The Three Guṇas

Sattva, rajas, tamas — the strands of personality — 86 verses, starred ones first.

1. 3.27 ★ All actions are done by the gunas of nature. The ego-deluded one thinks 'I am the doer' — this is the root of bondage.
2. 3.37 ★ The enemy is desire and anger, born of rajas — all-devouring, all-sinful. Know this as your internal enemy.
3. 7.14 ★ This divine māyā of Mine, made of the guṇas, is hard to cross — but those who take refuge in Me alone do cross it.
4. 14.26 ★ Whoever serves Me with unswerving avyabhicāriṇī bhakti transcends all three guṇas and becomes fit for Brahman.
5. 14.27 ★ Krishna declares: 'I am the ground of Brahman — the Immortal, the Immutable, eternal Dharma, and perfect Bliss.'
6. 18.61 ★ The Lord dwells in the heart of all beings — whirling all, as if mounted on a machine, by His māyā.
7. 6.27 ☆ Supreme bliss comes naturally to the yogi whose mind is fully at peace, passion quieted, stainless — Brahman-become.
8. 7.12 ☆ All sāttvic, rājasic, and tāmasic states proceed from Me — yet I am not in them; they are in Me.
9. 7.13 ☆ Deluded by the three guṇa-constituted states, all this world does not recognize Me — beyond them, imperishable.
10. 13.18 ☆ Light of lights, beyond darkness — knowledge, the Knowable, reached through knowledge — dwelling in every heart.
11. 14.5 ☆ Sattva, rajas, tamas — three guṇas born of Prakṛti — bind the indestructible ātman in every body.
12. 16.1 ☆ Daivī wealth begins: abhaya, sattva-śuddhi, jñāna-yoga, dāna, dama, yajña, svādhyāya, tapa, ārjava.
13. 17.23 ☆ OṀ Tat Sat: triple name of Brahman — by which brāhmaṇas, Vedas, and yajñas were ordained in the beginning.
14. 17.28 ☆ Whatever is sacrificed, given, done, or tapas practiced without śraddhā — that is asat: naught here or hereafter.
15. 2.45 The Vedas deal in the three qualities of nature — go beyond them: free from opposites, self-possessed.
16. 3.3 Two paths: knowledge for the reflective, action for the active. Both lead to the same summit.
17. 3.5 No one can be truly inactive even for a moment — the gunas of Nature drive all beings to act.
18. 3.28 The tattva-vit sees gunas moving among gunas and does not become attached. Knowledge itself produces liberation.
19. 3.29 Those deluded by gunas cling to guna-actions. The one with complete knowledge acts with compassionate restraint.
20. 3.33 Even the wise act by their nature. All beings follow nature. Forced repression accomplishes nothing.
21. 4.13 Four varnas arise by guna and karma — not by birth. Though creator, I remain the non-doer, imperishable.
22. 6.16 Yoga fails for those who eat or fast to excess — and equally for those who sleep too much or too little. Regulate.
23. 10.36 I am the gambling of the fraudulent and the power of the powerful; victory, effort, and the sattva of the sattvika.
24. 11.14 Overwhelmed with wonder, hair standing on end, Arjuna bowed and spoke to the God with joined palms.
25. 12.1 Which devotees are best in yoga — those who worship You with devotion, or those who worship the Imperishable Unmanifest?
26. 12.3 Those who worship the Imperishable Unmanifest — all-pervading, inconceivable, kūṭastha, immovable, eternal, stable...
27. 12.4 Restraining the senses, equal-minded everywhere, devoted to the welfare of all beings — they also attain Me!
28. 13.15 Brahman: seems to have all senses yet has none; unattached yet upholds all; nirguṇa yet the enjoyer of guṇas.
29. 13.20 Prakṛti and Puruṣa are both beginningless — all modifications and the three guṇas are born of prakṛti alone.
30. 13.22 Puruṣa in prakṛti enjoys guṇas — attachment to guṇas is the cause of birth in good and evil wombs.
31. 13.24 Whoever knows puruṣa and prakṛti with the guṇas — however they live — is never born again.
32. 13.32 Paramātmā: beginningless, nirguṇa, imperishable — dwelling in the body, yet neither acts nor is tainted.
33. 14.1 Krishna reopens with the supreme jñāna above all knowledge — knowing which every muni has reached parāṃ siddhim.
34. 14.2 Those who resort to this knowledge attain My own nature — neither reborn at creation nor disturbed at dissolution.
35. 14.3 Mahat-brahma is the universal womb; Krishna plants the seed — from that union, all beings are born.
36. 14.4 From all wombs all bodies arise — but the great Brahman is the womb and Krishna the seed-giving Father.
37. 14.6 Sattva — luminous and stainless — yet binds the jīva through attachment to happiness and attachment to knowledge.
38. 14.7 Rajas — passion, thirst, attachment — binds the embodied one specifically through attachment to action.
39. 14.8 Tamas — born of ignorance — deludes all beings and binds through carelessness, laziness, and sleep.
40. 14.9 Sattva binds to happiness; rajas to action; tamas veils wisdom and chains to heedlessness.
41. 14.10 Sattva, rajas, or tamas — each can become dominant over the others, alternating in every mind.
42. 14.11 When intelligence-light shines through every sense-gate in this body — know that sattva is predominant.
43. 14.12 Greed, restless activity, and longing surge — know that rajas is predominant and karma-saṅga is binding.
