The Three Gunas

There are three gunas: Sattwic, Rajasic and Tamasic.

Swami Kriyananda, in The Art and Science of Raja Yoga, gives an example of these as:
Sattwic is Spiritual and like forward moving in a car.
Rajasic is an Activating force but it neither moves one forward or backwards. It is like neutral in a car
Tamasic is a pull away from God

Under the influence of this guna [Rajas] the mind seeks diversity rather than definite direction.  In this attachment to diversity it may drift toward a greater affinity for things and people, and thus toward that sense of underlying unity with them which is sattwic; or it may drift more and more toward a sense of distinctions, of rivalry and oppositions, and thus sink gradually into the spiritual chaos of tamas.  Raja guna gives objectifying power to both sattwa and tamas.  For tamasic people, it represents the necessary steppingstone to sattwa guna; for sattwic people, it represents the first pull away from spiritual reality, carrying them into worldly involvements that in themselves are more or less neutral, but that can also develop into that kind of ardent dedication to self-gratification which is the main entrance, so to speak, to the outward-moving stream of tamo guna.

Further along in the reading we see the three guna's also have small versions of the other guna's within themselves - much like the concept of spiritual elements in the West and East... like Air of Earth, or Earth of Water and so on... the text reads:

In sattwa, as I have said, there is also a touch of rajas and tamas, and in tamas there is a touch of rajas and sattwa.  In rajas, too, the other two gunas are present.  All things, I said, are a mixture of the three gunas.  It is the predominance of one guna or another that defines a thing as basically sattwic, rajasic, or tamasic.

Quotes from The Art and Science of Raja Yoga, by Swami Kriyananda.