In Ayurvedic Psychology, the pointing of the three gunas — sattva, rajas, and tamas — are essential to understanding the mental and emotional constitution of the bodymind. The Gunas are recognised as 'The Food of Life' and point to the dynamic nature of conditioned consciousness, this which appears as 'The World' (bodymind).
The Gunas are the forces that shape our psychological state and influence how we interact with, in, and as 'The World'. They are the texture and aliveness of the beautiful dream of Maya - like the primary colours of the cosmic paint palette.
Alive and vital, when understood and attuned to in the context of alchemy and integration, they are that which supports our sense of flow with and as life's flux. They relate to how we nourish ourselves and how we create, not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. They play a crucial role in the movement of self-realisation, integration, and knowing life on its own terms rather than through the lens of the ego (pushing and pulling; grasping and aversion).
The Three Gunas in Ayurvedic Psychology:
Sattva: The guna of harmony, clarity, balance, and wisdom. Sattva represents purity and tranquility in the mind. When a person is predominantly sattvic, their mind is calm, open, clear, and able to discern truth from illusion. Sattvic qualities promote insight, self-awareness, and a sense of inner peace. Sattva is the force that supports the balancing of distortion. It is a vital force in the cessation of seeking.
Rajas: The guna of activity, desire, and passion. Rajas is characterized by movement, change, and restlessness. It is the energy behind action, ambition, and emotional impulses. When rajas predominates in the mind, it leads to agitation, attachment, and a tendency to chase external desires. It can also foster a sense of separation and dissatisfaction, as the individual is constantly seeking fulfillment outside themselves.
Tamas: The guna of inertia, darkness, and ignorance. Tamas represents heaviness, confusion, and lethargy in the mind. When tamas dominates, there is a tendency toward stagnation, depression, and a lack of clarity. The individual may feel disconnected from their true nature, and the mind becomes clouded by delusion, claiming, and self-destructive patterns.
In Ayurveda, the bodymind is viewed as a dynamic interaction between these three Gunas. Each individual has a unique and dynamique composition of these Gunas, and understanding the predominance of sattva, rajas, or tamas within our experience and tendency can guide a path in balance. Through the cessation of seeking we reclaim our naturalness and wholeness and stabilise in self-realisation - embracing the paradox of being the one Self as the changeless and the changing simultaneously. Of being simply life knowing itself.
I am the unchanging, witnessing myself as all that changes
Agni (Metabolic Fire) and Assimilation:
The concept of Agni, or digestive fire, is central to Ayurveda's understanding of health, both physical and mental. Agni refers to the body's capacity to digest, absorb, and assimilate food, experiences, and emotions. Just as the physical digestion of food requires the proper functioning of Agni, so does the digestion of life’s experiences and the assimilation of knowledge, emotions, and mental impressions.
Agni also governs the mind's ability to process and integrate experiences. When Agni is strong, it promotes clarity, understanding, and the ability to assimilate life’s lessons. If Agni is weak or imbalanced, it can lead to confusion, emotional instability, and an inability to process experiences or make clear decisions.
This extends beyond just physical digestion to the alchemy of the mind and spirit. The process of refining and purifying the mind is akin to alchemical transformation, where dense thoughts and emotions are transmuted by the intelligence of Agni, revealing the inherent wisdom that lies at their heart as life's seamless flow. In this sense, the 'goal' of actualisation or the pinnacle of transformation is to simply recognise and embody the sense of being totally fused and married to life. This is true love, safety, and freedom and is a direct, energetic recognition, beyond concept and doubt, of the nature of being and life as a singularity.
Integration for Self-Realisation:
To nourish the self holistically through integration, we must move beyond quick fixes or surface-level transformations. Often championed in popularized self-improvement rhetoric, these approaches tend to focus on attempting to force change in a preferred direction at the cost of seeing this that is true and real. 'Achieving' big shifts, quick results, altering superficial behaviors, or forcing 'embodiment' according to ideals, not only does this negate addressing the deeper, more subtle processes at play beyond the terms of 'egoic mind' and consensus culture, it leaves little space for contemplation and inquiry into the nature of experience itself. Such contemplation and inquiry is the true heart of life's teaching through the finely tuned 'how' it is appearing for the individual.
The real transformation comes from understanding and integrating all aspects of the self, not by pushing the ego’s agenda for external success, validation, or preferred states of consciousness. Self-realisation in Ayurveda and a true nonduality informed practice emphasises surrendering to the truth of who we are, beyond the constructs of the ego or the "separate self." This involves recognising and nurturing the inherent wisdom and balance of sattva, while also understanding the roles of rajas and tamas in shaping our experiences. Such inherent wisdom and balance, when informing and guiding moment to moment experiencing, is not about reaching a final state, but rather laying the optimal foundation for clear seeing and discernment around reality and delusion. This is the power of sattva as the trusted friend - revealing the luminous and harmonious nature of mind in its natural state and paving the way to revealing our eternal nature as that beyond experience as the source of all life.
Rather than seeking dramatic, external changes, Ayurvedic Psychology and nondual guidance is a movememt towards a full reclamation of our naturalness and wholeness - teaching us that the key to nourishing the self lies in gradual integration: balancing the gunas, refining agni, and embracing the ongoing process of purification and self-awareness. It is not about escaping or avoiding life’s conditions but about seeing through them and being married to life as it is — recognizing that true self-realisation is found in the acceptance of both the divine and mundane aspects of existence.
