Bhagavad Gītā – Chapter 14 Notes

 

This chapter, along with chapter 17, examines the guṇas in depth.   It is the guṇas that bind ātman within the body. Krishna explains that the person who serves him with unswerving devotion can move beyond the influence of the guṇas.  Until this stage is reached, a person should cultivate and gravitate towards sattva.

 

 

 

 

Notes from Radhakrishnan’s commentary on BG

 

5 What leads to the appearance of the immortal soul in the cycle of birth and death is the power of the guõas or modes.  They are the primary constituents of nature and are the bases of all substances….  They are called guõas, because their emergence is ever dependent on the puruùa of the Sà§khya or the Kùetraj¤a of the Gãtà.  The guõas are the three tendencies of prakçti or the three strands making up the twisted rope of nature.  Sattva reflects the light of consciousness and is irradiated by it, and so has the quality of radiance.  Rajas has an outward movement and tamas is characterized by inertia and heedless indifference.  It is difficult to have adequate English equivalents for the three words, sattva, rajas and tamas.  Sattva is perfect purity and luminosity while rajas is impurity which leads to activity and tamas is darkness and inertia.  As the main application of the guõas in the Gãtà is ethical, we use goodness for sattva, passion for rajas and dullness for tamas.

 

When the soul identifies itself with the modes of nature, it forgets its own eternity and uses mind, life and body for egoistic satisfaction.  To rise above bondage, we must rise above the modes of nature; then we put on the free and incorruptible nature of spirit.  Sattva is sublimated into the light of consciousness, rajas into austerity, and tamas into tranquillity or rest, ÷ànti.

 

6 Knowledge here means lower intellectual knowledge.  Sattva does not rid us of the ego-sense.  It also causes desire tough for noble objects.  The self which is free from all attachment is here attached to happiness and knowledge.  Unless we cease to think and will with the ego-sense, we are not liberated. J¤àna or knowledge relates to buddhi which is a product of prakçti and is to be distinguished from the pure consciousness which is the essence of àtman.

 

10 The three modes are present in all human beings, though in different degrees.  No one is free from them and in each soul one or the other predominates.  Men are said to be sàttvika, ràjasa or tàmasa according to the mode which prevails….  While the activities of a sàttvika temperament are free, calm and selfless, the ràjasa nature wishes to be always active and cannot sit still and its activities are tainted by selfish desires.  The tàmasa nature is dull and inert, its mind is dark and confused and its whole life is one continuous submission to environment.

 

18 The soul evolves through these three stages; it rises from dull inertia and subjection to ignorance, through the struggle for material enjoyments to the pursuit of knowledge and happiness.  But so long as we are attached, even though it may be to very noble objects, we are limited and there is always a sense of insecurity since rajas and tamas may overcome the sattva in us.  The highest ideal is to transcend the ethical level and rise to the spiritual.  The good man (sàttvika) should become a saint.  Until we reach this stage, we are only in the making; our evolution is incomplete.