The Three Gunas

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Bhagavad Gita

 

XIV. THE THREE GUNAS (Gunatraya Vibhaga Yoga)

 

THE BLESSED LORD SAID:

 

1. I shall again declare that sublime knowledge, the best of all

knowledges; which having learnt, all the sages have passed to high

perfection from here.

 

2. They who, having resorted to this knowledge, have attained to

unity with Me, are neither born in the creation, nor disturbed in the

dissolution.

 

3. My womb is the great Brahman; in that I place the germ; thence, O

Bharata, is the birth of all beings.

 

4. Whatever forms are produced, O son of Kunti, in any wombs

whatsoever, the Great Brahman is their womb, I the seed-giving Father.

 

5. Sattva, Rajas, Tamas - these gunas, O mighty-armed, born of

Prakriti, bind fast in the body the embodied, the indestructible.

 

6. Of these, Sattva, which, from its stainlessness, is lucid and

healthy, binds by attachment to happiness and by attachment to

knowledge, O sinless one.

 

7. Know thou Rajas (to be) of the nature of passion, the source of

thirst and attachment; it binds fast, O son of Kunti, the embodied

one by attachment to action.

 

8. But, know thou Tamas to be born of un-wisdom, deluding all

embodied beings; by headlessness, indolence and sloth, it binds fast,

O Bharata.

 

9. Sattva attaches to happiness, rajas to action, O Bharata, while

Tamas, enshrouding wisdom, attaches, on the contrary, to heedlessness.

 

10. Sattva arises, O Bharata, predominating over Rajas and Tamas; and

Rajas, over Sattva and Tamas; so Tamas, over Sattva and Rajas.

 

11. When at every gate in this body there shoots up wisdom-light,

then it may be known that Sattva is predominant.

 

12. Greed, activity, the undertaking of works, unrest, desire - these

arise when Rajas is predominant, O lord of the Bharatas.

 

13. Darkness, heedlessness, inertness and error - these arise when

Tamas is predominant, O descendant of Kuru.

 

14. If the embodied one meets death when Sattva is predominant, then

he attains to the spotless regions of the knowers of the Highest.

 

15. Meeting death in Rajas, he is born among those attached to

action; and dying in Tamas, he is born in the wombs of the irrational.

 

16. The fruit of good action, they say, is Sattvic and pure; while

the fruit of rajas is pain and ignorance is the fruit of tamas.

 

17. From Sattva arises wisdom and greed from Rajas; heedlessness and

error arise from Tamas and also ignorance.

 

18. Those who follow Sattva go upwards; the Rajasic remain in the

middle; and the Tamasic, who follow in the course of the lowest guna,

go downwards.

 

19. When the seer beholds not an agent other than the gunas and knows

Him who is higher than the gunas, he attains to My being.

 

20. Having crossed beyond these three gunas, which are the source of

the body, the embodied one is freed from birth, death, decay and pain

and attains the immortal.

 

ARJUNA SAID:

 

21. By what marks, O Lord, is he known who has crossed beyond those

three gunas ? What is his conduct and how does he pass beyond those

three gunas.

 

THE BLESSED LORD SAID:

 

22. Light and activity and delusion present, O Pandava, he hates not,

nor longs for them absent.

 

23. He who, seated as a neutral, is not moved by gunas; who, thinking

that gunas act, is firm and moves not;

 

24. He to whom pain and pleasure are alike, who dwells in the Self,

to whom a clod of earth and stone and gold are alike, to whom the

dear and the un-dear are alike, who is a man of wisdom, to whom

censure and praise are same;

 

25. The same in honour and disgrace, the same towards friends and

enemies, abandoning all undertakings - he is said to have crossed

beyond the gunas.

 

26. And he who serves Me with unfailing Devotion of Love, he,

crossing beyond those three gunas, is fitted for becoming Brahman.

 

27. For I am the abode of Brahman, the Immortal and the Immutable,

the Eternal Dharma and the unfailing Bliss.