Indeed, a true nondual seeing, beyond oneness, is a full inclusion - one without a second amidst the full embrace of the multiplicity of creation appearing to itself. There is nothing but the divine, recognised as pouring through the apparently mundane and ordinary. Nothing to seek.
A Mutual Inquiry - Life on its Own Terms and a reverence for Agni
The importance of right pace in an individual's journey cannot be overstated, as rushing or forcing transformation often disrupts the natural unfolding process of alchemical integration, which is true growth for the individual in alignment with their authentic expression.
When we attempt to shift too quickly, we may bypass the subtle, gradual nourishment that occurs through the complete experience of life, including its challenges and contradictions. This hurried approach can result in the negation of the fullness of experience, where we inadvertently split life into opposites — what we deem "good" or "bad," "right" or "wrong" — instead of embracing its inherent wholeness and simultaneously revealing a direct recognition of our eternal unbound nature.
This selective approach to experience prevents the individual from fully integrating and learning from their journey which at its heart culminates as an ability to both revere and listen deeply to the intelligence of their own alchemical fire. Doing so is a recognition of a natural balance and sense of harmony of the personality as a dynamic configuration of life's flow with itself . This appears then as a lasting cessation of seeking (the suffering of separation) and a recognition of inherent peace, contentment, and vitality.
From a mental-emotional perspective, this is a foregoing of the constant striving for certain states and over emphasis on 'shifting' and 'dissolving' certain aspects of experience and sensation in favour of a deep attunement and knowing of the precision with which this is naturally taking place as life's unfolding. We recognise Agni to be our deeper intelligence whilst we are simultaneously The One Self as its source and creator. This is an incredible experience of deep love and union with oneself and a trust in our capacity as being life's everchanging tides without obstruction and negation. This is true flow and lasting happiness.
In this context, misdiagnosing existential suffering as psychological suffering can be especially counterproductive, as it leads us to try and "fix" what isn't broken, only to create more fragmentation rather than coming into right relationship with life's deeper intelligence.
Humility is essential in this process, both for the practitioner and client when working together in following beings natural unfolding. Genuine transformation often defies our limited understanding and defies the terms we've become accustomed to. In self-realisation, the most profound shifts occur in the spaces beyond what can be intellectually grasped, as we surrender our need to control the process. Reverence for life's terms is vital.
True transformation is often invisible and beyond comprehension, occurring in the dark, where the alchemical partnership (through the practitioner and client dyad) are working without predefined formulas. A practitioner who embodies this truth and provides guidance towards a stabilised realisation — the deep, unbroken peace that rests as self as source — understands that this peace transcends experience itself. Such a practitioner models surrender, embodying the radical safety and freedom that comes from recognising the intrinsic wholeness of life, guiding towards the realisation that transformation often happens quietly and subtly, as well as wildly and ferociously - outside the grasp of the ego's ambitions.
The emphasis is on simply being with experience — allowing it to unfold without rushing to interpret it, judge it, or split it into categories of "good" and "bad." This naturally opens the best conditions for inquiry into the nature of life and self.
The real shift comes when the individual begins to observe the change happening within them, beyond any meaning-making or identification with the experience. It’s in this space that the practitioner points to the individual’s inherent capacity to hold the experience — not as a passive bystander, but as the conscious engaged witness.
This capacity to hold experience is not separate from the true self; it is, in fact, the true self in action and it is this recognition that is realisation itself. The practitioner invites the individual to explore the nature of this witnessing — the knowing that is present even when the experience itself is in flux. This pointing towards the nature of knowing helps to reveal the true self, a stillness and clarity without orientation that underlies all experiences. This which we truly are.
In Summary and Context
Modern life coaching and self-improvement often emphasise the importance of making drastic shifts in mindset or achieving quick transformations to overcome life’s challenges. While there can be value in these approaches, they often miss a crucial component: the truth of being rather than the desire for life to become something else. When we are focused on external change without inner integration of our core seeking styles, we risk perpetuating the illusion of the separate self — the belief that we need to improve, fix, or drastically change in order to be worthy or successful. Ultimately, there is an underlying suffering of trying to make experience other than it is now.
In contrast, Ayurvedic Psychology and nonduality informed practice invites us to look inward, cultivate patience, and allow for life's natural refinement through radical self acceptance. It is less about seeking grand, immediate transformations and more about steady, sustainable growth that aligns with the deeper rhythms of the bodymind in accord with the totality - this is the happiness pinnacle and the conditions of transcendence.
Real change occurs when we cultivate a balanced mind (sattva), refine our desires (rajas), and transcend ignorance (tamas). It’s a holistic journey of self-nourishment, not a race toward an idealised, external goal - including lofty ideals and images around spiritual attainment. In our current culture of spiritual materialism it is helpful to consider the possiblity that true 'growth' may actually appear as more of a willingness to embrace the mediocre and the ordinary - for it is within this that we both challenge the conditioning of our popularised cultural milieu whilst setting the stage for recognising the unconditionally transcendent nature of life's immediacy.
The approach through the Gunas, Agni, and assimilation is one of integration, rather than the quick fixes and big shifts that dominate popular self-help culture. True nourishment and transformation come from cultivating clarity, balance, and wisdom over time, integrating life’s lessons through the gradual refining of the bodymind experience. Recognising the deeper wisdom that life, exactly as it is, is a constantly realising ever present Self. This is not about the ego’s need for validation or the pursuit of external success, but about aligning with the deeper, eternal truth of our nature.
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