Chapter 14 of 18
गुणत्रयविभागयोग Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yoga The Three Strands
27 verses
Three strands run through everything — clarity, drive and inertia — and freedom starts with noticing which one is moving you.
Chapter 14 is the most diagnostic thing in the Gita. It names three strands running through everything — clarity, restlessness, inertia — and gives you signs for reading which one is currently moving you, including one you can check in your own senses rather than in your opinion of yourself.
The claim that makes it more than a personality scheme arrives in the sixth verse: all three bind. Clarity binds by attachment to happiness and to knowledge. There is no strand to win with, only better and worse rope.
So the nineteen verses of classification turn out to be a map of the exits, not a ladder. And when Arjuna asks what someone past all three actually looks like, the answer is nearly word for word the portrait of the devotee in chapter 12 — reached from the opposite direction, and by devotion in the end anyway.
परं भूयः प्रवक्ष्यामि ज्ञानानां ज्ञानमुत्तमम्
यज्ज्ञात्वा मुनयः सर्वे परां सिद्धिमितो गताः
paraṁ bhūyaḥ pravakṣhyāmi jñānānāṁ jñānam uttamam
yaj jñātvā munayaḥ sarve parāṁ siddhim ito gatāḥ
I will declare again the highest knowledge, best of all knowledge, by knowing which those who practise have reached perfection.
Again — and the word is doing work.
bhūyaḥ: once more. Krishna has already declared the highest knowledge in chapters 7, 9 and 13, and says so.
Which tells you what to expect. This chapter is not new doctrine but a mechanism — the working parts behind claims already made, and the most diagnostic thing in the book.
Word by wordśhrī-bhagavān uvācha — the Divine Lord said · param — supreme · bhūyaḥ — again · pravakṣhyāmi — I shall explain · jñānānām — of all knowledge · jñānam uttamam — the supreme wisdom · yat — which · jñātvā — knowing · munayaḥ — saints · sarve — all · parām — highest · siddhim — perfection · itaḥ — through this · gatāḥ — attained
Chapter 14 · The Three Strands · ← → to move, d for depth
All 27 verses
- 14.1 परं भूयः प्रवक्ष्यामि ज्ञानानां ज्ञानमुत्तमम् Again, the highest knowledge
- 14.2 इदं ज्ञानमुपाश्रित्य मम साधर्म्यमागताः Not born, not troubled
- 14.3 मम योनिर्महद्ब्रह्म तस्मिन् गर्भं दधाम्यहम् The womb and the seed
- 14.4 सर्वयोनिषु कौन्तेय मूर्तयः सम्भवन्ति याः Whatever form, the same womb
- 14.5 सत्त्वं रजस्तम इति गुणाः प्रकृतिसंभवाः All three bind
- 14.6 तत्र सत्त्वं निर्मलत्वात्प्रकाशकमनामयम् Clarity binds too
- 14.7 रजो रागात्मकं विद्धि तृष्णासङ्गसमुद्भवम् Restlessness, born of thirst
- 14.8 तमस्त्वज्ञानजं विद्धि मोहनं सर्वदेहिनाम् Inertia, the deluder
- 14.9 सत्त्वं सुखे सञ्जयति रजः कर्मणि भारत What each one ties you to
- 14.10 रजस्तमश्चाभिभूय सत्त्वं भवति भारत They rise by turns
- 14.11 सर्वद्वारेषु देहेऽस्मिन्प्रकाश उपजायते Light at all the gates
- 14.12 लोभः प्रवृत्तिरारम्भः कर्मणामशमः स्पृहा Busyness as the sign
- 14.13 अप्रकाशोऽप्रवृत्तिश्च प्रमादो मोह एव च Darkness as the sign
- 14.14 यदा सत्त्वे प्रवृद्धे तु प्रलयं याति देहभृत् Dying in clarity
- 14.15 रजसि प्रलयं गत्वा कर्मसङ्गिषु जायते Dying in the other two
- 14.16 कर्मणः सुकृतस्याहुः सात्त्विकं निर्मलं फलम् What each one yields
- 14.17 सत्त्वात्सञ्जायते ज्ञानं रजसो लोभ एव च What each one produces
- 14.18 ऊर्ध्वं गच्छन्ति सत्त्वस्था मध्ये तिष्ठन्ति राजसाः Up, level, and down
- 14.19 नान्यं गुणेभ्यः कर्तारं यदा द्रष्टानुपश्यति No doer but the strands
- 14.20 गुणानेतानतीत्य त्रीन्देही देहसमुद्भवान् Past all three
The Blessed One said
- 14.22 प्रकाशं च प्रवृत्तिं च मोहमेव च पाण्डव Not hating, not longing
- 14.23 उदासीनवदासीनो गुणैर्यो न विचाल्यते The strands are working
- 14.24 समदुःखसुखः स्वस्थः समलोष्टाश्मकाञ्चनः Clod, stone and gold alike
- 14.25 मानापमानयोस्तुल्यस्तुल्यो मित्रारिपक्षयोः Gone beyond
- 14.26 मां च योऽव्यभिचारेण भक्ितयोगेन सेवते Devotion as the way past
- 14.27 ब्रह्मणो हि प्रतिष्ठाऽहममृतस्याव्ययस्य च I am the ground of Brahman
Where this sits
Chapter 14 against the whole of it: who is speaking, verse by verse, and how much of the book this chapter is.
The argument so far
- Chapter 1 Arjuna's nerve fails on the field, and the question that opens the book is not a spiritual one but a practical one he cannot answer.
- Chapter 2 The first answer is that Arjuna is not the body he is afraid of losing, and that grief for what cannot die is grief misplaced.
- Chapter 3 Withdrawing from action is not available to anyone alive; what is available is acting without gripping the result.
- Chapter 4 Action, knowledge and Krishna himself all have a deeper structure than they appear to, and knowing it is what makes action free.
- Chapter 5 What has to be renounced is attachment rather than activity — the leaf in water, unwetted.
- Chapter 6 The mind is trained the way anything is trained, by returning to the practice on the days it does not work.
- Chapter 7 Behind both matter and awareness there is one reality, and everything else is a thread strung on it.
- Chapter 8 Everything that appears is temporary; the work of yoga is to train attention toward the one thing that is not.
- Chapter 9 The highest knowledge turns out to ask for the simplest thing: what is offered matters less than the attention it is offered with.
- Chapter 10 Wherever something is most fully itself, the Divine is most visible in it — a list of glories given because the whole cannot be listed.
- Chapter 11 Arjuna asks to see it and cannot bear what he sees, which is the book's reply to anyone who wants the vision rather than the practice.
- Chapter 12 Devotion is offered as the reachable path, and the chapter is careful to say that a lesser version of it, honestly done, still counts.
- Chapter 13 There is a field and there is what knows the field, and nearly every confusion in the book comes from mistaking one for the other.