The Jai Jais Blog

Gunas are an ancient way to understand how life works. In Samkhya philosophy, the material universe is referred to as prakriti. Every aspect of prakriti is shaped by the connection of the three gunas. The three gunas are known as Sattva, Rajas and Tamas.

Sattva is experienced as stillness, balance, harmony, and clarity. Emotional states associated with Sattva include happiness, joy, peace, love, freedom, friendliness, openness, creativity, fulfilment and inspiration.

Rajas is movement, activity, agitation and desire. Rajasic states include passion, alertness, determination, self-centeredness, anxiety, restlessness, anger, greed and worry.

Tamas is the densest of the three qualities and experienced as inertia, obscuration, inactivity and fear. Tamasic states include laziness, doubt, sadness, hurt, shame, boredom, and ignorance.

There are many rituals and traditional beliefs in Hinduism. I had put a questions box on my stories and so many of you asked the question… “Why is we do not cut hair on certain days”, some people said Tuesdays, Thursdays and some people said Saturday. People have said they avoided this as it brings bad luck…Let’s find out more The Jai Jais Way.

In Hinduism cutting hair on certain days is considered to be inauspicious… but why? There seem to be many stories related to this. Again it’s that melting pot I find of superstition, tradition, and religion, from what I have read there are certain reasons that avoiding this practice has its own benefits.

I have to say I absolutely love my bangles. I have boxes and boxes or glass, metal, gold, silver, wooden in a every colour under the sun.  I loved dressing up and adorning my arms full of bangles.  I love the sound they make and how pretty they look. Our Hindu Goddesses are adorned with stunning jewellery in all the imagery.

The tradition of Indian women wearing bangles started in ancient times. However, to this day, the custom continues. Women in India wear bangles to enhance their feminine grace and beauty. The word bangle has been derived from the traditional word Bangri or Bangali, which in Sanskrit these words mean ‘the ornament that adorns the arm’. Bangles are ornaments by both unmarried women and married women.

People believe in superstition and follow the tradition which is followed by their ancestors without questioning them once or finding out the truth or fact behind it. Some follow it because of their strong belief in that act, while some do it just because they've been following it for years. With this journey on The Jai Jais I seem to question so much about the reasons behind or rites, rituals signs and symbolism. This is also the inquisitive nature of my children too, always asking…..”but mummy why?”.  I have been humbled by your responses to my posts and blogs of how much you are also learning and teaching your children along our journey together.

There have been people who have tried hard to find reasons for these age-old practices. One of them is 'nazar utarna', or removing the effects of the evil eye. So today, we thought of investigating, The Jai Jais Way the logic of this superstition, which actually also has a scientific reason to it.