his own virtue and never thinks of coming out of it. So, that puts you a million leagues away from the divine realisation. What really helps, until ...
... passions such as killing or fighting come from a push of Rajoguna or Tamoguna? Both together - for it is made up of tamasic obscurity and rajasic wrong impulse. Can a purely sattwic man become very angry or passionate? No - he can only be firm or severe when severity is needed. Are depression, despair and fear reactions of tamas or rajas? Tamas. ...
... man, who seeks to govern his life according to some principles of light and purity, such, for example, as unselfishness, altruism, chivalry, self-abnegation, rectitude, truthfulness etc. He is the Sattwic man, as known in India. There is also a still higher category, where consciousness endeavours to go beyond mind, enters into the consciousness of the Spirit; then we have the spiritual man, the saint ...
... music, etc., in X, I thought these gifts which Doraiswamy is endowed with, may have been due to your Spiritual Force, not knowing what his born or unborn gifts were. No, Duraiswami was always a sattwic man, a very fine sattwic type. But for spirituality one must get beyond the sattwic. Then by X's bigness or big fishness, I didn't mean "big fish" in that sense, nor your biggest success. I meant ...
... and that his help is unfailing. The figure of Krishna is the symbol of the Divine's dealing with humanity. Arjuna, as we know him in the Mahabharata, is the rajasic man who governs his rajasic actions by a high sattwic ideal. At the opening of the episode in the Gita, we find him advancing to the field of a gigantic struggle, to Kurukshetra, with the full acceptance of the joy of battle, as... that the path of renunciation is preferable to the terrible action of war. Krishna, the divine Teacher, knows that Arjuna is experiencing the typical tamasic recoil from action of the sattwic-rajasic man. He discourages this recoil and enjoins Arjuna to go on with the fierce and terrible action that confronts him. And 1. Sattwa connotes balance, equilibrium and a tendency towards knowledge... nature of the crisis which he undergoes. Arjuna is, in the language of the Gita, a man subject to the action of the three Page 67 Gunas or modes of the Nature-Force and habituated to move unquestioningly in that field, like the generality of men. He justifies his name only in being so far pure and sattwic as to be governed by high and clear principles and impulses and habitually control ...
... between land and water, then the land animal, then the Man-Lion Avatar, bridging man and animal, then man as dwarf, small and undeveloped and physical but containing in himself the godhead and taking possession of existence, then the rajasic , sattwic , nirguna Avatars, leading the human development from the vital rajasic to the sattwic mental man and again the overmental superman. Krishna, Buddha... yuge yuge ? In some such spirit some would interpret the ten incarnations of Vishnu, first in animal forms, then in the animal man, then in the dwarf man-soul, Vamana, the violent Asuric man, Rama of the axe, the divinely-natured man, a greater Rama, the awakened spiritual man, Buddha, and, preceding him in time, but final in place, the complete divine manhood, Krishna, – for the last Avatar, Kalki,... 11: The Kalki Avatar God must be born on earth and be as man That man being human may grow even as God. Sri Aurobindo 1 According to the Hindu tradition, the evolution of life and consciousness on Earth has been supported by a succession of Avatars: the Fish, the Tortoise, the Boar, the Man-Lion, the Dwarf, Rama-with-the-Ax, Rama, Krishna, the Buddha, and the last ...
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