What are the TriGuna - The Three Qualities

Everything in Prakruti or Nature has three fundamental Qualities - Known as Triguna.

These three fundamental qualities are -
Saatvik, Raajsik, and Taamsik.

Both these words, Prakriti in Sanskrit and Nature in English - have two meanings.
The first meaning is the Universe - Nature that we see and feel through our senses - which we call Mother-Nature.
Second is Svabhaav - the personal nature or temperament of a person or every living being.
Both kinds of Nature have the same three fundamental qualities.

The three fundamental qualities or functions of Nature as in mother nature are:
Satva -   Creation - To Create
Rajas -   Sustenance - To sustain
Tamas - Destruction - To destroy

The Hindu or Indian Trimurti - Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesh are the symbols of these above-mentioned three characteristics - the powers and functions of nature.
Brahmaa represents the creative mode of nature
Vishnu represents sustenance and continuity
While Mahesh or Shiva - the Lord of death - represents the end or destruction.

Every day - at every moment, we can see these three roles continually being played by nature everywhere. 

From falling off the leaves in the fall season and springing of new leaves and plants in the Spring to
death of old, sick, and worn out to the birth of new ones, Nature is continuously performing the functions of creation and destruction and creation again - while providing what is needed to maintain and sustain life and everything else in between the cycles of creation and destruction.
With the new discoveries of science, we know now that even the huge old stars are dying and the new stars are also being born every day.
The ancient Indian scholars observed everything closely and attributed three main qualities to nature as creation, sustenance, and destruction - represented by the Trimurti of Brahmaa, Vishnu, and Mahesh.

They attributed the same three Guna, three qualities to everything and every being - living or nonliving - including humans.

                                    Three Gunas of Fundamental Elements

All the five basic elements of nature - earth, fire, water, air, and space contain all these three qualities.

Fire provides heat - essential to create and sustain life, but the wildfire can burn everything within moments.
Water creates and sustains life but in the form of floods, it destroys the villages, farms, and cities, and everything with them.

The same is true with earth and air. 

While they are essential for the creation and sustenance of life, their powers can be destructive in the form of earthquakes - and tornadoes, or hurricanes respectively.

Space, though invisible, is essential for everything and every being to exist independently, as well as the medium through which every constructive and destructive force travels. 

                                     Three qualities of Personal Nature

 (to be continued)

                                    ' Rajan Sachdeva '