A devotee’s question: “Can you go into details of triguṇ, tritāp and paṇchakosh?”
Swami Nikhilanand Ji’s answer: These are things that Maharaj Ji normally (talks about), some of them he just briefly mentions when he’s talking about Bhagwat prāpti (attainment of God). He’ll say,
“As soon as, with Shri Krishna’s grace, with Guru’s grace, when the bondage of māyā (illusion) is eliminated, you’re free from triguṇ, tritāp, paṇchakleśh, paṇchakosh, trikarm.” There’s a whole list of types of bondage.
So specifically, this devotee is asking first of all about triguṇ. Guṇ means a quality or a virtue, which could be good or bad. Specifically, it’s referring to māyā.
दैवी ह्येषा गुणमयी मम माया …
Daivī hyeṣā guṇ-mayī mam māyā …
- Gita 7.14
Shri Krishna says, “My māyā is guṇamayī. Māyā is made of three qualities, three guṇas.”
So Shvetashvatar Upaniṣhad tells us exactly what that is,
अजामेकां लोहितशुक्लकृष्णां बह्वीः प्रजाः सृजमानां सरूपाः ।
Ajāmekāṁ lohitaśhuklakṛiṣhṇāṁ bahvīḥ prajāḥ sṛijamānāṁ sarūpāḥ |- Shvetashvatara Upanishad 4.5
There’s the white guṇ of māyā, the red guṇ of māyā, and the black guṇ of māyā: sattva, raj, tam. Ved refers to it with colors. Sattva, raj and tam are also within each other. So within sattva, raj and tam are there; within raj, sattva and tam are there; and within tam, sattva and raj are there.
But where sattva predominates, purity predominates. Where raj predominates, passion and selfishness predominate. And where tam predominates, laziness and evil predominate. These are the three qualities of māyā, the three guṇas. Each one of us is under the bondage of māyā, which means we’re under the bondage of the three guṇas of māyā.
We see the whole world through that filter. That’s why even if a Divine Saint or God Himself comes in front of us, we’re completely unable to recognize Their Divinity, because we’re viewing everything through that filter of the three guṇas. Our indriya (senses) and mind are themselves made of the three guṇas of māyā, so everything we perceive is through those three guṇas. That’s why even when someone like God or Guru comes before us and they are not made of sattva, raj, tam, they’re made of sat-chit-ānand (Divine existence-knowledge-bliss) but perceived by us through our three gunas, mind and senses, we see them as also being made of three guṇas. But they’re not.
Upon God-realization, the māyic quality of our senses and mind is destroyed and replaced with the Divine ones. Then we get indriya, man, buddhi all made of sat-chit-ānand, just like God and the Saints. So that is triguṇ.
Tritāp - tri means three. So tritāp means something that burns you. It means three kinds of suffering that we have in the world. They are ādhyātmik (also called daihik - the suffering our own body and mind give us), ādhibhautik (the suffering caused by other people, animals, insects, or other beings), and ādhidaivik (suffering caused by the elements like weather, natural disasters, etc.). These are the three types of tāp. So three, all the different, all the millions of ways that someone can suffer in this world are divided into three categories.
The first one, adhyatmik, which is also called daihik. That is the suffering that our body and mind give to us. The pain you get in your body and the pain, your own emotional pain caused by your own mind. That’s daihik tāp.
Then we have adhibhautik tāp. That’s the suffering of other people, animals, insects, or even poisonous plants or whatever it may be and other beings give some suffering to us. That’s called adhibhautik.
And then adhidaivik suffering is caused by the elements, the weather, natural disasters, that type of thing.
Maharaj Ji also refers to this, saying that upon God-realization, your tritāp is finished forever, just like your triguṇ.
Paṇchakosh - a kosh means a covering or layer. Think of it like layers of an onion; you keep peeling layers until you reach the center. At the center of our being is the soul, our true self. But there are five material layers covering the soul. A kosh means a covering or layer. So paṇchakosh, the five different layers, and each layer is more and more subtle.
On the path of yog, it’s described in Patañjali Yog Darshan, that through this practice you gradually pierce those kosh.
The first is annamay kosh, your physical body. That’s the first and least subtle covering of maya. So the person transcends that.
The next one is called prāṇamay kosh, which is made up of your five prāṇ and your five karmendriya. I won’t get into the details. We don’t have time.
The third kosh is manomay kosh, that’s made up of your man, your emotional mind..
The fourth and more subtle, is vigyānamay kosh. That is made up of your buddhi, your intellectual mind as well as your five gyanendriya (subtle senses of perception).
And the fifth and final is ānandamay kosh, your deepest māyic layer of your personality, your ahamkār (ego sense, sense of individuality), your sense of self being.
So on other paths you have to do certain practices to pierce through these layers to transcend them. But on the path of bhakti:
जरयत्याशु या कोशं निगीर्णमनलो यथा ॥
Jarayatyāśhu yā kośhaṁ nigīrṇamanalo yathā.- Bhagwatam 3.25.33
Just do bhakti and the fire of virah (longing) for Radha Krishna is going to burn your paṇchakosh on its own. You don’t have to do any other practice.
So simply by doing bhakti, by surrendering to Radha Krishna through the Guru, you defeat triguṇ, tritāp, pañchakosh. We’ll add to that paṇchakleśh - five more types of difficulties a person faces:
Rāg - that means love in the world
Dveṣh - hate in the world
Abhiniveśh - fear of death,
Avidyā - wrong knowledge, wrong understanding. It means forgetting that you’re the soul and thinking you’re the body,
Asmitā - identifying with your own ego instead of yourself as a soul.
So these are five kleśh. Kleśh means something that causes you difficulty. You defeat all of that just by surrendering to Radha Krishna.
Trikarma does not mean past, present and future. Trikarma is:
Kriyamān karm - the karma you’re presently doing that God is taking note of,
Sañchit karm - the stock of previous karma from all your uncountable past lives,
Prārabdh karm - the portion of that past stock that’s been given to you to undergo in this life.
So you’re freed from those three karmas as well.
Upon God-realization, all of this happens: freedom from māyā, freedom from triguṇ, tritāp, trikarma, tridoṣh, pañchakosh, paṇchakleśh, all just by practicing bhakti.
