The Three Qualities of Nature

The 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.

Having 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.

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

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

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

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

Motion, 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.

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

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

Now Harmony prevaileth, having overpowered Motion and Inertia, O Bhârata; now Motion, having overpowered Harmony and Inertia; and now Inertia, having overpowered Harmony and Motion.

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

Greed, outgoing energy, undertaking of actions, restlessness, desire—these are born of the increase of Motion, O best of the Bhâratas.

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

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

Having 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.

It 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

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

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

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

When 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.

Arjuna 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?

The Blessed Lord said:

He, O Pândava, who hateth not radiance, nor outgoing energy, nor even delusion, when present, nor longeth after them, absent;

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

Balanced 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,

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

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

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