Thursday, 30 June 2022

Bhagavad Gita Summary: Chapter 14: Gunatraya Vibhagayoga or The Yoga of the Division of Three Gunas


Chapter 14: Gunatraya Vibhagayoga (27 verses)
The Yoga of the Division of Three Gunas.
 
Guṇa is a concept in Hinduism and Sikhism, which can be translated as "quality, peculiarity, attribute, property". Its original and common meaning is a thread, implying the original materials that weave together to make up reality. The concept is originally notable as a feature of Samkhya philosophy, now a key concept in nearly all schools of Hindu philosophy. Maitrayaniya Upanishad is one of the earliest texts making an explicit reference to Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and linking them to their Guna – as creator/activity, preserver/purity, destroyer/recycler respectively. Chapters 2, 3, 7, 13, 14, 17 and 18 of Bhagavad Gita discuss Guna, with chapter 14 being the basic one.
1- The supreme knoweldge. (1-4)
2. They who, having resorted to this knowledge, have attained to unity with Me, are neither born in the creation, nor disturbed in the dissolution, 
Evolution of the universe from the union of Spirit and Matter. 
Knowledge of the origin of the universe is necessary for Salvation. (3-4) 
3. My womb is the great Brahman ; in that I place the germ ; thence, O Bharata, is the birth of all beings.
My womb: My own Prakriti, — i.e., the Prakriti which belongs to Me, the Maya made up of the three Gunas, the material cause of all beings. This Prakriti is spoken of as great because it is greater than all effects ; and as the source and nourishing energy of all Its modifications, It is termed Brahman. In that Great Brahman I place the germ, the seed of the birth of the Hiranyagarbha, the seed which gives birth to all beings. I who am possessed of the two potencies (Saktis), the two Prakritis of Kshetra and the Kshetrajna, unite the Kshetrajna with Kshetra, the Kshetrajna conforming Himself to the upadhis of avidya (nescience), kama (desire), and karma (action). This act of impregnation gives rise to the birth of all beings through the birth of the Hiranyagarbha. (Baghavad Gita, with the Commentary of Sri Sankaracharya, transl. A. Mahadeva Sastri, 1901)
2- The nature and functions of the gunas. (5-18) 
The gunas bind the soul. (5) 
5. Sattva, Rajas, Tamas, — these gunas, O mighty-armed, born of Prakriti, bind fast in the body the embodied, the indestructible.
6. Of these, Sattva, which, from its stainlessness, is lucid and healthy, binds by attachment to happiness and by attachment to knowledge, O sinless one. 
Thus it is through avidya alone—which forms an attribute (dharma) of the Self as the non-discrimination between the object and the subject,—that Sattva causes the Self to be attached as it were to happiness which is not His own, causes Him, who is free from all attachment, to be engrossed as it were in happiness; causes to feel happy as it were Him who does not possess the happiness. (Baghavad Gita, with the Commentary of Sri Sankaracharya, transl. A. Mahadeva Sastri, 1901)
7. Know thou Rajas (to be) of the nature of passion, the source of thirst and attachment; it binds fast, O son of Kunti, the embodied one by attachment to action. 
8. But, know thou Tamas to be born of unwisdom, deluding all embodied beings; by heedlessness, indolence and sloth, it binds fast, O Bharata. 
9. Sattva attaches to happiness, Rajas to action, O Bharata, while Tamas, enshrouding wisdom, attaches, on the contrary, to heedlessness.  
The time when a soul reaches the status of an individual (i.e. is born) by adopting the I-am-the-body attitude is an inauspicious moment. From birth until death he imagines the functions of the body as his own. 
Sattva attribute The Sattva attribute traps the individual by the strings of pleasure and learning. The learned individual roars due to vanity and kicks around due to conceit and loses the bliss of the Self-realisation. He feels elated when people honour him for his learning. He feels happy by small gains and he brags around that very little satisfies him. He says how fortunate he is to have none as happy as himself. He is flooded with the eight righteous Sattva-attributed emotions.
As if this is not enough, another binding in the form of the pride of his being learned trails him. He does not feel sorry that he has lost the realisation of his being the Soul. On the contrary he swells with pride of his worldly knowledge. The soul in the body, because of worldly outward knowledge considers himself as the body. He knows the art of handling worldly affairs and becomes expert in the rituals of yajnas. His knowledge can take him up to heaven and he thinks that currently there is none as knowledgeable as he is and that he alone is clever. In this way the Sattva attribute pulls this lame individual like bull with the reins of pleasure and learning. 
Now listen to the characteristics of Tama attribute. Tama attribute is that which veils the practical view of a person as if the sky is covered by dark clouds of delusion, which grows by ignorance, and makes the whole world dance with delusion, of which thoughtlessness is the password and which is the pot of honey of ignorance which keeps individuals under illusion. This Tama attribute chains those who consider the body itself to be the soul.  (Dnyaneshwari; 14:145-158, transl. M.R. Yardi) 
How to know when a particular guna is predominant. (11-13) 
Out of these the Raja and the Tama cause one's downfall while without the Sattva attribute one does not attain Knowledge. Therefore just as some people renounce everything to adopt the fourth type of life (i.e. that of sanyasin) a Sadhak (aspirant) should give up all and live throughout his life with the Sattva attribute. (Dnyaneshwari; 14:265-270, transl. M.R. Yardi) 
Life after death as governed by the gunas. (14-16) 
16. The fruit of good action, they say, is Sattvic and pure; while the fruit of Rajas is pain, and ignorance is the fruit of Tamas. 
The functions of the gunas summed up. (17-18) 
18. Those who follow Sattva go upwards ; the Rajasic remain in the middle; and the Tamasic, who follow in the course of the lowest guna, go downwards.
Those who follow the course of Sattva-guna will be born in the region of the Devas or the like. The Rajasic will dwell among men ; The Tamasic—those who follow the course of Tamas, the lowest guna—will go down, i.e., they will be born in the wombs of cattle and the like creatures. (Baghavad Gita, with the Commentary of Sri Sankaracharya, transl. A. Mahadeva Sastri, 1901)

