The difficulty in the understanding of the nature of the stage in which one is placed at any given moment of time is great indeed, and towards the end of the Chapter, the great Teacher tells us that our guide on this path is the scripture, revelation, the intuition of the sages. It is not easy for us to understand what is the means of right knowledge. Philosophers have been struggling since ages to discover the means of knowledge or a proper understanding of things as they are in themselves. Is it sensory perception? Is it logical deduction, inference? Is it comparison of one thing with another thing? Is it apprehension? Or is it scriptural testimony? What is the way of knowledge? Religions have held that the authority is scripture and no other thing can be ultimately reliable. By scripture what is meant is not merely a printed book, but the weight which revelation has. Again, by revelation we mean an intuitional flash whereby the whole truth is revealed to a faculty which rises as the total substance of our personality. One cannot easily reject the authority of the scriptures, for reason is often unbridled and can be susceptible to prejudice.

But a doubt arises in the mind of Arjuna. “Well, Sir, it is true that revelation is the supreme authority. But is there any value in faith by which the heart longs for a certain achievement or a meaning, though it is not based on any kind of scriptural revelation?” It appears from what we gather in the Seventeenth Chapter that the mysterious thing we call faith has a great part to play in our walks of life. We do not always refer to scriptures when we work in the world. We are people belonging to various professions and vocations, having many types of duty to perform, and when we choose the kind of duty that we have to execute in life, or do anything for the matter of that, we do not go to the ‘Sermon on the Mount’, the ‘Upanishads’ or the ‘Bhagavadgita’ for consultation, though these are great authorities, indeed. We have something in us which seems to guide us independent of any scripture. That is the faith that we have in our own selves, a confidence that we entertain in our own capacities, the conscience as it is usually called. Yes, Krishna tells that faith is a great criterion and standard of judgement indeed, but there are faiths and faiths. All created beings have some sort of an instinct and they have their own methods of evaluation of things. There is a sub-human level, there is a human understanding, and there is a super-human faculty of knowing. So, when we speak of faith, we do not refer merely to any sudden impulse which rises on the spur of a moment, but a considered judgement which springs from the whole nature of our being. Our nature decides the kind of faith that we entertain in our life. And natures, again, are classified as threefold,—Sattvika, Rajasika and Tamasika. Everyone of us has some kind of confidence, faith and understanding and feeling. Everybody believes in something. But that belief varies in quality, character and intensity in accordance with the root from which it arises:—Sattva, or Rajas, or Tamas. The world of the tiger is different from the world of a human being. The instinct which impels the beast in the jungle is qualitatively different from the judgement that operates in a sage. The Gunas of Prakriti operate in different intensities, in different levels of evolution. The law of the jungle operates according to one level in which the Gunas manifest themselves, and the law of human society works in another level. The law that reigns in the world of angels is based on a different standard altogether, which rises from a still higher stage of the evolution of the Gunas. Tamas is the lowest level, and Rajas is higher, but Sattva is the highest.

The reason why we regard these three Gunas as higher and lower is due to the amount of reality which they express through their media. In Tamas, reality is not expressed in its essentiality, in Rajas it is expressed, no doubt, but in a distracted and distorted form, whereas in Sattva there is perspicuity of the expression of reality. When sun-light falls on dark pitch, we know what sort of expression of the light can be there. And the very same light can be reflected through turbid water shaking in its contents. This light can be expressed through a clean glass or crystal-clear water. And one can see the difference. So is the way in which reality is expressed through the ‘Gunas’ of Prakriti. In Sattva, which is perfect equilibrium and freedom from distraction, there is no direct contact with reality, of course; yet there is a complete reflection thereby, even as clean glass may permit the entry of sun-light entirely, though the glass acts as an obstacle, an obstruction standing between the perceiver and the perceived. But in shaky water which is also muddy, the reflection is inadequate, we do not see things properly. And in opaque objects no reflection is possible. Tamas is an inert something which completely screens off experience of Truth. In Rajas there is some sort of an entry of reality into experience, but it is no good for practical purposes. It is only Sattva that permits a clear picture of things.

