BG 14.1: The Lord said: I shall declare again another kind of knowledge: It is the best of all forms of knowledge, by knowing which all the sages have attained the state of perfection beyond this world.

BG 14.2: Resorting to this knowledge, partaking of My Nature, they are not born at the time of creation, nor do they suffer at the time of dissolution

BG 14.3: My womb is the great brahman (i. e. Prakrti). In that I lay the germ. From that, O Arjuna, is the birth of all beings.

BG 14.4: Whatever forms are produced in any womb, O Arjuna, the Prakrti is their great womb and I am the sowing father.

BG 14.5: Sattva, Rajas and Tamas are the Gunas that arise from the Prakrti. They bind the immutable self in the body, O Arjuna.

BG 14.6: Of these, Sattva, being without impurity, is luminous and free from morbidity. It binds, O Arjuna, by attachment to pleasure and to knowledge.

BG 14.7: Know, O Arjuna, that Rajas is of the nature of passion springing from thirst and attachment. It binds the embodied self with attachment to work.

BG 14.8: Know that Tamas is born of false knowledge and deludes all embodied selves. It binds, O Arjuna, with negligence, indolence and sleep.

BG 14.9: Sattva generates attachment to pleasure, Rajas to action, O Arjuna. But Tamas, veiling knowledge, generates attachment to negligence.

BG 14.10: Prevailing over Rajas and Tamas, Sattva preponderates, O Arjuna. Prevailing over Tamas and Sattva, Rajas preponderates. Prevailing over Rajas and Sattva, Tamas preponderates.

BG 14.11: When knowledge as light illumines from all gateways (i.e., the senses), then, one should know that Sattva prevails.

BG 14.12: Greed, activity, undertaking of work, unrest and longing—these arise, O Arjuna, when Rajas prevails.

BG 14.13: Non-illumination, inactivity, negligence and even delusion—these arise, O Arjuna, when Tamas prevails.

BG 14.14: If the embodied self meets with dissolution when Sattva prevails, then It proceeds to the pure worlds of those who know the highest.

BG 14.15: Meeting with dissolution when Rajas is prevalent, one is born among those attached to work. Similarly, one who has met with dissolution when Tamas prevails, is born in the wombs of beings lacking in intelligence.

BG 14.16: The fruits of a good deed, they say, is pure and is of the nature of Sattva. But the fruit of Rajas is pain; and the fruit of Tamas is ignorance.

BG 14.17: From the Sattva arises knowledge, and from Rajas greed, from Tamas arise negligence and delusion, and, indeed ignorance.

BG 14.18: Those who rest in Sattva rise upwards; those who abide in Rajas remain in the middle; and those, abiding in the tendencies of Tamas go downwards.

BG 14.19: When the seer beholds no agent of action other than the Gunas, and knows what transcends the Gunas, he attains to My state.

BG 14.20: The embodied self, crossing beyond these three Gunas which arise in the body, and freed from birth, death, age and pain, attains immortality.

BG 14.21: Arjuna said: What are the marks of a man who has crossed beyond the three Gunas? What is his behaviour? And how does he cross beyond the three Gunas?

BG 14.22: The Lord said: He hates not illumination, nor activity nor even delusion, O Arjuna, while these prevail, nor longs for them when they cease.

BG 14.23: He who sits like one unconcerned, undisturbed by the Gunas; who knows, ‘It is the Gunas that move,’ and so rests unshaken;

BG 14.24: He who is alike in pleasure and pain, who dwells in his self, who looks upon a clod, a stone and piece of gold as of equal value, who remains the same towards things dear and hateful and who is intelligent, who regards both blame and praise of himself as equal;

BG 14.25: He who is the same in honour and dishonour, and the same to friend and foe, and who has abandoned all enterprises—he is said to have risen above the Gunas.

BG 14.26: And he who, with unswerving Bhakti Yoga, serves Me, he, crossing beyond the Gunas, becomes fit for the state of Brahman.

BG 14.27: For I am the ground of Brahman, the immortal and immutable, of eternal Dharma and of perfect bliss.