Chapter 14 - Gunatraya Vibhaga Yoga

Yoga through Understanding the Three Modes of Material Nature

The fourteenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita is Gunatraya Vibhaga Yoga. In this chapter, Krishna reveals the three gunas (modes) of the material nature - goodness, passion and ignorance which everything in the material existence is influenced by. He further explains the essential characteristics of each of these modes, their cause and how they influence a living entity affected by them. He then reveals the various characteristics of the persons who have gone beyond these gunas. The chapter ends with Krishna reminding us of the power of pure devotion to God and how attachment to God can help us transcend these gunas.

Go to Verse

Verse 13

O descendant of the Kuru dynasty, when tamas predominates these surely come into being: non-discrimination and inactivity, inadvertence and delusion.


Verse 14

When an embodied one undergoes death while sattva is exclusively predominant, then he attains the taintless worlds of those who know the highest (entities).


Verse 15

When one dies while rajas predominates, he is born among people attached to activity. Similarly, when one dies while tamas predominates, he takes birth among the stupid species.


Verse 16

They say that the result of good work is pure and is born of sattva. But the result of rajas is sorrow; the result of tamas is ignorance.


Verse 17

From sattva is born knowledge [Knowledge acquired through the sense-organs.], and from rajas, verily, avarice. From tamas are born inadvertence and delusion as also ignorance, to be sure.


Verse 18

People who conform to sattva go higher up; those who conform to rajas stay in the middle; those who conform to tamas, who conform to the actions of the lowest quality, go down.