If we all are same souls then why do we behave differently?

All living beings are souls including trees but every living being behaves differently even beings of same species behave differently what to speak of different species. But why is this? Why there are different types psychologies of humans? Why some are very aggressive,evil,good, matured, calm, rude, etc?

The answer for this question lies in Law of Karma and the gunas (qualities) of the body of living beings. Every living being has some inherent qualities in boundaries of which it works, enjoys, and tries to pursue dreams.

What are Gunas (Qualities)?

The material nature has three qualities/modes: Sattva (Goodness), Rajas (Passion) and Tamas (Ignorance). All living beings are bounded by these qualities and behave only in the boundaries of these qualities. Lets see what these qualities are:

1. Goodness: As the name suggests the person having this quality behaves good or kind. Behaviors like kindness, calmness, polite, happy, content,sympathy,compassion etc. all comes under mode of goodness. The person dominated by this mode/quality always sees good in everything, he is innocent, he wants everyone to live happily, he is very polite to others, he tries to help others, etc. There is a scarcity of this quality in today's modern society where people are becoming selfish and self centered.                                                                                                           

   

    Fig: Example of  action in the mode of goodness

                                                                                          
2. Passion: This quality indicates lot of desires to enjoy or sense gratification. A person influenced by this quality works very hard to fulfill his desires. Today's modern society is highly influenced by this quality. We can see everyone is just running to fulfill his desires and working so hard as if they are going to live forever with all their possessions and enjoy for eternity. Desires can be anything from having a beautiful woman or handsome and successful husband to owing a large mansion, cars, entitled for respect, etc such desires arise due to this quality. So any desire to enjoy or have something from this material nature comes under mode of passion.                                                       

   

   Fig: Example of action in the mode of passion

                                                                                                 
3. Ignorance: This quality indicates madness or doing anything without considering its loss to self or others. People influenced by this quality behave irresponsibly, they are attracted by different addictions, they are mostly depressed, not have any interest in spiritual knowledge,etc. They think that this world is Only truth and there is nothing beyond death. Again our society is highly influenced by this quality as there are very few who are interested in searching answers for important questions of life. The people in this quality are in illusion and too sentimental, the suicidal thoughts is the result of this quality.                                                                                                             

   

   Fig: Example of action in mode of ignorance attraction to addictions        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

   

   Fig: Example of action in mode of ignorance                               

                                                                                                                                                        

Dependent on the amount of dominating quality in a person his behavior is bounded. Every person has different amounts of these qualities it is not possible to have only one quality. But one quality dominates him and he behaves according to that quality. Mode of ignorance dominates animals as they are mostly engaged in killing, eating meat, or no intelligence to find answers to their existence.
Depression is result of the mode of ignorance, as a person who is not in knowledge identifies himself with the body and takes the sorrows seriously when depression further dominates he get suicidal thoughts.

One may think that if one's nature is already inherited then he is not responsible for bad karma, but this is not so. As explained in my last blog post that we are soul and we have minute independence to "select" difference between good and bad, so it is our choice and hence we are responsible for it. 

Now whenever you find people behaving unexpectedly you should know that they are behaving according to their inherited modes and they are actually not the way they seem and hence we should not expect anything from others, because everyone behaves according to mode they are influenced by.

How Law of karma is related with behavior of people?

I am learning all this spiritual knowledge from Bhagvad Gita As it is. The answer for this question is given by Lord Krishna in Bhagvad Gita. He says:

sariram yad avapnoti
yac capy utkramatisvarah
grhitvaitani samyati
vayur gandhan ivasayat

The living entity in the material world carries his different conceptions of life from one body to another as the air carries aromas. (Bhagavad Gita as it is 15.8)

You might have heard that our thoughts create our destiny its true spiritually, as we are part and parcel of God (Lord Krishna) we have power to enjoy as we desire (but its limited!) and hence we get a specific type of body to enjoy in next life. Suppose one girl is not happy with her looks and is envious of others beauty then she will surely fulfill her desire in upcoming birth by getting beautiful body. This applies to all living beings. Hence Lord Krishna says that living beings carries his different conceptions (desires & Karma) from one body to another and gets specific body to fulfill that desire. That is why Bhagvad Gita and other Vedic scriptures teach us to give up desires and become detached from these gunas (qualities). You will know the reason why detachment is taught in upcoming blog posts.

All these gunas are in our mind and it creates a illusion so that soul remains entangled, but we should control it with our intelligence received from scriptures like Bhagvad Gita. During war Arjun was also dominated by the mode of Goodness (Sattva) and he refused to fight with his own kinsmen, but Lord Krishna with the lamp of knowledge removed such attachment and Arjun won the war.

Fig: Visualization of three Gunas affecting a person.

Above is the visualization of how the three modes of nature is pulling us and we are entangled in it more and more. Scriptures teach us to get rid of all the three gunas not even goodness is allowed to be attached with. Because this world is of dualities and Good or evil is part of this world and we are beyond such gunas.

I hope I explained the modes of nature in easy language. If you have any doubts or suggestions please do write in comment section.