Chapter 14

Krishna: Let me reveal to you still more — the highest wisdom of all wisdoms, by which all my saints have passed into perfection. Relying on these high truths and rising into fellowship with me, they are not born again at the dawn of new cosmic ages, nor do they suffer change when the worlds dissolve.

This universe is the womb in which I plant the seed of all lives. From it, Prince of India, comes the birth of every being. Whatever form takes shape in any mortal mother, Brahma is the conceiver, and I am the father who sends the seed.

Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas — these are the three qualities of Nature: Goodness, Passion, and Ignorance. These three bind down the changeless Spirit within the changing flesh. Goodness, pure and luminous, binds the sinless soul to happiness and truth. Passion, akin to appetite and breeding impulse and craving, binds the embodied soul, son of Kunti, by the tie of action. Ignorance, born of darkness, blinds mortals and chains their souls to stupor, sloth, and drowsiness. Goodness binds the soul to the flesh through pleasure; Passion binds it through restless striving; Ignorance, which clouds the light of wisdom, binds it to inertia. When Passion and Ignorance are overcome, Goodness remains, Bharata. Where Goodness and Ignorance are absent, Passion rules; and Ignorance reigns in hearts that are neither good nor active. When the lamp of knowledge shines from every gate of the body, you can be sure Goodness is enthroned there. Where there is longing, ardor, restlessness, the drive to strive and gain, and greed — these spring from ingrained Passion, Prince. And where there is darkness, dullness, sloth, and stupor — these have been caused by Ignorance, Chief of the Kurus.

Moreover, when a soul departs fixed in Goodness, it goes to the pure and perfect realm of those who know all Truth. If it departs habituated to Passion, it passes into the world of spirits bound to action. And if it dies hardened in Ignorance, that blinded soul is born again in some unlit womb.

The fruit of Goodness is true and sweet; the fruit of cravings is pain and toil; the fruit of Ignorance is deeper darkness. For Light yields light, Passion yields the ache of wanting, and from Ignorance grow only gloom, confusion, and more ignorance. Those of the first mode rise ever higher; those of the second take a middle place; the darkened souls sink back into lower depths, weighed down by witlessness.

When, observing life, a person perceives that the only actors are the Qualities, and recognizes what lies beyond the Qualities, then he draws near to me. The soul, passing beyond these three Qualities — out of which all bodies arise — overcomes birth, death, sorrow, and age, and drinks deep the undying wine of immortality.

Arjuna: My Lord, by what signs may one recognize the person who has gone beyond the three Modes? How does he live? By what path does he safely pass beyond them?

Krishna: He who looks with equanimity on the brightness of goodness, the turbulence of passion, and the sluggishness of ignorance — neither resenting them when they arise nor longing for them when they are absent; who sits among them like a guest and a stranger, untroubled, standing aside, saying calmly when difficulties come, “These are merely the Qualities at work”; he who, centered in himself, hears grief and joy as a single word; to whose deep-seeing eyes a clod of earth, a stone, and gold are all the same; whose steady heart holds equal gentleness for what is lovely and what is ugly; who is well-pleased alike with praise and blame, content with honor or dishonor, treating friends and foes with the same tolerance, and detached from all undertakings — such a one is called the Conqueror of the Qualities.

And such a person, adoring me with single and fervent faith, passes beyond the Qualities, becomes one with Brahma, and attains me. For I am that of which Brahma is the likeness. Mine is the nectar of immortality; mine is deathlessness; and mine is perfect bliss.

Here ends Chapter XIV of the Bhagavad Gita, titled “Gunatrayavibhagayog,” or “The Book of Religion by Separation from the Qualities.”