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.
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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