Commentary on the Bhagavadgita : 14- Swami Krishnananda.

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Tuesday, January 11, 2022. 10:00.PM

Discourse 41

The Fourteenth Chapter: Rising Above the Three Gunas

POST-14.

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Tatra sattvaṁ nirmalatvāt prakāśakam anāmayam, sukhasaṅgena badhnāti jñānasaṅgena cānagha (14.6): 

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If, by chance, the sattva guna preponderates in a person and the qualities of rajas and tamas are subjugated and suppressed, then what happens? Because of the purity, the transparency and the perspicuity of the sattva guna, it shines like a mirror. Immediately we feel happy. Whenever we are happy, for any reason whatsoever, it is because at that moment rajas has been suppressed by the rise of sattva. But we cannot be happy always, because then rajas immediately rises up into action and suppresses sattva, and after a mood of happiness and elation, we are once again in a mood of anxiety, worry, responsibility and sleeplessness. When we are tired and fatigued of this activity, tamas comes in and makes us go to sleep. Where sattva is predominant, joy, happiness is experienced—sukhasaṅgena badhnāti—and we are full of brilliance, sharpness of understanding, and clarity of perception, which are all qualities of sattva guna.

Rajo rāgātmakaṁ viddhi tṛṣṇāsaṅgasamudbhavam (14.7): 

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Illumination, knowledge, rationality, perspicuity and happiness are the characteristics of sattva; and desire, distraction, passion and attachment are the qualities of rajas. Sattva makes us calm and quiet, and satisfied with ourselves. Rajas makes us dissatisfied with ourselves, so we run about here and there, and purchase appurtenances to make us happy. Trishna is the word for insatiable desires, and it compels us to toil from morning to evening: karmasaṅgena dehinam. People say they have so much work, and they are never in peace.

What is tamas? 

Tamas tvajñānajaṁ viddhi mohanaṁ sarvadehinām (14.8): 

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Tamas is total ignorance, idiocy, lethargy, fatigue, and a desire to not do anything. It deludes the intellect so that we always confuse one thing with another thing. “Oh! I forgot it. Oh! I did not know it!” is the kind of attitude we develop. An illusion is spread before the mind by tamoguna, and it is deluding in its character as far as the individual is concerned. It causes us to blunder and make mistakes. We make mistakes everywhere, and we cannot even speak a good sentence; everywhere there is some confusion. Also, we are fatigued immediately—pramādālasyanidrābhis. These are some of the results that follow from the preponderance of tamas.

Thus, Lord Krishna describes to Arjuna the specialties of sattvaguna, rajoguna and tamoguna. 

What do these gunas do? 

What is their effect on a person? 

When a particular guna is preponderating in a person, what happens to that person? That is the description of the Fourteenth Chapter.

To be continued ...

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