3- Transcending the gunas (19-27)
Realisation of the Self beyond the gunas leads to immortality. (19-20) 
19. When the seer beholds not an agent other than the gunas and knows Him who is higher than the gunas, he attains to My being.
When a man is enlightened and realises that there is no agent other than the gunas which transform themselves into the bodies, senses and sense-objects, when he sees that it is the gunas that in all their modifications constitute the agent in all actions ; when he sees Him who is distinct from the gunas, who is the Witness of the gunas and of their functions, then he attains to my being : i. e., seeing ' that All is Vasudeva, he becomes Vasudeva. (Baghavad Gita, with the Commentary of Sri Sankaracharya, transl. A. Mahadeva Sastri, 1901)
The marks of a liberated soul. (21-22) 
21. By what marks, O Lord, is he known who has crossed beyond those three Gunas ? What is his conduct, and how does he pass beyond those three gunas ?
Unlike a man of Sattva (or Rajas or Tamas) who longs for the Sattvic (or Rajasic or Tamasic) states which first presented themselves to his consiousness and then disappeared, he who has risen above the gunas does not long after things which have disappeared. — This is a mark which others cannot perceive; it serves as a mark for the individual himself, as it can be perceived by himself alone ; no man indeed can perceive the hatred or the desire which presents itself to another man's consciousness. (Baghavad Gita, with the Commentary of Sri Sankaracharya, transl. A. Mahadeva Sastri, 1901)
The conduct in life of the Liberated one. (23-25) 
24. Her to whom pain and pleasure are alike, who dwells in the Self, to whom a clod of earth and stone and gold are alike, to whom the dear and the undear are alike, who is a man of wisdom, to whom censure and praiseare same;
Moreover, 25. The same in honour and disgrace, the same towards friends and enemies, abandoning all undertakings,—he is said to have crossed beyond the gunas. 
The same : unaffected. Though neutral from their own standpoint, some appear to others as if they were on the side of friends or on the side of foes ; but this man appears to be same to friends and foes. He renounces all actions, productive of visible and invisible results, except those which are necessary for the bare maintenance of the body. (Baghavad Gita, with the Commentary of Sri Sankaracharya, transl. A. Mahadeva Sastri, 1901)
Devotion to the Lord leads to liberation. (26) Unity of Atman. (27) 
The dust particles on the earth or the snow particles in the Himalayas are not different similarly I am in me (i.e. the universe). When the outlook of equality that one is not different from God is developed I call it devotion. This outlook is the best knowledge and the essence of yoga.  Because of it the attitude that "I am Brahman" comes to the surface. With this attitude that knowledge also dissolves. When the difference vanishes the knowledge also vanishes. The illusion that the devotee is on this shore and I am across disappears and what remains is only the oneness between the two. Then the question of conquering the attributes does not remain because with the entwinement of oneness they also disappear. Arjuna, this state is called the state of oneness with Brahman. He who is devoted to me is the one to attain it. Brahman weds him who carries devotion to me in this manner. He who serves me with the outlook of knowledge is the crown jewel of the oneness with Brahman. Attaining this state of oneness is called the liberation while in body or the fourth achievement. Devotion to me is the ladder for reaching the oneness with Brahman. (Dnyaneshwari; 14:371 -398, transl. M.R. Yardi) 

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