Develop Sattva Guna in Just 4 Steps

Have you ever found yourself feeling lazy? Have you ever felt angry, frustrated , depressed , lonely or anxious? Ever wonder why you couldn’t achieve your goal? Why do you like to eat so much of the junk food? So, in the blog, we will try to find the answers of such questions.

Every action that we take in our life is inspired by some forces. In Bhagavad gita, these forces are refered as different mode of operation of the mother nature. In a broad way, these modes are of three types, Sattva guna, Raja guna and Tamo-guna.

Krishna says in B.G 14.5,

“when the living entity comes in contact with the nature, he becomes conditioned by these modes.”

These 3 modes are present in all of us and they influences our thoughts , actions and even the words which we choose to speak.

Let us understand about these three modes and see which one is the best-

Tamo-guna

Tamas actually means darkness, or simply laziness, lethargy and similar qualities. A person influenced by this mode is usually lazy, he sleeps a lot, procrastinate things, and heavy influence of this mode leads of self destructive activities, say suicides.

Raja-guna

Rajas technically means desires , obsession for material success. Persons influenced by this mode are usually restlessness and have tendency to act impulsively.

Sattva-guna

It is the highest among the three modes which brings in the peace, spiritual growth and contentment in one’s life. It is associated with purity , harmony , balance , wisdom, etc.

If we wish to make our lives better, then our goal should be to cultivate sattva-guna within us and reduce the influence of rajas and tamas in order to live a purposeful and happy life with peaceful state of mind.

So, how can we cultivate Sattva Guna?

Since we have realized the importance of being elevated in Sattva-guna, let’s understand how can we start cultivating this mode since it’s predominance is ideal for the living entities.

Lord Krishna says in Bhagavad Gita,

But those who are temperate in eating and recreation, balanced in work, and regulated in sleep, can mitigate all sorrows by practicing Yoga. ~Bhagavad Gita 06:17

This shloka is very helpful in having us kick start the journey of consciously cultivating sattva guna within us by following some very simple steps.

Step 1 : Improve Our Sleeping Habits

It is a very good practice to fix the time of our sleeping and similarly the time at which we wake up. Why is that so ?

Because this sets our biological clock, our body is a machine which needs rest, when we follow a regular sleeping cycle , our body can take proper rest, which improves our health, our memory and our confidence.

So, next question is, what is the best time to sleep ?

We should not sleep very late, best is if we can sleep by 10pm, or between 10 pm - 11 pm and thereafter we can wake up between 5 am - 6am.

But this is not rigid, since our job varies, our schedule so this time of sleeping can be changed according to the comfort of an individual and can slowly and steadily be improved upon.

There is Surely nothing to worry if you are a night owl 😆 , you can still start regulating your sleep from now. 😇

BONUS TIP : You can keep your phone aside for at least 1 hour before you sleep, this will help your brain enter into the sleep mode.

Step 2 : Improving Our Eating Habits

The food we eat provides energy that give our bodies fuel to perform all functions from the most basic like breathing to most complicated activities. Therefore, its very important to consume the right food and at the right time.

We have a separate blog, where we discuss , about the food that we should take, and that which will promote our health.

Here, we will discuss an overview of that. We should try to minimize our junk food consumption because oil filled fast food items are very dangerous for our heart, this causes digestive diseases such as uclers and more.

We should try to increase sattvik food items in our diet, such as fruits, fresh juicy vegetables, chappatis, rice, milk, milk products , etc.

Also, it’s important to take our meals at about the same time everyday so that our digestive system becomes habitual to that, this will make digestion very easier for digestive system.

BONUS TIP: eating Salad is a very good practice , research shows that people who eat a bowl of salad everyday feel quite energetic.

Step 3: Maintaining Cleanliness and Hygiene

Having a good hygiene is of utmost importance for our health, productivity and of the people around us.

For example, imagine you are suppose to study on a table which is badly cluttered. Would you be able to study well? Wouldn’t you be distracted a lot? Wouldn’t it be difficult to find your other belongings related to your study work? Wouldn’t it be impacting your studies adversely.

What is the answers to all these questions ? Yes, that I do not like to study or work in such an environment.

And now why is that so ? Because this environment lacks cleanliness and organisation.

Therefore, we should always adhere to the basic principles such as :

• 🚿 Taking a bath daily.
• 🧹 Cleaning  our room regularly.
• 🧳 Keeping our almirahs organised. (Not everyday 😁, but say once in 15 days, we should re-organise our almirah) 😌
• getting our haircut and trimming your nails regularly.

Bonus tip: start with baby steps rather than trying putting everything into habbit immediately.

Step 4: Adding Meditation to Our Life

A regular Meditation practice lets you to become more and more aware, purposeful about your actions.

It teaches you how to respond, rather than react, to situations that come in your life.

It provides us a sense of calmness and peace, helps in the overall well-being of an individual.

You can start with meditating for at least 10 minutes a day and shall keep on increasing that time according to our convenience and dedication. Also, we have another article where we discuss, how can we meditate, you can check that out.

Conclusion

Do not forget to share your experiences with us, when you apply these teachings, we are anxiously waiting to see your better self.

Also, this is just a beginning, in the upcoming part of this series, we will discuss more steps which will help you become still more better and responsible person. See you till next time. Namaste!