Chapter 14 · deep: the three strands of nature

The Yoga of the Three Gunas

Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yoga

14.1 Krishna reopens with the supreme jñāna above all knowledge — knowing which every muni has reached parāṃ siddhim.
14.2 Those who resort to this knowledge attain My own nature — neither reborn at creation nor disturbed at dissolution.
14.3 Mahat-brahma is the universal womb; Krishna plants the seed — from that union, all beings are born.
14.4 From all wombs all bodies arise — but the great Brahman is the womb and Krishna the seed-giving Father.
14.5 ☆ Sattva, rajas, tamas — three guṇas born of Prakṛti — bind the indestructible ātman in every body.
14.6 Sattva — luminous and stainless — yet binds the jīva through attachment to happiness and attachment to knowledge.
14.7 Rajas — passion, thirst, attachment — binds the embodied one specifically through attachment to action.
14.8 Tamas — born of ignorance — deludes all beings and binds through carelessness, laziness, and sleep.
14.9 Sattva binds to happiness; rajas to action; tamas veils wisdom and chains to heedlessness.
14.10 Sattva, rajas, or tamas — each can become dominant over the others, alternating in every mind.
14.11 When intelligence-light shines through every sense-gate in this body — know that sattva is predominant.
14.12 Greed, restless activity, and longing surge — know that rajas is predominant and karma-saṅga is binding.
14.13 Darkness, inertness, heedlessness, and delusion arise — know that tamas is predominant.
14.14 Dying with sattva dominant, one ascends to the pure spotless worlds of those devoted to the Highest.
14.15 Dying in rajas, one is born among the action-attached; dying in tamas, one is born in irrational wombs.
14.16 The fruit of sattvic action is pure; the fruit of rajas is pain; the fruit of tamas is ignorance.
14.17 Sattva begets wisdom; rajas begets greed; tamas begets heedlessness, delusion, and ignorance.
14.18 Sattva-abiders go upward; rajasic dwell in the middle; tamas-abiders sink downward — the cosmic gradient.
14.19 When the seer sees only guṇas as agents and knows what is beyond them — he attains My being.
14.20 Transcending the three guṇas, the embodied one is freed from birth-death-age-pain and attains immortality.
14.21 Arjuna asks: what are the signs of the guṇa-transcendent? What is his conduct? How does he cross all three?
14.22 The guṇātīta neither hates light, activity, or delusion when present — nor yearns for them when absent.
14.23 Sitting as a neutral — unmoved by guṇas, knowing 'guṇas act' — firm, unshaken, the pure witness.
14.24 Equal in pleasure-pain, clod-stone-gold, agreeable-disagreeable, censure-praise — the guṇātīta abides in self.
14.25 Equal in honor and disgrace, equal to friend and foe, abandoning all undertakings — he has gone beyond guṇas.
14.26 ★ Whoever serves Me with unswerving avyabhicāriṇī bhakti transcends all three guṇas and becomes fit for Brahman.
14.27 ★ Krishna declares: 'I am the ground of Brahman — the Immortal, the Immutable, eternal Dharma, and perfect Bliss.'