Conversation 14. Liberation from the Three Gunas

Bhagavad Gita with Commentaries / Conversation 14. Liberation from the Three Gunas

Conversation 14. Liberation from the Three Gunas

The Blessed One said:

14:1. Now I am going to impart to you that highest knowledge after gaining which all sages attained the Highest Perfection.

14:2. He who took refuge in this wisdom and partook of My Nature does not get born again in a new circle of the development of the universe and does not perish at the end of the current circle.

14:3. For Me the womb is Great Brahman. Into Him I introduce the semen, and this results in birth of all beings, O Bharata.

14:4. In whatever wombs mortals are born, O Kaunteya, Brahman is their Supreme Womb. And I am the Father Who procreates them.

14:5. Sattva, rajas, and tamas — are the gunas originating due to interaction with prakriti. They firmly bind to the body the immortal indweller of it, O mighty-armed.

14:6. Of these gunas sattva, thanks to its unstained purity — light and healthy — attaches by attraction to happiness and by the bonds of relationships (with people alike to oneself) and by the bonds of knowledge (about unimportant in life), O sinless one.

14:7. Know that rajas — the field of passions — is the source of attachment to the earthly life and the thirst for it. This binds, O Kaunteya, the indweller of the body by attraction to action.

14:8. Tamas, born of ignorance, deludes the indwellers of bodies binding them by negligence, carelessness, and laziness, O sinless one.

14:9. Sattva attaches to bliss; rajas attaches to actions; tamas, verily, destroys wisdom and attaches to carelessness.

14:10. Sometimes the guna sattva overcomes rajas and tamas; when rajas prevails — then sattva and tamas are defeated; sometimes tamas dominates defeating rajas and sattva.

14:11. When the light of wisdom shines from every pore of the body, then one can know that in this person sattva grows.

14:12. Greed, anxiety, urge to act, restlessness, worldly passions — all these qualities arise from the growth of rajas.

14:13. Dullness, laziness, carelessness, and also delusion — all these are born when tamas grows.

14:14. If at the time of death in man prevails sattva, then he enters pure worlds of men of higher knowledge.

14:15. If prevails rajas, he gets born then among those attached to action (in the world of matter). Dying in the state of tamas, he will be born again among the ignorant.

14:16. The fruit of righteous action is harmonious and pure. Verily, the fruit of passion is suffering. The fruit of ignorance is wandering in darkness.

14:17. Sattva gives birth to wisdom. Rajas — to greed. Carelessness and insanity originate from tamas.

14:18. Those living in sattva progress spiritually. Rajasic ones remain on the middle level. Tamasic ones, possessing the worst qualities, degrade.

14:19. When man sees the three gunas as the only reason of activity and when he cognizes the transcendent to the gunas — then he comes into My Essence.

14:20. When the indweller of the body becomes free from the three gunas related to the world of matter, then he becomes free from births, deaths, old-age, suffering, and partakes of immortality.

Arjuna said:

14:21. How can one recognize him who became free from the gunas, O Lord? What is his behavior, and how does he free himself from the three gunas?

The Blessed One said:

14:22. O Pandava, the one who is not afraid of joy, activity, and errors, and yet does not long for them when they pass away;

14:23. who is not shaken by manifestations of the gunas, and saying, “Gunas act…” stays aloof, uninvolved;

14:24. steady in situations of happiness and sorrow; self-confident; for whom a clod, a stone, and gold are equal; immutable amidst the pleasant and unpleasant, amidst praise and blame;

14:25. same in honor and dishonor; equal toward a friend and a foe; renouncing the desires of prosperity in the material world — such one is free from the three gunas.

14:26. The one who serves Me with steadfast love — he, having freed himself from the three gunas, deserves to become Brahman.

14:27. And Brahman, imperishable and immortal, is based on Me. I am the Basis of the eternal dharma and the Abode of the ultimate happiness.

Thus in the upanishads of the blessed Bhagavad Gita, the Science of Eternal, the Scripture of yoga, says the fourteenth conversation between Shri Krishna and Arjuna, entitled:

Liberation from the Three Gunas.