Temple Travel Hotel Flight Festival Culture Greetings Tour Diaries Forum Store Special Offers

Blessingsonthenet.com culture section features various aspects of India culture, indian philosophy ,puja & rituals, customs, traditions, ceremonies, arts, dance, music, architecture,Hindu Mythology, god and goddesses, Sanint and sages and Indian rivers.

Bhagvad Gita Chapter Seventeen

The Yoga Of The Division Of The Three Gunas


1. I will again declare (to thee) that supreme knowledge, the best of all knowledge, having known which all the sages have gone to the supreme perfection, after this life.


2. They who, having taken refuge in this knowledge, have attained to unity with me, are neither born at the time of creation nor are they disturbed at the time of dissolution.


3. My womb is the great Brahma; in that I place the germ; thence, O Arjuna, is the birth of all beings.


4. Whatever forms are produced, O Arjuna, in any womb whatsoever, the great Brahma is their womb and I am the seed-giving father.


5. Purity, passion and inertia-these qualities, O Arjuna, born of Nature, bind fast in the body, the embodied, the indestructible.


6. Of these, Sattva, which from its stainlessness is luminous and healthy, binds by attachment to happiness and by attachment to knowledge, O sinless One.


7. Know thou Rajas to be of the nature of passion, the source of thirst (for sensual enjoyment) and attachment; it binds fast, O Arjuna, the embodied one by attachment to action.


8. But know thou Tamas to be born of ignorance, deluding all embodied beings; it binds fast, O Arjuna, by heedlessness, indolence and sleep.


9. Sattva attaches to happiness, Rajas to action, O Arjuna, while Tamas verily shrouding knowledge attaches to heedlessness.


10. Now Sattva arises (prevails), O Arjuna, having overpowered Rajas and Tamas; now Rajas, having overpowered Sattva and Tamas; and now Tamas, having overpowered Sattva and Rajas.


11. When through every gate (sense) in this body, the wisdom-light shines, then it may be known that Sattva is predominant.


12. Greed, activity, the undertaking of actions, restlessness, longing-these arise when Rajas is predominant, O Arjuna.


13. Darkness, inertness, heedlessness and delusion-these arise when Tamas is predominant, O Arjuna.


14. If the embodied one meets with death when Sattva is predominant, then he attains to all spotless worlds of the knowers of the Highest.


15. Meeting death in Rajas, he is born among those who are attached to action; and dying in Tamas, he is born in the womb of the senseless.


16. The fruit of good action, they say, is Sattvika and pure; verily the fruit of Rajas is pain, and ignorance is the fruit of Tamas.


17. From Sattva arises knowledge, and greed from Rajas; heedlessness and delusion arise from Tamas, and also ignorance.


18. Those who are seated in Sattva go upwards; the Rajasic dwell in the middle; and the Tamasic, abiding in the function of the lowest Guna, go downwards.


19. When the seer beholds no agent other than the Gunas and knows that which is higher than them, he attains to My Being.


20. The embodied one having crossed beyond these three Gunas out of which the body is evolved, is freed from birth, death, decay and pain, and attains to immortality.


Arjuna said.


2 1. What are the marks of him who has transcended the three qualities, O Lord? What is his conduct a and how does he go beyond these three qualities?


The Blessed Lord Said


22. When light, activity and delusion are present, he hates them not, nor does he long for them when they are absent.


23. He who, seated like one unconcerned, is not moved by the qualities, and who, knowing that the qualities are active, is self-centred and moves not,


24. Who is the same in pleasure and pain, who dwells in the Self, to whom a clod of earth, stone and gold are alike, who is the same to the dear and the unfriendly, who is fu-rn, and to whom censure and praise are as one.


25. Who is the same in honour and dishonour. the same to friend and foe, abandoning all undertakings-he is said to have transcended the qualities.


26. And he who serves me with unswerving devotion, he, crossing beyond the qualities, is fit for becoming Brahman.


27. For I am the abode of Brahman, the immortal and the immutable, of everlasting Dharma and of absolute bliss.


Thus in the Upanishads of the glorious Bhagavad-Gita, the science of the Eternal, the scripture of Yoga, the dialogue between Sri Krishna and Arjuna, ends the fourteenth discourse entitled:

  
Content

Enquiry

All Fields are Mandatory

Name
Email
Contact no
Enquiry Type
Message

Your enquiry has been submitted. We will get back to you shortly.