Cannabis’ Effects on the Three Gunas

Cannabis’ Effects on the Three Gunas

[00:45] Q – How does cannabis influence the three gunas?

In Ayurveda, rajas and tamas are two fundamental energies that affect our mental and emotional states. Rajas being linked to stimulation and activity, and tamas to inertia and heaviness. How do substances like cannabis influence these energies and what practices could help balance the rajasic and tamasic effects to promote more sattvic qualities such as mental clarity, balance and harmony.

Thank you very much in advance.

[01:20] A – Gunas – Balance Agents of Nature

Let me just take my listeners through a process of definition of terms, and my questioner is, I have to say, very educated about the meaning of these things. Many of my listeners may not be familiar with these, what are called gunas.

A guna, G-U-N-A, is a balancing agent in the relative world, and there are three of them.

The first of them we’ll examine, which is the primary of them, is sattva. Sattva, S-A-T-T-V-A, sattva, has the meaning of purity, but purity of what? Purity of trend or tendency, evolutionary. That trend or tendency of that which is always evolutionary at any given moment. What is it that is evolutionary to do or to be could change in any given moment.

Every mother knows about this. You’re dealing with a child. Sometimes your eyebrows have to tell the tale that, “If you continue putting that hairpin inside the electrical power outlet, mother’s going to be displeased.” And so, sometimes the mother’s look has to be stern, and it’s evolutionary.

Other times, the mother’s look has to be accommodating. Other times, the mother’s look has to be patient. Other times, the mother’s look has to be interested, and so on and so forth.

What is it that is evolutionary for the mother to be? Well, if you make any one statement, that statement is bound to be incorrect within seconds because situational change imposes itself. What is it that’s correct to be doing, thinking, or being?

To be in that mainstream of spontaneous right thinking, spontaneous right action—spontaneous meaning without having to premeditate it, without having to contemplate or think—instantaneous, spontaneous rightness of Beingness. This is what comes from and what is descriptive of that quality of sattva.

Sattva is that purity of, because when we say purity, we want to know: purity of what? Purity of being 100 percent attuned with Cosmic intent.

[04:27] Rajas and Tamas – Change and Inertia

Now, we have to see change happen. For change to happen, change can go in one of two directions: it can either go in the direction of decay or it can go in the direction of evolution. That which breaks inertia and causes change—either to move toward deterioration or in the direction of evolution—that fundamental force that causes change in one or the other direction is what’s known as rajas, R-A-J-A-S.

Rajas is the change agent: change in any direction—up, down, hot to cold, cold to hot, any kind of change—rajas.

Then we have tamas. Tamas means inertia, in the same way that we use the word in Western physics science. There is inertia of stillness and inertia of motion. Tamas is spelled T-A-M-A-S, tamas.

Tamas is the tendency of a thing which is still to remain still. Think of a prodigious boulder, the size of a house. It has a tendency to be immovable. So, if you ride your tricycle very fast and run into the boulder, it appears to be, compared to you on the tricycle, an immovable object.

And so, you crash into it, and it can’t be moved. Five hundred people pushing it can’t get that boulder to start rolling. Let’s make it a spherical boulder.

But what if you use Archimedes’ Principles of Leverage and you leverage the boulder into rolling? Now you have a rolling boulder, and that rolling boulder also has inertia. This is the inertia of motion.

That is to say, the tendency of a thing which is still to remain still if it has sufficient mass, or the tendency of a thing that is moving to continue moving if it has sufficient mass.

A rolling boulder also has inertia. A still boulder also has inertia. So, a tendency for non-change either from the steady still state or a tendency toward non-change from the moving state.

All of this we summarize in the Sanskrit word tamas.

[07:52] Go Beyond the Three Gunas

And so, what happens when we meditate? During the practice of Vedic Meditation, our mind goes beyond thought and experiences oneness with that field which is beyond the three gunas.

In his instruction to his student, the great teacher, Lord Krishna—supposedly around 5,000 years ago in India—taught his student, Arjuna, the Sanskrit phrase Nistraiguṇyo Bhavārjuna.

What that means in English is: “Go beyond the three gunas, O Arjuna.” Nistraiguṇyo Bhavārjuna. Then, two verses later, he says, “Yogastha Kuru Karmāṇi.”

