14. If the embodied one meets death when Sattva is predominant, then he attains to the spotless regions of the worshippers of the Highest.

15. Meeting death in Rajas he is born among those attached to action; so dying in Tamas, he is born in the wombs of the irrational.

16. The fruit of good action, they say, is Sattvika and pure; verily, the fruit of Rajas is pain, and ignorance is the fruit of Tamas.

17. From Sattva arises wisdom, and greed from Rajas; miscomprehension, delusion and ignorance arise from Tamas.

18. The Sattva-abiding go upwards; the Rajasika dwell in the middle; and the Tamasika, abiding in the function. of the lowest Guna, go downwards.

19. When the seer beholds no agent other than the Gunas and knows That which is higher than the Gunas, he attains to My being.

20. The embodied one having gone beyond these three Gunas out of which the body is evolved, is freed from birth, death, decay and pain, and attains to immortality.

Arjuna said:

21. By what marks, O Lord, is he (known) who has gone beyond these three Gunas? What is his conduct, and how does he pass beyond these three Gunas?

The Blessed Lord said:

22. He who hates not the appearance of light, (the effect of Sattva), activity (the effect of Rajas), and delusion (the effect of Tamas), (in his own mind), O Pandava, nor longs for them when absent;

23. He who, sitting like one unconcerned, is moved not by the Gunas, who, knowing that the Gunas operate, is Self-centred and swerves not;

24. Alike in pleasure and pain, Self-abiding, regarding a clod of earth, a stone and gold alike; the same to agreeable and disagreeable, firm, the same in censure and, praise;

25. The same in honour and disgrace, the same to friend and foe, relinquishing all undertakings--he is said to have gone beyond the Gunas.

26. And he who serves Me with an unswerving devotion, he, going beyond the Gunas, is fitted for becoming Brahman.

27. For I am the abode of Brahman, the Immortal and Immutable, of everlasting Dharma and of Absolute Bliss.

The end of the fourteenth chapter designated, THE DISCRIMINATION OF THE THREE GUNAS.

Footnotes

^308:1 After this life--after being freed from this bondage of the body.

^309:3 Brahma: This word is derived from Brimh, 'to expand,' and means here the vast seed or womb (the Prakriti) out of which the cosmos is evolved or expanded.

I place the germ: I infuse the reflection of My Intelligence, and this act of impregnation is the cause of the evolution of the cosmos.

^310:5 These Gunas--are the primary constituents of the Prakriti and are the bases of all substances; they cannot therefore be said to be attributes or qualities inhering in the substances as opposed to the substances.

Embodied one: he who abides in the body as if identified therewith.