envisaging the quality of desire and passion as the cause of disturbance, suffering, sin and sorrow, we strain and labor to quell and subdue it, Rajas sinks but Tamas rises. For, the principle of activity dulled, inertia takes its place. A quiet peace, happiness, knowledge, love, right sentiment can be provided by the principle of light, but if Rajas is absent or completely suppressed, the quiet in the Soul tends to become a tranquillity of inaction, not the firm ground of a dynamic change. The Nature becomes Sattwa-Tamasic, neutral, pale-tinted, uncreative or emptied of power. Mental and moral obscurity may be absent, but so are the intense springs of action, and this is hampering limitation and another kind of incompetence. For Tamas is a double principle; it contradicts Rajas by inertia, it contradicts Sattwa by narrowness, obscurity and ignorance and, if either is depressed, it pours in to occupy its place. If we call in Rajas again to correct this error and bid it ally itself to Sattwa and by their untied agency endeavor to get rid of the dark principle, we find that we have elevated our action, but that there is again subjection to rajasic eagerness, passion, disappointment, suffering, anger. These movements may be more exalted in their scope and sprit and action than before , but they are not the peace, the freedom, the power, the self-mastery at which we long to arrive. Wherever desire and ego harbor, passion and disturbance harbor with them and share their life. And if we seek a compromise between the three modes, Sattwa leading, the others subordinate, still we have only arrived at a more temperate action of the play of Nature. A new poise has been reached, but a spiritual freedom and mastery are not in sight or else are still only a far-off prospect. 

Divine Life Transcending the Gunas 
A radically different method has to free us from the limiting effect of the Gunas and lift us above them. The error of identifying with the activities of the Gunas of Nature must cease; for as long as this is done the Soul is involved in their operation and subjected to their law. Sattwa must be transcended as well as Rajas and Tamas, the golden chain must be broken no less than the leaden fetters and the bond –ornaments of a mixed alloy. 

The Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna's teachings prescribes to this end a new method of selfdiscipline. It is to stand back in oneself from the action of the Gunas and observe their unsteady flux as the Witness seated above. The Witness is one who watches but is impartial and indifferent, aloof from them and high above them. As they rise and fall in their waves, the Witness looks, observes, but neither accepts nor for the moment interferes with their course. First there must be the freedom of the impersonal Witness, afterwards there will be the control of the Master. 

The initial advantage of this process of detachment is that one begins to understand one's own nature and all Nature. The detached Witness is able to see entirely without the least blinding by egoism the play of the Gunas of Nature and to pursue it into all its ramifications, coverings and subtleties – for it is full of camouflage and disguise and treachery. Instructed by long experience, conscious of all act and condition as their interaction, made wise of their processes, he cannot any longer be overcome by their assaults, surprised in their nets or deceived by disguises. At the same time he perceives the ego to be nothing better than a device and the sustaining knot of their interaction and, perceiving it, he is delivered from the illusion of the lower egoistic nature.