लोभः प्रवृत्तिरारम्भः कर्मणामशमः स्पृहा ।रजस्येतानि जायन्ते विवृद्धे भरतर्षभ ॥
lobhaḥ pravṛttirārambhaḥ karmaṇāmaśamaḥ spṛhārajasyetāni jāyante vivṛddhe bharatarṣabha
Greed, seeking impulsions, initiative of actions, unrest, desire—all this mounts in us when rajas increases.
Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy
Essays on the Gita
Rajas, again, the Gita tells us, has for its essence attraction14·7 of liking and longing. Rajas is a child of the attachment of the soul to the desire of objects; it is born from the nature’s thirst for an unpossessed satisfaction. It is therefore full of unrest and14·12 fever and lust and greed and excitement, a thing of seeking impulsions, and all this mounts in us when the middle guna increases. It is the force of desire which motives all ordinary personal initiative of action and all that movement of stir and seeking and propulsion in our nature which is the impetus towards action and works, pravṛtti. Rajas, then, is evidently the kinetic force in the modes of Nature. Its fruit is the lust of action, but also grief, pain, all kinds of suffering; for it has no right possession of its object — desire in fact implies non-possession — and even its pleasure of acquired possession is troubled and unstable because it has not clear knowledge and does not know how to possess nor can it find the secret of accord and right enjoyment. All the ignorant and passionate seeking of life belongs to the rajasic mode of Nature.
Record of Yoga
(b) Rajas is the principle of desire and activity; Rajas is full of Pravritti. The result of Rajas is any kind of pain, Duhkha or Ashanti, trouble, disturbance, anxiety.
