Chapter 14: The Three Gunas
गुणत्रयविभागयोग
Goodness, passion and inertia shape all we think and do. Krishna explains how each binds us and how to rise above them.
Verse 14.1The Blessed Lord said: I will again proclaim that supreme Wisdom, of all wisdom the best, which having known, all the Sages have gone hence to the supreme Perfection.Verse 14.2Having taken refuge in this Wisdom and being assimilated to My own nature, they are not re-born even in the emanation of a universe, nor are disquieted in the…Verse 14.3My womb is the great Eternal; in that I place the germ; thence cometh the birth of all beings, O Bhârata.Verse 14.4In whatsoever wombs mortals are produced, O Kaunteya, the great Eternal is their womb, I their generating father.Verse 14.5Harmony, Motion, Inertia, such are the qualities, Matter -born; they bind fast in the body, O great-armed one, the indestructible dweller in the body.Verse 14.6Of these Harmony from its stainlessness, luminous and healthy, bindeth by the attachment to bliss and the attachment to wisdom, O sinless one.Verse 14.7Motion, the passion nature, know thou, is the source of attachment and thirst for life, O Kaunteya, that bindeth the dweller in the body by the attachment to action.Verse 14.8But Inertia, know thou, born of unwisdom, is the deluder of all dwellers in the body; that bindeth by heedlessness, indolence and sloth, O Bharata.Verse 14.9Harmony attacheth to bliss, Motion to action O Bharata. Inertia, verily, having shrouded wisdom, attacheth on the contrary to heedlessness.Verse 14.10Now Harmony prevaileth, having overpowered Motion and Inertia, O Bhârata; now Motion, having overpowered Harmony and Inertia; and now Inertia, having overpowered…Verse 14.11When the wisdom-light streameth forth from all the gates of the body, then it may be known that Harmony is increasing.Verse 14.12Greed, outgoing energy, undertaking of actions, restlessness, desire—these are born of the increase of Motion, O best of the Bhâratas.Verse 14.13Darkness, stagnation and heedlessness and also delusion—these are born of the increase of Inertia, O joy of the Kurus.Verse 14.14If Harmony verily prevaileth when the embodied goeth to dissolution, then he goeth forth to the spotless worlds of the great Sages.Verse 14.15Having gone to dissolution in Motion, he is born among those attached to action; if dissolved in Inertia, he is born in the wombs of the senseless.Verse 14.16It is said the fruit of a good action is harmonious and spotless; verily the fruit of Motion is pain, and the fruit of Inertia unwisdomVerse 14.17From Harmony wisdom is born, and also greed from Motion; heedlessness and delusion are of Inertia and also unwisdom.Verse 14.18They rise upwards who are settled in Harmony; the Active dwell in the mid-most place: the Inert go downwards, enveloped in the vilestVerse 14.19When the Seer perceiveth no agent other than the qualities, and knoweth That which is higher than the qualities, he entereth into My Nature.Verse 14.20When the dweller in the body hath crossed over these three qualities, whence all bodies have been produced, liberated from birth, death, old age and sorrow, he…Verse 14.21Arjuna said: What are the marks of him who hath crossed over the three qualities, O Lord? How acteth he, and how doth he go beyond these three qualities?Verse 14.22The Blessed Lord said: He, O Pândava, who hateth not radiance, nor outgoing energy, nor even delusion, when present, nor longeth after them, absent;Verse 14.23He who, seated as a neutral, is unshaken by the qualities; who, saying, "The qualities revolve," standeth apart immovable.Verse 14.24Balanced in pleasure and pain, self-reliant, to whom a lump of earth, a rock and gold are alike, the same to loved and unloved, firm, the same in censure and in praise,Verse 14.25The same in honour and ignominy, the same to friend and foe, abandoning all undertakings—he is said to have crossed over the qualities.Verse 14.26And he who serveth Me exclusively by the Yoga of devotion, he, crossing beyond the qualities, he is fit to become the Eternal.Verse 14.27For I am the abode of the Eternal, and of the indestructible nectar of immortality, of immemorial righteousness, and of unending bliss.