Yogastha Kuru Karmāṇi means “established in the oneness, where your individuality has become one with the field of Being, that which is beyond the three gunas.”

In other words, don’t try to adjust the rajas, the tamas, and the sattva by staying in the relative field. Go beyond all of these three. Experience oneness with That—capital “T”—That, which is the home of all the laws of Nature. It’s the home, but it’s not itself one of the gunas. It’s the home, the source of the three gunas.

So, we go to and become one with Yogastha. We become one with that Totality Consciousness, and then, when we re-emerge, Yogastha Kuru Karmāṇi means “established in capital-B Being,” the transcendental field. Established in Being, now perform action.

It’s so interesting that Lord Krishna does not say, “Established in Being, start thinking about what you should do next.”

He doesn’t say that. He says, “Established in Being, perform action.” Let action come straight out of the field of Being. You can think about it later. When action emerges directly out of the field of Being, then it is spontaneous right action.

Spontaneous right action. In Sanskrit, the name for this is Kriya. K-R-I-Y-A. Kriya.

Kriya is spontaneous right action, action that emerges directly out of the Totality Consciousness Field, without any thinking intervening. It’s not Being going into thinking, and thinking then going into action. No. It’s Being going directly into action. Being going directly into action.

[11:32] Too Many Spinning Plates

Yogastha Kuru Karmāṇi. One finds oneself acting and only getting a chance to think about it later. And generally speaking, you’ll look at it later and go, “Wow, how cool. That was the spontaneous right action.” Or, “How interesting. I said the most interesting thing.” Or, “I did the most interesting thing, and I’m only just now thinking about it. And it was perfect, what I said,” or, “I had command over my silence and I said nothing. Also very cool.”

Action can also mean inaction. Akarma or Akriya means non-action, which is also considered to be an action. The omission of action, that is, to have command over your own silence, sometimes is the very best response.

Some kind of irrelevant demand is being made on you, and in the moment, it may be the very best response not to respond at all. Let some silence dominate.

But if we’re formulaic in our thinking, we think, “I’m just going to be the silent person and never react at all.” You’ll get it wrong about three-quarters of the time.

And if you think, “I’ll always be the sattvic person, I’m going to do the sattva behavior,” you’ll probably get it wrong three-quarters of the time. And if you think, “I’ll be the rajas,” or, “I’ll be the tamas,” this is our individuality trying to think its way into balancing these three gunas—the balancing agents of the natural world.

For our individuality to attempt to do it, it’s too many spinning plates for the juggler. You’re going to be juggling and getting it wrong. Too many spinning plates. What to do? Nistraiguṇyo Bhavā, Nistraiguṇyo Bhavā. Go beyond the three gunas. Experience oneness with the field and let yourself be the field that is issuing forth, in perfect balance, these three things.

[13:47] Endogenous and Exogenous Cannabinoids

Now, as regards cannabis. Cannabis is one plant, Cannabis sativa, that has an active ingredient in it known as tetrahydrocannabinol, also referred to as THC. Tetrahydrocannabinol, THC. Cannabis sativa is not the only source of tetrahydrocannabinol.

We have in our brain endocannabinoids. Endo- meaning produced within, cannabinoids. The endocannabinoids are the products that our brain produces, which create molecules that fit into receptors. They seek the receptor; the receptor finds the molecule, takes it into the cell, and it causes a reaction that is perfect.

When we have exogenous cannabinoids—exogenous means from outside the body—for example, the tetrahydrocannabinol, the THC that comes from the plant Cannabis sativa or one of the other plants known to contain it, we introduce that molecule through smoking, chewing, swallowing, injecting, or whatever method is used to get the molecules into our bloodstream. 

Certainly, they are the counterfeit that mimic the shape of our own endogenously produced endocannabinoids. Endogenously produced means produced by your brain self-sufficiently, entirely within the human nervous system with no outside help.

The THC cannabinoids, the THC cannabis, acts as a counterfeit that can slot like someone has cut a key—perhaps a little badly—but cut a key that can go into the keyhole of a door at your home. And if they wiggle it and jiggle it a bit, it’ll actually open up the door. It’s a counterfeit key.

Tetrahydrocannabinol is a counterfeit key. It’s fitting into receptors that were designed for endogenous endocannabinoids. It will produce an effect, but it doesn’t produce a balanced effect.

