Gita for Youth - Yoga of the Three Gunas (Gunatraya Vibhaga Yoga) - Transcending Gunas (Gunatita)

Transcending Three Gunas

“When one witnesses the fact that none other than the Gunas is the doer, by knowing the Supreme entity beyond the Gunas, one attains the ideal called Me. By transcending the realms of the Gunas arising out of the needs of the body mind (i.e. the very nature itself), the individual, being emancipated from the cycles of life and death, decay and sickness (i.e. the need to get a new body and get captured in the cycle of rebirth), attains Me.”

A realized soul knows that he is not the doer; it is his nature that is compelling him to do everything. A deluded ignorant soul on the other hand knows himself to be the doer and does not believe himself to the witness and the body mind to be instrument of the nature. One who attains this knowledge has either realized the Supreme Truth through the path of knowledge or is a great devotee to have realized his personal God. Therefore he is emancipated in this very life and sorrows and miseries arising from birth, death, old age and sickness cannot get the better of him.

Sri Ramakrishna said by the help of a parable - the three gunas - sattva, rajas and tamas - have men under their control. … The three gunas are so many robbers. Tamas kills and rajas binds. Sattva no doubt releases man from his bondage, but it cannot take him to God. It shows him the way.”

Arjuna asked the most natural question that comes up in our mind as well, “How can one master over the Gunas? What does he do to get out of the clutches of the three Gunas?”

Sri Krishna answers, “One who is not perturbed under any of the three states of knowledge, activity and delusion, neither is he dejected when under the influence of any of them, nor is he desirous when not under the influence of one of them, is one who has overcome the Gunas and therefore the nature. He is dispassionate, detached and is never agitated by the Gunas. He knows the Gunas (and nature) to be separate from himself and that Guna is the one that performs all the activities, not the individual self. He is never dislodged from the fact that he is not the doer. He accepts both pleasure and pain with equal composure, treats gold, earth and stone in the same light and abides in the Atman. He does not make any distinction between favorite and non favorite, i.e. he does not favor anything over others or dislikes others. He is tranquil, calm and composed. He treats praise and blame in the same light. He is not concerned about honor or dishonor, i.e. treats them equally, does not distinguish between enemies and friends i.e. to him there are neither friends, nor enemies. He does not begin any selfish action voluntarily. Such a person is said to have transcended the three gunas.”

It is very essential to understand what a person is like who has transcended the nature. To go beyond the nature’s quality is akin to have a complete mastery over the nature. This is possible only for a realized soul. For ordinary mortals going beyond the nature is not possible as nature is much more powerful than him and he is a hapless victim of his own nature. However he does not realize that. He is a slave of his passions, environment, work, family, worries, hobbies, basic instincts and so on. Therefore he is never free. On the other hand, one who has transcended the gunas is free in this very life. Such a person knows the difference between the Atman or Purusha which is the witness and the nature which is the performer. He knows that mind and body with the senses exist as an instrument of the nature. He is therefore never disturbed if the body or mind is affected, say by old age or sickness or miseries. To him money is as useless as stone or lump of clay. He has no worldly desire or expectation. He survives till the momentum of the past actions whose fruits have materialized (Prarabdha karma) lasts, allowing the nature to perform the bodily functions. He does not have friends or enemies because he knows that he is everybody and everybody is the same Atman that he is. One cannot be one’s own friend or enemy. So he has no special preference or dislike for any person or any thing. He does not care about any worldly praise or blame, sorrows or happiness as he knows them all to be transitory and therefore meaningless to the Atman which is eternal.

The above description is the path of the jnana or knowledge. Sri Krishna now says that a devotee can also transcend the gunas. “If one serves Me with complete devotion, the bhaktiyoga, he also goes beyond the three gunas and attain the Brahman, the Supreme Being.”

It is not that the gunas can be transcended only through the path of knowledge. One can go beyond them through a great form of bhakti which draws the Lord closer to the devotee. The devotee will have to offer his heart and soul to the Lord and will not depend on the world for anything. Only when material universe is completely rejected, the spiritual universe unfolds itself. Thus through the grace of the Lord, the devotee can attain the same highest state as obtained by the jnani through Self Realization.

The Lord says, “I am the establisher of the Brahman, the Supreme Being, the eternal and immortal one, which is also the eternal virtue and the Supreme Bliss.”

The Brahman is called as “existence-consciousness-bliss” in the Vedas. The Supreme Lord is the only eternal truth. He is also the very essence of all virtue and hence He is the consciousness, as virtue originates in consciousness which is also the wisdom, and vice resides in ignorance, i.e. lack of consciousness. He has no birth or decay and therefore He is existence for ever. He is the supreme joy, all material pleasures are nothing in comparison to that great joy of infinite where there is no sorrow and no delusion and where the world with all its miseries and pairs of opposites dissolves away. That state is only achieved after transcending the nature and its qualities, the gunas.