Chapter 14

Verse 1

The Blessed Lord said: Again I shall speak about that highest wisdom which transcends all knowledge. With this wisdom all sages at the end of life have attained the final Perfection.

Verse 2

Embracing this wisdom, established in my Being, sages are not reborn even at the start of a new cycle of creation, nor are they troubled at the time of universal dissolution.

Verse 3

My womb is the Great Prakriti (Mahat-Brahma) into which I deposit the seed (of My Intelligence); this is the cause of the birth of all beings.

Verse 4

O Son of Kunti (Arjuna), of all forms—produced from whatsoever wombs—Great Prakriti is their original womb (Mother), and I am the seed-imparting Father.

Verse 5

O Mighty-armed (Arjuna)! the gunas inherent in Prakriti—sattva, rajas, and tamas—imprison in the body the Imperishable Dweller.

Verse 6

O Sinless One (Arjuna)! of these three gunas, the stainless sattva gives enlightenment and health. Nevertheless, it binds man through attachment to happiness and attachment to knowledge.

Verse 7

O Son of Kunti (Arjuna), understand that the activating rajas is imbued with passion, giving birth to desire and attachment; it strongly binds the embodied soul by a clinging to works.

Verse 8

O Bharata (Arjuna)! know that tamas arises from ignorance, deluding all embodied beings. It binds them by misconception, idleness, and slumber.

Verse 9

Sattva attaches one to happiness; rajas to activity; and tamas, by eclipsing the power of discrimination, to miscomprehension.

Verse 10

Sometimes sattva is predominant, overpowering rajas and tamas; sometimes rajas prevails, not sattva or tamas; and sometimes tamas obscures sattva and rajas.

Verse 11

One may know that sattva is prevalent when the light of wisdom shines through all the sense gates of the body.

Verse 12

Preponderance of rajas causes greed, activity, undertaking of works, restlessness, and desire.

Verse 13

Tamas as the ruling guna produces darkness, sloth, neglect of duties, and delusion.

Verse 14

A man who dies with sattva qualities predominant rises to the taintless regions in which dwell knowers of the Highest.

Verse 15

When rajas prevails at the time of death, a person is reborn among those attached to activity. He who dies permeated with tamas enters the wombs (environment, family, state of existence) of the deeply deluded.

Verse 16

It is said (by the sages) that the fruit of sattvic actions is harmony and purity. The fruit of rajasic actions is pain. The fruit of tamasic actions is ignorance.

Verse 17

Wisdom arises from sattva; greed from rajas; and heedlessness, delusion, and ignorance from tamas.

Verse 18

Those established in sattva go upward; the rajasic dwell in the middle; those men descend who are engrossed in the lowest guna—tamas.

Verse 19

When the seer perceives (in creation) no agent except the three modes, and cognizes That which is higher than the gunas, he enters My Being.

Verse 20

Having transcended the three modes of Nature—the cause of physical embodiment—a man is released from the sufferings of birth, old age, and death; he attains immortality.

Verse 21

Arjuna said: O Lord, what signs distinguish the man who has transcended the three modes? What is his behavior? How does he rise beyond the triple qualities?

Verse 22

The Blessed Lord said: O Pandava (Arjuna), he who does not abhor the presence of the gunas—illumination, activity, and ignorance—nor deplore their absence;

Verse 23

Remaining like one unconcerned, undisturbed by the three modes—realizing that they alone are operating throughout creation; not oscillating in mind but ever Self-centered;

Verse 24

Unaffected by joy and sorrow, praise and blame—secure in his divine nature; regarding with an equal eye a clod of clay, a stone, and gold; the same in his attitude toward pleasant or unpleasant (men and experiences); firm-minded;

Verse 25

Uninfluenced by respect or insult; treating friend and enemy alike; abandoning all delusions of personal doership—he it is who has transcended the triple qualities!

Verse 26

He who serves Me with undeviating devotion transcends the gunas and is qualified to become Brahman.

Verse 27

For I am the basis of the Infinite, the Immortal, the Indestructible; and of eternal Dharma and unalloyed Bliss.