Spiritual compass : the three qualities of life

In our modern, materialistic world, it is easy to separate spirituality from everyday life.

But spirituality is not just for saints, neither is it confined to the Sunday Service, Friday prayers or holy books.

It must be a part of our ordinary, everyday existence: it needs to be implicitly present in business, in politics, in farming, in cooking, and in our relationships.

To illustrate this, Satish Kumar draws on the Indian Ayurvedic tradition which characterises the mind as having three gunas, or primary qualities: sattva (characterised by calmness, clarity and purity), rajas (energy and passion), and tamas (dullness and ignorance).

These qualities can be applied to our work and the environment: for example, there are sattvic foods, rajasic foods and tamasic foods.

The Ayurvedic aim is to live a life which is simple and close to nature (sattvic), to reduce rajasic tendencies, and to avoid tamasic.

When we see ourselves in the light of the three gunas, they can orient us towards the direction in which we wish to go.

They can help us to recover the art of living, and lead us towards a peaceful and contented existence.Extending the meaning of spirituality further, Satish explains that there is no dualism between spirit and matter - all matter is imbued with spirit, and spirit manifests through matter.

This integrated world-view forms the core of his book.