CHAPTER
14
The three basic
qualities of nature
(1)
The
supreme personality of the opulence said: 'Let me
again tell you about that filognosy ruling over all
knowledge, which is the first and best, and knowing
which the sages attained all the transcendental
perfection there is to attain. (2) Taking shelter of
this spiritual knowledge, having attained to the same
as what I all am, is one not even at the time of
creation born again, nor disturbed when annihilation
takes place.
(3) My
channel of birth is the greater of nature and from the
supreme spirit in it, I create everywhere the
conditions for the living beings to exist, o child of
Many. (4) O son of Alice, of all the species of life,
of all the forms that manifested, am I the grand
primal source, the absolute spirit, the father who
gives the seed. (5) Goodness, passion and ignorance
are the qualities resulting from this material nature
which conditions, o man of grip, the body of the one
embodied. (6) Goodness is the purest of these
qualities, it inspires to bloom free from reactions,
and links the filognosy, the love of knowledge for the
complete, to the condition of happiness, o sinless
one. (7) You should know that the quality of passion
is marked by desires resulting from attachment and
longing; it is from them that the one embodied gets
entangled in the consequences of what he did in the
past, o son of Alice. (8) The quality of ignorance
deluding all living beings is that what follows a lack
of knowledge: the negligence, indolence and sleepiness
which tie one down, o son of the Many dynasty.
(9) Goodness
binds to knowledge, passion binds to profit-minded
labor, but by the ignorance which covers the knowledge
is one bound to errors. (10) With the modes of
goodness, passion and ignorance is it so that, o son
of Many, at one time goodness prevails defeating
passion and ignorance, that then passion overrules
goodness and ignorance, and then again ignorance is
most prominent relative to the goodness and the
passion. (11) The goodness is strongest when in
relation to all of the, what one calls, gates of the
body - or to all the senses and their organs - the
light of knowledge develops.27
(12) O best of the Many line, when passion dominates,
develop all kinds of symptoms like greed,
overexertion, unsolicited action and uncontrollable
desire. (13) When the quality of ignorance is
prominent is it murkiness, passivity, carelessness and
even madness what manifests, o son of the Laborer
family.
(14) Finding
destruction attains the one embodied who gained in
strength to the mode of goodness, the world of those
great in wisdom and purity. (15) When one finds
destruction in passion, is life resumed among those
motivated for the profit; likewise is the one who
ended in ignorance of a new life among the ignorant.
(16) Of virtuous deeds in the mode of goodness finds
one the result of purification, so one says, but the
result of passion is misery, while the result of
ignorance consists of illusion. (17) From goodness
finds one the development of knowledge, from passion
develops greed itself and from ignorance is a lot of
nonsense developed. (18) Situated in goodness one
rises up, in passion one stays in between and in
ignorance being of an abominable quality one goes
down. (19) A seer who knows of the supreme in relation
to the qualities, and as well correctly sees that the
doer is no other than these three qualities to the
modes of nature, is promoted to my spiritual nature.
(20) Going beyond these qualities will the one
embodied enjoy the nectar of being freed from the
distressing physical consequences of starting a new
life, of being old and of finding one's end.'
(21) Aylen
said: 'O master of wisdom, by which symptoms is the
one rising above these three qualities recognized, how
does he behave and how does this going beyond the
three modes take place?'
(22-25)
The
fortunate one said: 'He who doesn't hate the
developing or not developing of enlightenment, of
material progress and of the confusion to the modes, o
son of Gwen; he who from the neutral never desires nor
is agitated when the modes are acting upon him; he
who, unwavering remembering himself, thus keeps his
position being equal in distress and happiness and is
indifferent whether it concerns a clod, a stone or a
lump of gold; he who is the same towards what is
popular and what is unpopular, and is steady and equal
in being praised or defamed; he who is equal in honor
and dishonor and is equal towards both the sides of
friends and enemies and manages to renounce with
whatever he does - he is said to be transcendental to
the modes. (26) And he who, relating to me, never
fails to be united in devotion and voluntarism; he,
transcending all of the modes, will rise to the spirit
of the absolute. (27) For I am the spiritual
foundation of the imperishable, immortal, eternal and
original nature as also the ultimate
happiness.'
