In any given personality or phenomenon all the three gunas are likely to be present. It is the mix of the three that colors our experience. Sattva may be dominant, with an admixture of rajas or tamas. Or perhaps rajas dominates, with a little sattva and a good measure of tamas. Finally, the personality may be basically tamasic, with a few rays of the light of sattva and a little of the heat of rajas. In any case, no mix of the three gunas is stable, for it is the very nature of prakriti to be in constant flux. The gunas are constantly shifting, always changing in intensity.
It is essential that the gunas, even the purity and goodness of sattva, be transcended if the soul is to attain its final release. For the three gunas are forces that operate within the world of prakriti: in fact, their three strands make up the whole fabric of the phenomenal world. Liberation lies beyond the conditioning of prakriti, in the realm of Purusha. When Arjuna asks Krishna to describe the person who has gone beyond prakriti’s net, Krishna replies that such a person is detached from the constant shifting and interaction of the gunas.
Identified with the Self, he or she realizes that the gunas and their play are external – even the emotions and thoughts that seem so personal, so interior, are really only the play of prakriti. Thoughts and emotions, and ahamkara itself, stop at the gate of the inner Self. The Self abides in the inner chamber of the heart, always at peace, whatever forces of prakriti may storm outside. The illumined man or woman maintains a joyful evenness of mind in happiness and sorrow.
At the end of the chapter, again reminding him of the power of devotion (bhakti), Krishna says that Arjuna can transcend the gunas through steadfast love. If he has devotion and has gone beyond the three gunas, then he will be fit to know Brahman. –D.M.
14: Forces of Evolution
KRISHNA
1 Let me tell you more about the wisdom that transcends all knowledge, through which the saints and sages attained perfection. 2 Those who rely on this wisdom will be united with me. For them there is neither rebirth nor fear of death.
3 My womb is prakriti; in that I place the seed. Thus all created things are born. 4 Everything born, Arjuna, comes from the womb of prakriti, and I am the seed-giving father.
5 It is the three gunas born of prakriti – sattva, rajas, and tamas – that bind the immortal Self to the body. 6 Sattva – pure, luminous, and free from sorrow – binds us with attachment to happiness and wisdom. 7 Rajas is passion, arising from selfish desire and attachment. These bind the Self with compulsive action. 8 Tamas, born of ignorance, deludes all creatures through heedlessness, indolence, and sleep.
9 Sattva binds us to happiness; rajas binds us to action. Tamas,distorting our understanding, binds us to delusion.
10 Sattva predominates when rajas and tamas are transformed. Rajasprevails when sattva is weak and tamas overcome. Tamas prevails when rajas and sattva are dormant.
11 When sattva predominates, the light of wisdom shines throughevery gate of the body. 12 When rajas predominates, a person runs about pursuing selfish and greedy ends, driven by restlessness and desire. 13 When tamas is dominant a person lives in darkness – slothful, confused, and easily infatuated.
14 Those dying in the state of sattva attain the pure worlds of the wise. 15 Those dying in rajas are reborn among people driven by work. But those who die in tamas are conceived in the wombs of the ignorant.
16 The fruit of good deeds is pure and sattvic. The fruit of rajas is suffering. The fruit of tamas is ignorance and insensitivity.
17 From sattva comes understanding; from rajas, greed. But theoutcome of tamas is confusion, infatuation, and ignorance.
18 Those who live in sattva go upwards; those in rajas remain wherethey are. But those immersed in tamas sink downwards.
19 The wise see clearly that all action is the work of the gunas.Knowing that which is above the gunas, they enter into union with me.
20 Going beyond the three gunas which form the body, they leavebehind the cycle of birth and death, decrepitude and sorrow, and attain to immortality.
ARJUNA
21 What are the characteristics of those who have gone beyond the gunas, O Lord? How do they act? How have they passed beyond the gunas’ hold?
KRISHNA
22 They are unmoved by the harmony of sattva, the activity of rajas, or the delusion of tamas. They feel no aversion when these forces are active, nor do they crave for them when these forces subside.
23 They remain impartial, undisturbed by the actions of the gunas.
Knowing that it is the gunas which act, they abide within themselves and do not vacillate.
24 Established within themselves, they are equal in pleasure andpain, praise and blame, kindness and unkindness. Clay, a rock, and gold are the same to them.
25 Alike in honor and dishonor, alike to friend and foe, they have given up every selfish pursuit. Such are those who have gone beyond the gunas.
26 By serving me with steadfast love, a man or woman goes beyond the gunas. Such a one is fit for union with Brahman.
27 For I am the support of Brahman, the eternal, the unchanging, the deathless, the everlasting dharma, the source of all joy.
Chapter Fifteen, The Supreme Self
This is a difficult chapter, for it deals essentially with questions of theology and ultimate mystical experience.
Krishna reveals that he transcends not only the world of matter but also the immortal Atman that dwells as the conscious “knower” within all beings. Krishna has said that he is the Atman; but the paradox is that he also transcends the Atman. In this highest aspect Krishna is Ishvara, the cosmic Lord, who abides in his own mystery. The liberated Self enjoys union with
Krishna and lives in Krishna’s highest home. But the Self does not become Krishna: the immortal soul, even when liberated from its mortal journeying, does not become God.
The chapter opens with the image of an upside-down tree, a world-tree rooted in Brahman which branches out into a manifold creation in this realm below. This is said to be an ashvattha or pipal tree, a kind of fig. Like the banyan, it sends out roots into the air, spreading above and below.
In this chapter about Krishna’s most exalted nature, it is appropriate that his “home,” the highest goal of all, is described. It is an abode of light and eternal life. By its very nature, it is beyond the description of human language. Verse 4 uses an elemental and ancient word for the ultimate reality that defies all description, all human thought: Tat, which means simply “that” or “it.” Here the Gita personalizes Tat to the extent of giving It a home: avyayam padam, the immortal home, the eternal goal. Pada also means foot or step, and it is of interest here to recall a myth from the Vedas. At the beginning of time Vishnu took three steps that measured out the entire cosmos. The third and highest step became a heavenly world, the realm of the blessed. In the Rig Veda (I.154.5), the poet longs to find himself in this home of the god:
May I go to his blessed world
Where those who love the gods rejoice;
For there, truly, is the company of the far-stepping god, A fountain of honey in the highest step of Vishnu.
The Gita describes Krishna’s home as a realm of light beyond the light of the sun (15:6). Here we might compare the Gita with the Katha Upanishad (5:15):
There shines not the sun, neither moon nor star, Nor flash of lightning, nor fire lit on earth.
The Self is the light reflected by all.
He shining, everything shines after him.
Even here, though, we are reminded that Krishna lives not just in this highest realm but also in the world below, where both darkness and light coexist. In his divine mystery he sends fragments of himself to become the inner Self in each creature. In this sense the Self enters the body at conception, dwells in the body, and then departs at death. Krishna is the prana – the breath or vitality – of the body. The Upanishads speak of five pranas; here the Gita mentions the two most prominent: the prana by which we breathe and the prana that digests food. –D.M.
15: The Supreme Self
KRISHNA
1 Sages speak of the immutable ashvattha tree, with its taprootabove and its branches below. On this tree grow the scriptures; seeing their source, one knows their essence.
2 Nourished by the gunas, the limbs of this tree spread above andbelow. Sense objects grow on the limbs as buds; the roots hanging down bind us to action in this world.
3 The true form of this tree – its essence, beginning, and end – is notperceived on this earth. Cut down this strong-rooted tree with the sharp ax of detachment;
4 then find the
