Chapter 14 - The Three Gunas

Summary
This Prakriti is composed of the five elements and exhibits three qualities. The three qualities or Gunas come in cycles and make you experience the different states of existence. Krishna elaborates on the influence of the three Gunas. The wise see all the happenings as a play of the Gunas and stays a witness to the world. The Guru is a Siddha who is beyond the limitations of the five elements and the influence of the three Gunas.

Yatharth
Dear Arjuna, I will now enunciate to you the knowledge knowing which you can be free from Samsara (life and death cycle) and attain Siddhis ( powers beyond the limitations of the five elements). This knowledge will keep you strong even in the middle of a dissolution (Pralaya).

The creation
Creation is the product fo the union of the inert (prakriti/Jada/passive) and the dynamic (Purusha/chaitanya/active). I am both the womb (prakriti) and the seed (chaitanya). All the manifestations in creation are through Me only and they exhibit three qualities - Sattva, Rajas and Tamas - which binds the Jeevatma (purusha) to the body.

The Three Gunas
the satttva gun is pure, illuminating and blemishless. Sattva binds you to Joy (Sukha) and knowledge. Rajo Guna brings attachment, desire and interest in the world. it binds you to Karma and its effects. Tamas leads you to ignorance. it binds you to blunder (Pramada), lethargy and dullness. To summarise, Sattva brings Sukha, Rajas binds you to Karma and Tamas brings about Pramada (inability to overcome the tendency of the mind). These Gunas are mutually exclusive - meaning when Sativa dominates Rajas and Tamas are subdued, when Rajas dominates Sativa and Tamas are subdue and so on.

When light, knowledge and clarity radiate from you know that Sattva is dominating. When greed, interest in activity, restlessness and desires arise, know that Rajas is dominating. When there is dullness, disinterestedness in activity (lethargy), delusion and Pramada - know that Tamas is dominating.

Sattvic actions bring joy, knowledge and dispassion, Rajasic actions bring greed, attachment and suffering, while tamasic actions lead to ignorance and delusion. People engaged in sattvic actions reach heaven, rajas actions reach earth while those engaged in Tamas suffer in hell.

When you die in Sattva, you are reborn in a noble, knowledge loving family with prosperity similar to heaven. when you die in Rajas, you are born in the company of people that are ambitious and greedy. when you die in Tamas, you attain the company of the impoverished and ignorant or are born as animals or worms.


How to move beyond the three Gunas?
through knowledge and devotion

one who, when engaged in the illuminating Sattva, or the restless Rajas or the Delusional Tamas neither regrets it when engaged nor desires it when disengaged; one who stands as a witness to the qualities and is not shaken by their impact; One who is always established in the self, and is equanimous with pleasure and pain,praise and insult, respect and humiliation; one who treats gold, and mud, friends or enemies similarly and deals the blessed, loved and the hated in the same way; He stays as a witness to the events free from doership and sees all actions as the play of the gunas. By realising that I exist beyond the Gunas, he attains ME. Such a wise person moves beyond the limitation of the five elements (Samsara) and the Gunas; and rests in bliss free from all suffering.

One who realises the I AM the source of all that is bliss, auspicious, Truth and Eternal, and focuses on Me at all times with humility and devotion is also able to cross the limitations of the Gunas.