Indian stream·Bhagavad Gita·Discourse 14: The Yoga of the Separation from the Three Qualities (Gunas)

Source context

Theme

liberation from the three gunas (sattva, rajas, tamas) as conditions of material existence and the path to transcendence beyond all three qualities

Soul-faculty

Consciousness Soul

Steiner

• GA 146, 1913-06-05Steiner directly treats the three gunas — sattva, rajas, and tamas — in the context of the Bhagavad Gita, mapping them onto stages of soul development and the path toward self-consciousness that Krishna articulates in Discourse 14.
• GA 142, 1912-12-28Steiner identifies the Bhagavad Gita as a synthesis of Vedic philosophical streams, situating the guna-teaching within the broader spiritual heritage that the Gita harmonises and transmits.

Cross-tradition

• Samkhya philosophyThe Samkhya system furnishes the technical framework for the three gunas as constitutive principles of Prakriti (nature), which Discourse 14 presupposes; the yoga of transcending them corresponds to the Samkhya distinction between Purusha (spirit) and the qualified material world.
• Neoplatonism (Plotinus)Cross-tradition congruence appears in Plotinus's account of the soul's return to the One by successive detachment from the qualitative differentiations of matter, structurally parallel to the gunatita (one who has transcended the gunas) described in this discourse.
• Advaita VedantaShankara's commentary on Discourse 14 treats the three gunas as the threefold veil of maya binding the jiva, and their transcendence as identical with the realisation of nirguna Brahman — a cross-tradition congruence with the chapter's closing identification of Brahman as the foundation of the liberated state.

Discourse 14: The Yoga of the Separation from the Three Qualities (Gunas)

14:1The Blessed Lord said: I will again proclaim that supreme Wisdom, of all
wisdom the best, which having known, all the Sages have gone hence to the supreme Perfection.

14:2Having taken refuge in this Wisdom and being assimilated to My own nature,
they are not re-born even in the emanation of a universe, nor are disquieted in the dissolution.

14:3My womb is the great Eternal; in that I place the germ; thence cometh the birth
of all beings, O Bharata.

14:4In whatsoever wombs mortals are produced, O Kaunteya, the great Eternal is
their womb, I their generating father.

14:5Harmony, Motion, Inertia, such are the qualities, Matter-born; they bind fast in
the body, O great-armed one, the indestructible dweller in the body.

14:6Of these Harmony, from its stainlessness, luminous and healthy, bindeth by the
attachment to bliss and the attachment to wisdom, O sinless one.

14:7Motion, the passion-nature, know thou, is the source of attachment and thirst for
life, O Kaunteya, that bindeth the dweller in the body by the attachment to action.

14:8But Inertia, know thou, born of unwisdom, is the deluder of all dwellers in the
body; that bindeth by heedlessness, indolence and sloth, O Bharata.

14:9Harmony attacheth to bliss, Motion to action, O Bharata. Inertia, verily, having
shrouded wisdom, attacheth on the contrary to heedlessness.

14:10Now Harmony prevaileth, having overpowered Motion and Inertia, O Bharata;
now Motion, having overpowered Harmony and Inertia; and now Inertia, having overpowered Harmony and Motion.

14:11When the wisdom-light streameth forth from all the gates of the body, then it
may be known that Harmony is increasing.

14:12Greed, outgoing energy, undertaking of actions, restlessness, desire—these are
born of the increase of Motion, O best of the Bharatas.

14:13Darkness, stagnation and heedlessness and also delusion—these are born of
the increase of Inertia, O joy of the Kurus.

14:14If Harmony verily prevaileth when the embodied goeth to dissolution, then he
goeth forth to the spotless worlds of the great Sages.

14:15Having gone to dissolution in Motion, he is born among those attached to
action; if dissolved in Inertia, he is born in the wombs of the senseless.

14:16It is said the fruit of a good action is harmonious and spotless; verily the fruit
of Motion is pain, and the fruit of Inertia unwisdom.

14:17From Harmony wisdom is born, and also greed from Motion; heedlessness and
delusion are of Inertia and also unwisdom.

14:18They rise upwards who are settled in Harmony; the Active dwell in the mid-
most place: the Inert go downwards, enveloped in the vilest qualities.

14:19When the Seer perceiveth no agent other than the qualities, and knoweth That
which is higher than the qualities, he entereth into My Nature.

14:20When the dweller in the body hath crossed over these three qualities, whence
all bodies have been produced, liberated from birth, death, old age and sorrow, he drinketh the nectar of immortality.

14:21Arjuna said: What are the marks of him who hath crossed over the three
qualities, O Lord? How acteth he, and how doth he go beyond these three qualities?

14:22The Blessed Lord said: He, O Pandava, who hateth not radiance, nor outgoing
energy, nor even delusion, when present, nor longeth after them, absent;

14:23He who, seated as a neutral, is unshaken by the qualities; who saying, "The
qualities revolve," standeth apart immovable,

14:24Balanced in pleasure and pain, self-reliant, to whom a lump of earth, a rock
and gold are alike, the same to loved and unloved, firm, the same in censure and in praise,

14:25The same in honour and ignominy, the same to friend and foe, abandoning all
undertakings—he is said to have crossed over the qualities.

14:26And he who serveth Me exclusively by the Yoga of devotion, he, crossing
beyond the qualities, he is fit to become the Eternal.

14:27For I am the abode of the Eternal, and of the indestructible nectar of
immortality, of immemorial righteousness, and of unending bliss.

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