#142 Zero the Cat
A Lesson in Purusha, Prakriti and the Gunas
I don’t think I realized that cats had personalities until I met Zero.
For five years I had the same cat, Princess. She passed away in June. I didn’t think I would want another cat so soon, but about six weeks later, mice started appearing in my villa. I went to the shelter in Ubud and asked to foster. That’s when I met Zero.
It didn’t take long for me to notice how different they were.
Princess loved to lounge. When she went outside, it was usually to bask in the sun.
Zero, on the other hand, is pure mischief. He practices catching mice, attempts to escape the house, and regularly shatters glasses by leaping from chair to table to bed. His “practice sessions” usually happen between midnight–2am and 4–6am. At first I barely slept. Now I’m used to it.
The whole reason I got him was to deal with the mice. And while I haven’t seen him actually catch one yet, his presence alone seems to have been enough. They disappeared as soon as he arrived.
Another funny difference: Princess never once showed up to my yoga philosophy classes online. Zero comes to all of them. He doesn’t just sit passively. He sits up, listening intently. My teacher Anvita even joked, “In his next lifetime, when he’s human, and someone brings up the Bhagavad Gita, Zero will say, ‘Guys, I’ve already studied this.’”
This morning, during check-ins with one of my groups, I was talking about Zero and Princess, and their personalities. Somehow, as it so often happens when I teach, the story wove itself right into the philosophy we were studying: Purusha, Prakriti, and the Gunas.
Purusha is the soul: the Atman. The eternal, unchanging witness.
Prakriti is everything material: our bodies, minds, personalities, the world around us.
So when I say Zero, in his next lifetime, will have studied the Gita - it isn’t really Zero. Zero is just the form his soul (Purusha) is navigating this time around. That soul may return in another body, already carrying wisdom forward.
Zero is his Prakriti. His soul is something else entirely.
Prakriti is always changing. It is influenced by three gunas, or qualities of energy:
Sattva: purity, clarity, harmony, equilibrium.
Rajas: heat, activity, restlessness, passion.
Tamas: heaviness, lethargy, darkness, inertia.
None of us are permanently one way. We are never “always sattvic” or “always rajasic.” We move between these energies constantly. What we can do is make choices that shift the quality of our energy, and notice the energy others bring into our lives.
I realized, in my own example, that I had described Zero as more rajasic- active, fiery- and Princess as more tamasic - slower, older, restful. But that isn’t who they are. Zero is a kitten. Princess was elderly. Their prakriti was simply in different phases.
People are the same. We aren’t stuck. We aren’t static.
The invitation is to notice: What energy are we bringing to the world? Who are we surrounding ourselves with? Are we creating conditions to cultivate sattva?
We don’t need to be perfectly sattvic at all times. Rajas is necessary to run a marathon. Tamas is necessary to rest and heal. But the more we lean toward sattva, the less reactive we become, and the more balance we bring to every space we enter.
We also can become aware of the people we are surrounded by. And if we have rajasic and tamasic people in our space, witness how that impacts us. When possible, can we choose the right energy for our wellbeing?
That, in the end, is our practice.
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