Bhagwad Gita - Post 172

CHAPTER 14

THE YOGA OF THE DIVISION OF THE THREE GUNAS

Knowledge of the three cosmic qualities or Gunas, namely, Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas is now given through this discourse. 

The knowledge of these three Gunas, which hold the entire universe and all creatures under their sway, is of vital importance to each and everyone for their progress and happiness in life. 

Without this knowledge one will be forever bound by sorrow. In this knowledge we have the secret of success in worldly life as well as in spiritual life. Therefore, one should acquire this precious knowledge.

Lord Krishna reveals that these three qualities compose the Cosmic Nature. This Cosmic Nature is the primal source and origin of the entire creation and all things in it. Hence all things created are subject to their influence and irresistible power. 

The individual soul also is bound to the body by these three qualities present in Cosmic Nature. The Supreme Being brings about creation through the help of His Prakriti (Nature) endowed with these threefold qualities.

The highest of the three qualities is Sattwa. It is pure. It brings about happiness, wisdom and also illumination. 

The second quality of Rajas gives rise to passion manifested by intense attachment and greed. It causes sorrow and suffering. 

The third, termed Tamas, is the worst of all. It arises due to ignorance and results in darkness, lethargy and delusion.

Krishna asks us to diligently endeavor to cast out Tamas from our nature. We should control and master Rajas, and by holding it in check, wisely divert its power towards good kinds of activities. 

Sattwa should be carefully cultivated, developed and conserved in order to enable us to attain immortality. 

Lord Krishna teaches us this important subject in this discourse from the ninth to the eighteenth verse. He declares that one who rises beyond all the three Gunas through spiritual practices, becomes free from birth, death, old age and sorrow, and enjoys immortality.

In reply to a question from Arjuna, the blessed Lord describes the marks of one who has risen above the three Gunas. 

He states that if one constantly worships Him with exclusive devotion one will attain the highest divine experience and supreme peace and blessedness.

Krishna gives more details about the nature of the three gunas. Attachment to any one of the gunas will hold a person back, keeping them in the cycle of death and rebirth. 

However, the gunas of Rajas and Tamas are particularly detrimental to a person's process of enlightenment. 

Although Sattwa seems desirable, when it is held as an attachment it can keep one bound. For example, over attachment to the pursuit of knowledge or joy (without striving for inner experience of Knowledge gained)  can keep a person embodied. 

Conversely, Sattwa without attachment can help a person leave the cycle of death and rebirth. 

Krishna names Sattwa as the "ruling trait" of a person who is on the path of understanding and knowledge. 

The "light of knowledge shines forth / through all the gates of the body" in these people. This is one way such a person can be recognized and set apart from those still ruled primarily by Rajas or Tamas.

Many things can affect the rebirth of a person. The ruling guna at the time of death will determine the situation a person will experience when reborn into the next life. 

Those who die while ruled by Rajas are born to people who are attached to action, whereas those who die while ruled by Tamas are born to people who are deluded. 

This distinction could imply that a person who has led a good life could be reborn into a poor incarnation if they die in a state of anger. 

Although a person is ruled primarily by one guna or another, it is possible for that person to move back and forth between secondary gunas over the course of a lifetime.

The realized sage, of course, goes beyond all these qualities, for, although it is Sattwa that enables him to reach God, even this quality will bind him if he is attached to it.

The aspirant should know the symptoms and signs of their presence in his personality and acquire a knowledge of their subtle workings. Then only can he maintain an unhampered and smooth progress in all activities of his life, both secular as well as spiritual. 

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 171

Verse 34

Yathaa prakaashayatyekah

Kritsnam lokamimam ravih;

Kshetram kshetree tathaa

Kritsnam prakaashayati bhaarata.

Just as the one sun illumines the whole world, so also the Lord of the Field (the Supreme Self) illumines the whole Field, O Arjuna!

The exact relationship of Consciousness, the Eternal Principle of Life, with matter and its various expressions is explained here. 

