The Three Gunas

Sri Tandavaraya Swami

Disciple: 

Free from movement, unbroken, perfect and transformed into That, is not such a state of mind called samadhi yoga (union in Peace)? How can this mind always moving like a swing, and raising up several worlds in a trice, be stilled so that it may remain steady in the Self like a flame protected from draughts?

Master:

The active mind is composed of three gunas; when one of them is uppermost, the other two lie covert. With sattvaguna, divine qualities manifest; with rajoguna, the tendencies pertaining to the world, the body and the shastras. With tamoguna, the evil nature manifests. 

Sattva is the very nature of the mind, whereas the other two qualities are mere adjuncts and can therefore be banished from it. If one holds to steadily to one's divineness, rajas and tamas get strangled, so that the internal stresses and the external manifold disappear. When this happens, your mind shines forth untainted and becomes motionless and subtle like the ether. And then it naturally becomes one with Brahman, which is already so, and remains in undifferentiated Peace (nirvikalpa samadhi)

When one stainless mirror is placed in front of another similar one, the reflecting surfaces will be one undistinguishable, the reflecting surfaces will be one undistinguishable whole. Similarly when the mind which is clear has become one with the Infinite, sat-chit-ananda, Brahman, and remains untainted, how can there be the manifold or movements in the mind? Tell me.