In our faiths, in our beliefs, we are either Tamasika, or Rajasika or Sattvika. We may have the faith of an animal or the faith of a highly prejudiced person, or the faith of one who is enlightened and has a direct grasp of truth by an intuition of the nature of things. This belief, this faith, decides practically everything we do in this world,—our political life, our social relationships, our personal conduct, our religious practices, even our idea of God and the aim of life;—all these are determined by the kind of Guna that operates in us, in any measure. If we are Tamasika, lowest in the rung of evolution, we have the world-view of an animal, which, too, bas a philosophy of its own, according to which it works. We can think like insects, reptiles, lions and tigers, or we can think of the world from a point of view which today we sometimes call humanitarian, or we can think in a divine way which surpasses all human judgements. It is this background upon which the Seventeenth Chapter is based, which describes three types of faith that propel the conduct and the activity of people in the world. The food that we eat, the way in which we speak, the kind of relationship that we maintain with others, the religious practices in which we engage ourselves, are all rooted in, and defined by the belief or faith that we entertain as a philosophy of our lives. Suffice it to say that it is upto us to move from Tamas to Rajas, and from Rajas to Sattva, and put forth effort to transform ourselves into diviner beings rising above even the human level of understanding. Each one is a judge for one’s own self. We know where we stand, with some exercise of good reason. By a measure of sensible impersonality and discriminative effort, we will be able to decide the stage in which we are.

Any kind of retributive or animalistic behaviour where values are wrested out of things and centred in one’s own self, where people and objects of the world are treated as nothings in comparison with one’s self, where we become the sole standard of judgement and everyone else a tool to ourselves, where such is the outlook of our life, we can imagine that Tamas is predominant in us. When we want to exploit the world for the satisfaction of our own so-called outlook of life, we are in Tamas. When we give equal value to others as we give to ourselves, we are on a higher level of human appreciation. We do not feel it proper for us, then, to transform everything into an instrument for our satisfaction. We become humanistic, charitable, sociable, polite and good-natured. But when we rise higher still to the diviner level where Sattva predominates, we do not regard others as ‘others’ at all. They are not others, they are just one being appearing in this multifaceted form of ourselves and others; for in the divine level there are no ‘objects’. There are only subjects appearing in all forms. In the animal level it is purely the objectivity of things that is taken into consideration. In the human level the subject and the object are taken on a par, as on an equal footing. In the divine level the distinction between the subject and the object is transcended, and everyone reflects everyone else. This is the spiritual realm of Truth, the golden age, or the millennium that people speak of and hope to see with their eyes. When Dharma prevails and reigns supreme in the world, where governments are not necessary, when there is no necessity for external mandate or compulsive rule, when everyone reflects truth wholly in oneself, when everyone reflects everyone else as if mirrors are placed one in front of the other,—such is the divine realm of Brahma-loka, the Kingdom of God, which is within everyone. This is the world of Sattva, utter purity.

Towards the end of the Seventeenth Chapter we are given the cryptic message of “Om-Tat-Sat”, a term with which we are all familiar, but the meaning of which is not always so clear. It is said that this is a very holy expression and it has to be employed in every religious performance. We conclude all pious acts with the utterance, Om-Tat-Sat, which appears to be an invocation of God at the end of a performance. The meaning of these words is not clear, and no commentary on the Gita will perhaps be an aid to us in understanding what these three terms actually signify. We merely say, Om-Tat-Sat. We do not know what it means. Well, we may go a little deep into its significance from the point of view of the Bhagavadgita itself, in the light of the great message that has been given to us through its various Chapters. And in this light if we look at these terms, it would appear that the three seeds, Om, Tat, and Sat signify the total comprehensiveness of the nature of Brahman ranging beyond the concepts of Reality in the form of transcendence and immanence. Generally, a remote thing is referred to as Tat, in the Sanskrit language. ‘That’ is Tat. We refer to God as Tat, It, etc. as a super transcendent inaccessible something. Sat is the very same transcendent Reality is hidden and present as the Divine immanence in all things. God is transcendent and also immanent. He is above us; he is also within us. He is far, and he is near; he is outside, and he is inside. Now, these ideas of transcendence and immanence,—Tat-Sat,—the notions of God being outside as well as inside, are also to be transcended in a larger grasp, which is Om. Here, in this mystical. significance of the well-known symbol of Om, we are given a further transcendence of both the transcendent aspect and the immanent aspect of the Absolute. It is, in the language of the Upanishad, the Bhuma, or the Plenum, the completeness whereby we cannot look upon it either as something above us or as something within us. To that supreme completeness, there are no out ward and inward differences. There is no such thing as going above and being within, because it is everywhere, at all times, without the limitations of space, time and objectivity. Such an incomprehensible significance is embedded in this mystical formula of Om. Naturally, it is a holy expression, which is unutterable, beyond understanding but signifying everything that is blessed and supreme. Such is Om, which grasps within itself all that is real everywhere, the transcendent and the immanent. So, God is all, the Absolute is everything. The invocation of this Symbol in our experience, in our own consciousness, a remembrance of it at the sacred conclusion of any kind of performance, religious or otherwise, is regarded as a completion of that performance. God completes every thing, and everything is incomplete where God is absent. The only thing that is full is God. And so He has to be invoked always.