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"The Supreme Lord said: I shall now explain the supreme knowledge, the best of all knowledge, knowing which all the enlightened sages have attained supreme perfection” | |
"Taking refuge in this knowledge, they attain My nature. Even at the time of creation, they are not born, and at the time of dissolution, they are not disturbed." | |
"My womb is the great Brahma, in which I place the seed. From that, O Arjuna, all beings are born.” “Whatever forms manifest in all kinds of wombs, know them to have originated from Me. As Brahma, I am the seed-giving father, and the great womb of creation is the source of all manifestations.” | |
“The qualities of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas, arise from Nature, O mighty-armed Arjuna. They bind the eternal soul to the perishable body.” | |
“Among these qualities, sattva, being pure and illuminating, binds through attachment to happiness and attachment to knowledge, O sinless one.” | |
“Understand rajas to be the quality born of desire and attachment, which binds the embodied soul through the attachment to action, O Arjuna.” | |
“Know tamas to be the quality born of ignorance, which deludes all embodied beings. It binds them through laziness, sleep, and negligence, O Arjuna.” | |
“O Arjuna, sattva binds one to happiness, while rajas binds one to actions. But know that tamas, by veiling knowledge, binds one to negligence.” | |
“Sometimes sattva prevails over rajas and tamas, O scion of Bharata; sometimes rajas dominates sattva and tamas, and at other times tamas overcomes sattva and rajas.” | |
“In this body, O Arjuna, the light of knowledge arises, illuminating all the gates. When knowledge is present, it is said to be of the nature of sattva, the mode of goodness.” “Greed, activity, restlessness, and desire are the manifestations of rajas, the mode of passion, which arise when it is predominant, O best of the Bharatas.” “Ignorance, inertia, negligence, and delusion are the manifestations of tamas, the mode of ignorance, which arise when it is predominant, O son of Kuru.” | |
“When the mode of sattva predominates and one departs from the body at the time of death, they attain the pure realms of those who know the highest.” “By departing in the mode of rajas, one is born among those attached to action. Likewise, by departing in the mode of tamas, one takes birth among the ignorant and deluded.” | |
“The result of virtuous actions performed in the mode of goodness is pure and beneficial. The result of actions performed in the mode of passion is characterized by pain and the result of actions performed in the mode of ignorance is ignorance itself.” | |
“From the mode of goodness arises knowledge, from the mode of passion arises greed, and from the mode of ignorance arise delusion and bewilderment.” | |
“Those situated in the mode of goodness rise upward, those in the mode of passion remain in the middle, and those in the mode of ignorance sink downward.” | |
“When one perceives that the individual self is not the doer but rather witnesses the activities of the modes of nature, and also understands the transcendental nature beyond the modes, then one attains My divine nature.” | |
“The embodied soul, transcending these three modes of material nature, is freed from birth, death, old age, and their associated sufferings, and attains the nectar of immortality.” | |
Arjuna said: “O Lord, by what signs is the one who has transcended these three modes known? How does such a person behave, and how does he go beyond these modes?” | |
The Supreme Lord said: “O Arjuna, in this body, happiness, activity, and delusion, all arise from the three modes of material nature. “ “But the one who does not hate the presence of these modes nor long for their absence, who remains impartial and unaffected by them, truly remains established in his true nature; such a person remains unshaken by the interplay of the modes.” | |
He who is equipoised in pleasure and pain, steadfast, self-controlled, and regards a clod of earth, a stone, and gold as equal” “He who is unaffected by praise or blame, who treats friend and foe alike, who has forsaken all undertakings—such a person is said to have transcended the modes of material nature.” |