44. 14.13 Darkness, inertness, heedlessness, and delusion arise — know that tamas is predominant.
45. 14.14 Dying with sattva dominant, one ascends to the pure spotless worlds of those devoted to the Highest.
46. 14.15 Dying in rajas, one is born among the action-attached; dying in tamas, one is born in irrational wombs.
47. 14.16 The fruit of sattvic action is pure; the fruit of rajas is pain; the fruit of tamas is ignorance.
48. 14.17 Sattva begets wisdom; rajas begets greed; tamas begets heedlessness, delusion, and ignorance.
49. 14.18 Sattva-abiders go upward; rajasic dwell in the middle; tamas-abiders sink downward — the cosmic gradient.
50. 14.19 When the seer sees only guṇas as agents and knows what is beyond them — he attains My being.
51. 14.20 Transcending the three guṇas, the embodied one is freed from birth-death-age-pain and attains immortality.
52. 14.21 Arjuna asks: what are the signs of the guṇa-transcendent? What is his conduct? How does he cross all three?
53. 14.22 The guṇātīta neither hates light, activity, or delusion when present — nor yearns for them when absent.
54. 14.23 Sitting as a neutral — unmoved by guṇas, knowing 'guṇas act' — firm, unshaken, the pure witness.
55. 14.24 Equal in pleasure-pain, clod-stone-gold, agreeable-disagreeable, censure-praise — the guṇātīta abides in self.
56. 14.25 Equal in honor and disgrace, equal to friend and foe, abandoning all undertakings — he has gone beyond guṇas.
57. 15.1 Saṃsāra is an eternal inverted tree rooted in Brahman; knowing this tree root to tip is true Vedic wisdom.
58. 15.2 Guṇa-fed branches spread everywhere; in the human world, karma-roots grow downward entangling further.
59. 16.22 Free from these three tamas-gates, one acts for one's genuine good and reaches the Supreme Goal.
60. 17.1 Arjuna asks: those who perform yajña with sincere śraddhā but without śāstric ordinance — what guṇa is their state?
61. 17.2 Śraddhā of the embodied is threefold — born of svabhāva (one's own nature): sāttvikī, rājasī, tāmasī. Hear this.
62. 17.4 Sāttvic worship Devas; rājasic worship Yakṣas/Rākṣasas; tāmasic worship pretas and bhūta-hosts.
63. 17.5 Those who practice ghora tapas without śāstric sanction, driven by dambha, ahaṃkāra, kāma and rāga — āsurī tapas.
64. 17.7 Even food is threefold in its appeal to each person; so too yajña, tapas, and dāna. Hear their distinctions.
65. 17.8 Sāttvic food enhances life, sattva, strength, health, joy, delight — savoury, oleaginous, substantial, heart-pleasing.
66. 17.10 Tāmasic food: stale, flavorless, putrid, overnight-old, others' remnants, impure — dear to those immersed in tamas.
67. 17.14 Bodily tapas: honouring Devas/dvija/guru/wise; purity, straightforwardness, brahmacarya, non-injury.
68. 17.17 Sāttvic tapas: the three-fold tapas practiced with supreme śraddhā, without fruit-desire, by the disciplined.
69. 17.21 Rājasic dāna: given expecting reciprocity, or eyeing fruit, or reluctantly — held to be rājasic.
70. 18.4 Hear My definitive word on tyāga, O best of Bharatas — tyāga has been declared three-fold, O tiger among men.
71. 18.10 The sāttvic tyāgī: neither hates difficult action nor clings to pleasant — sattva-pervaded, wise, doubts severed.
72. 18.18 Three-fold impulse to action: knowledge, knowable, knower. Three-fold action-structure: organ, act, agent.
73. 18.19 Knowledge, action, and agent are each three-fold by guṇa-distinction — as declared in the guṇa-science. Hear them.
74. 18.21 Rājasic jñāna: knowing all beings as various separate entities of distinct kinds — by the lens of separateness.
75. 18.25 Tāmasic karma: begun from delusion, ignoring consequences, waste, injury to beings, and one's own capacity.
76. 18.28 Tāmasic kartā: undisciplined, vulgar, obstinate, deceitful, malicious, lazy, desponding, procrastinating.
77. 18.29 Hear the three-fold division of buddhi and dhṛti by guṇas, declared exhaustively and distinctly, O Dhananjaya.
78. 18.31 Rājasic buddhi: imperfectly/wrongly discerns dharma-adharma and kārya-akārya — not as they really are.
79. 18.32 Tāmasic buddhi: enveloped in darkness, sees adharma as dharma, all things inverted and perverted.
80. 18.34 Rājasic dhṛti: holds fast to dharma, kāma, and artha with attachment, desiring the fruit of each.
81. 18.35 Tāmasic dhṛti: the dull-witted one does not give up sleep, fear, grief, despondency, and pride.
82. 18.36 Hear the three-fold happiness from Me, O Bharata-bull — learned through practice, leading to the end of pain.
83. 18.39 Tāmasic sukha: deluding of the self both at start and in consequence — arises from sleep, laziness, and carelessness.
84. 18.41 The duties of Brāhmaṇas, Kṣatriyas, Vaiśyas, and Śūdras are distributed by the guṇas born of their own nature.
85. 18.46 From whom all beings arise, by whom all is pervaded — worshiping THAT through one's own duty, one attains perfection.
86. 18.47 One's own dharma even imperfectly done is better than another's well done; svabhāva-ordained karma incurs no sin.