I remember being a little girl at St. Mary’s School and my best friend and I would leave our classroom every Friday morning, earlier than the rest of the kids, to go over to the empty church and set up the music for the weekly children’s mass.

We played guitar and sang and we would be so off the chain excited every single week - like out of this world giddy - over being able to get out of class early, being alone in the church and the anticipation of leading the music. 

Of course, we couldn't be the types to be physically bouncing off the walls (Catholic school), but inside of myself I was so excited every single Friday that we were going to do this thing, that we were going to be up there singing, we were going to giggle and look at everybody and be alive. At some point we would be so anxious with anticipation that ‘fight or flight’ would kick in and we would have to run to the bathroom where we would laugh more and mindlessly relish in our mood. It was so strangely fun.

It is the same surge of nerves, although no longer all consuming, that, to some extent, I can still experience to this day.

In the Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna tells us that there are 3 modes of material nature. They are called "Gunas".

• The mode of passion.
• The mode of depression.
• The mode of clarity.

Either you are in a mode of passion, of some form and type and degree.

Or you are in a mode of depression, some form, some type, to some degree.

Or you are in the mode of clarity, some form, some type, to some degree.

In chapter 14 of the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna states that He is about to explain what He says is the “highest information of all knowledge’s, the very best”. He states that once this information was realized by yogi philosophers, they went away from the corrupt material world to the Supreme Perfection.

Clarity, impulsion and retardation are the influences produced of material nature. They captivate the imperishable soul in the body, O strong armed hero.

Regarding these influences, the clarifying one is relatively free from perceptive impurities. It is illuminating and free from disease, but by granting an attachment to happiness and to expertise, it captivates a person, O sinless one.

Know that the impulsive influence is characterized by passion. It is produced from earnest desire and attachment. O son of Kunti, this mode captivates the embodied soul by an attachment to activity.

The clarifying influence causes attachment to happiness. The impulsive one causes a need for action, O Bharata family man. But the depressing mode obscures experience and causes attachment to negligence.

Meditation:

Turn your attention within yourself. You're going to go in there to try and sense out each of the modes, because they‘re all present.

So let us start with the mode of passion.

Remember what it felt like when you were excited about something, nervous about something, overjoyed about something. That’s the mode of passion, that feeling - that surge of happy hormone into your system.

The mode of depression.

Think about when you have felt sadness, depression, fatigue, hopelessness, pointlessness, lethargic, heavy, stagnant, slow minded, inert. That is the mode of depression.

The mode of clarity.

Think of the feeling of inner peace, balance, clear-mindedness, quiet mindedness. Think of a time you felt relaxed, steady, stable, balanced, no anxiety, no nervousness, no emotion.

Clarity.

They are the puppeteers of your life – they are your moods.

They are the environments you enter, the repetitive rooms that the core self gets drug into time and time again and somehow has to bear the burden of the resultant debt acquired through those actions.

For a person truly interested in Yoga transcendence, this has to stop.

So as the observing self we do this inventory of what is within us -what surrounds us, what enfolds us, what protects us and what destroys us.

We categorize it, get it together, and get things in order…….so maybe we too can get to the place Lord Krishna called the "Supreme Perfection".