Gunatraya Vibhaga Yoga

The highest of all knowledge leads sages to supreme perfection beyond this world.

Those who take refuge in this knowledge attain Krishna's own nature - unborn at creation, undisturbed at dissolution.

The great Brahman (prakriti) is My womb; I place the seed of consciousness - thus all beings arise.

For all forms born in any womb, the great prakriti is the mother, and I am the seed-giving father.

Sattva, rajas, and tamas - these three gunas born of prakriti bind the imperishable Self to the body.

Sattva, being pure and illuminating, binds through attachment to happiness and knowledge.

Rajas is the nature of passion, born of craving and attachment; it binds through attachment to action.

Tamas is born of ignorance and deludes all beings; it binds through negligence, laziness, and sleep.

Sattva attaches to happiness, rajas to action; tamas veils knowledge and attaches to negligence.

The gunas constantly compete - sattva prevails over rajas and tamas; rajas over sattva and tamas; tamas over sattva and rajas.

When illumination and knowledge shine through all the senses - know that sattva predominates.

Greed, activity, undertaking new projects, restlessness, and longing arise when rajas predominates.

Darkness, inactivity, negligence, and delusion arise when tamas predominates.

One who dies when sattva predominates attains the pure worlds of those who know the highest.

Dying in rajas, one is reborn among those attached to action; dying in tamas, one is reborn in deluded wombs.

Sattvic action yields pure results; rajasic action yields suffering; tamasic action yields ignorance.

From sattva arises knowledge; from rajas, greed; from tamas, negligence, delusion, and ignorance.

Those in sattva rise upward; those in rajas stay in the middle; those in tamas sink downward.

When the seer perceives no agent but the gunas and knows what is beyond them, that one attains My nature.

Transcending these three gunas that arise from the body, one is freed from birth, death, old age, and sorrow, and attains immortality.

Arjuna asks: By what signs is one known who has transcended the gunas? What is their conduct? How do they transcend?

The transcendent one neither hates illumination, activity, or delusion when present, nor longs for them when absent.

Seated apart like a witness, unmoved by gunas, knowing 'the gunas are acting' - such a one remains stable, unwavering.

Equal in pleasure and pain, self-established, viewing clod-stone-gold alike, balanced in pleasant-unpleasant, steady amid praise and blame.

Equal in honor and dishonor, impartial to friend and foe, abandoning all undertaking-ego - such a one is called gunatita.

One who serves Me with unswerving devotion transcends these gunas and becomes fit for Brahman-realization.

I am the foundation of Brahman - the immortal, imperishable, eternal dharma, and absolute bliss.