The example given by The Lord for the purpose is the one sun which illumines the entire world at all times. Just as the sun, the Consciousness merely illumines the world of objects, the body, the mind and the intellect. 

Light itself is the very nature of the sun and in his light everything gets illumined. Similarly, the nature of Consciousness is awareness and in Its presence, everything becomes known i.e., illumined. The sun illumines everything, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, virtue and vice etc. 

So too, in our inner life, Consciousness functions through body equipment and illumines them but never gets contaminated by the actions of the body or by the emotions of the mind or by the thoughts of the intellect. 

Verse 35

Kshetrakshetrajnayor evam

Antaram jnaanachakshushaa;

Bhootaprakritimoksham cha ye

Vidur yaanti te param.

They who, through the eye of knowledge, perceive the distinction between the Field and its Knower, and also the liberation from the Nature of being, they go to the Supreme.

Those who are able to distinguish between kṣhetrajña and kṣhetra, between purusha and prakriti, between the Self and its object, and between consciousness and matter shall attain the Supreme Abode. If this distinction is clear to us, then we will be totally unattached to everything in this world, and we will not be reborn into this world of prakriti, this world of the three gunas. We will attain the Supreme Abode—param.

Sri Krishna now concludes that man's life is fulfilled only when he with his discrimination meditates upon and realizes the constitution of and relationship between the Field, the Knower of the Field and the Supreme Self in himself. 

This can be achieved through the eye of wisdom or intuition which is opened up by meditation, study of scriptures or teachings of the preceptors. One who realizes this is liberated and attains eternal freedom. 

Thus it has been very clearly and emphatically laid down in the Bhagwad Gita that the means of deliverance from maya or ignorance are meditation, renunciation and other spiritual disciplines. 

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 170

Verse 32

Anaaditwaan nirgunatwaat

Paramaatmaayam avyayah;

Shareerastho’pi kaunteya

Na karoti na lipyate.

Being without beginning and devoid of (any) qualities, the Supreme Self, imperishable, though dwelling in the body, O Arjuna, neither acts nor is tainted!

Anāditvān: It has no qualities of any kind as we know qualities here. 

Nirguṇatvāt paramātmāyam avyayaḥ: It is imperishable because it is indestructible. 

The Supreme Self, though existing in this body as the deepest self in us, does not involve itself in any contamination of the gunas of prakriti. 

Na karoti na lipyate: He neither does anything, nor is He contaminated by the fruits of action.

In an earlier talk, it was explained that consciousness remains uncontaminated by anything that takes place, just as space inside a vessel cannot become affected by things that we pour into the vessel. 

If we pour something fragrant into the vessel, the space inside it, does not become fragrant; or if we put something which smells foul into the vessel, the space inside it does not become bitter/foul smelling. 

Similarly, the witness consciousness in all of us, which is the light of the sun in the sky, as it were, is untarnished by anything that may happen to our Gross body (physical) or Subtle body (mind/intellect/vasanas etc.)

Verse 33

Yathaa sarvagatam

Saukshmyaadaakaasham nopalipyate;

Sarvatraavasthito dehe

Tathaatmaa nopalipyate.

As the all-pervading ether is not tainted because of its subtlety, so the Self seated everywhere in the body, is not tainted.

The subtlest reality is consciousness, and all things that are external to it, of which it is conscious, are gross. Everything in the world is gross; therefore, consciousness — which is the subtlest of being — cannot actually get involved in anything in this world, the two being dissimilar in nature. 

The subtle cannot enter into the gross, and the gross cannot affect the subtle. 

Because of the subtlety of the Supreme Being and its all-pervading nature—sarvatrāvasthita—it is not affected by anything that takes place in creation, either by evolution or involution. 

As the waters of the mirage cannot drench the desert, the world of plurality - the domain of matter and its activities - cannot contaminate the Eternal. 

The Self, though permeates and pervades the whole body, is not soiled by its virtuous or vicious actions just as space is not dirtied by the things accommodated under it. 

  

Love.