GUNAS
These modes are termed in the Indian books qualities, gunas, and are given the
names sattva, rajas, tamas. Sattwa is the force of 
equilibrium and translates in quality as good and harmony and
happiness and light; rajas is the force of kinesis and translates in quality as struggle and effort, passion and
action; tamas is the force
of inconscience and inertia and translates in quality as obscurity and incapacity and inaction. Ordinarily used
for psychological self-analysis, these distinctions are valid also in physical Nature. Each thing and every existence
in the lower Prakriti contains them and its process and dynamic form are the result of the interaction of these
qualitative powers.
The Godhead, the spirit manifested in Nature appears in a sea of infinite quality, Ananta-guna.
But the executive or mechanical Prakriti is of the threefold guna, sattwa, rajas, tamas, and the Ananta-guna, the
spiritual play of infinite quality, modifies itself in this mechanical nature
into the type of these three gunas.
This earth alone is not our teacher and nurse;
The powers of all the worlds have entrance here.
In their own fields they follow the wheel of law
And cherish the safety of a settled type;
On earth out of their changeless orbit thrown
Their law is kept, lost their fixed form of things.