It’s not a balanced effect; it is a human-created effect. Taking that substance into our body and allowing those molecules to fill those receptors has a secondary effect that is undesirable. That secondary effect is that a filled receptor can no longer receive the legitimate endocannabinoid, which, by the way, gets produced in balanced amounts every time you practice Vedic Meditation.

[17:06] Endocannabinoids from Vedic Meditation

Amongst other beautiful neurotransmitters, your brain, during Vedic Meditation, produces endocannabinoids. And it fills the cannabinoid receptor if there’s some space available. But if we’ve been taking in THC from the outside, then we’ve filled those cannabinoid receptors with an outside agent, and our own endogenous endocannabinoids are blocked.

They can’t get into their receptor. There’s a badly cut, broken-off key sitting in that receptor, and so the legitimate owner of the house can’t get into their own house.

But not to fear. Within 15 days or so, these cells that have these receptors on them all die. Cells have a certain life span, and all cells die. They are replaced by new, fresh cells that have new, fresh receptors that can receive the endogenous endocannabinoids produced when you meditate. So don’t fear about this.

What we should do is make a choice between the super-refined, super high-grade, perfect, ideal fit of endogenous endocannabinoids, which our own brain knows how to produce—this is the only reason why THC can have an effect on us, because we have a receptor designed for endogenous endocannabinoids—and the artificial stuff, even though it comes from a plant, is still counterfeit. It’s not designed for human consumption. 

As it goes into the receptor from the outside, it blocks access. When we block access, our brain, as a result of meditating twice a day, is producing endogenous endocannabinoids every day anyway. And there are other sites, receptor sites in our gut, that can detect that we are expelling from the body, as waste, our own endogenously produced product.

A signal goes back to the brain: “You don’t need to produce that anymore.” Because access to the receptor is blocked by THC, the endogenous endocannabinoid starts to get shut down in its production because it’s going out of the body as waste material.

This is a process of sublimation, where the intake of an exogenous substance is blocking and even causing a shutdown of our own endogenous production of the same thing—our endogenous production of a superior thing.

[20:11] Like Riding a Bike

And so, this is why we recommend practitioners of Vedic Meditation take a break from their consumption of exogenous tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in whatever form they’re using it and let their practice of Vedic Meditation show what it can do.

What it will do is provide a perfectly balanced combination of the three gunas—sattva, rajas, and tamas—in perfect balance. And that perfect balance is a different balance point at every given moment of the day.

Think of riding a bicycle. When you’re riding a bicycle, there’s a balance point. If you’re on a flat surface, it’s pretty much 90 degrees vertical to the horizontal, and at a given speed, you’re balanced.

But if the horizontal plane begins to curve—in other words, if you’re on a curving surface—the balance point, if it’s curving to the right, is now to the right. If you try to stay at 90 degrees to the surface on which you’re riding your bicycle, you’re going to fall off. If you try to go around a corner and you try to stay at 90 degrees, you’re going to fall off.

The balance point at a higher speed is a different position relative to the ground over which you’re traveling than the balance point at a lower speed. We all know this from riding a bicycle. The place that represents perfect balance is a different place, a different placement, a different angle of the wheels on the pavement at every given second. Someone who is an expert bike rider, who doesn’t come off no matter what the surface or undulations are doing, is someone who knows how to adjust their position to retain balance.

[22:23] A Balanced State of Consciousness

Sattva, rajas, and tamas are balancing agents. If we consciously attempt to balance them, then we’re artificially balancing them using the human intellect. If we Nistraiguṇyo Bhavā, as Krishna advises Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, go beyond the three gunas and experience Oneness with the field, then, emerging from that field will be the perfect balance of sattva, rajas, and tamas—the three gunas. And you’ll find your behavior is perfectly balanced.

Someone who has learned how to transcend attains a perfect balanced state. It’s that perfect balanced state that brings about spontaneous right action.

So let’s see if we can phase out cannabis and phase in endocannabinoids. To do that, we have to stop giving the brain mixed messages.

In Ayurveda, there is a role for absolutely everything. There is indeed a certain kind of pathology in which a temporary use of the herb Cannabis sativa may, in fact, be considered a tactic. But it’s not a strategy. The strategy is endocannabinoids that come from regular daily practice of Vedic Meditation—not relying on external substances to create a balanced state of consciousness.

Jai Guru Deva.