Lord Krishna said, Now I will describe the highest of all knowledge. The sages who know this achieve the ultimate perfection.
By taking shelter of this knowledge, the soul attains the spiritual nature. Having achieved this, one is not born at the material creation nor destroyed in the material dissolution.
All forms of life are born from the womb of material nature and I am the seed-giving father. The qualities born of material nature – the mode of goodness, passion and ignorance – bind the eternal soul within the temporary body.
The mode of goodness, due to its purity is enlightening. Living within the mode of goodness binds the soul through attachment to happiness and knowledge. The mode of passion breeds desires and hungers, and binds the soul by the tie of attachment to their activities.
The mode of ignorance, which arises from darkness, causes the illusion of all living beings. The influence of ignorance binds the soul to stupor, laziness and sleep.
The mode of goodness binds the soul to material happiness, passion binds the soul to the fruits of action, and ignorance covers the knowledge of the soul and binds them to illusion.
Sometimes the mode of passion overcomes goodness and ignorance. Sometimes goodness defeats passion and sometimes ignorance defeats goodness and passion. The modes continually conquer the others in an endless battle for dominance.
When knowledge illuminates all the gates of the body, this is a symptom of the mode of goodness being dominant. When the mode of passion is prominent, the symptoms of greed, unrest, desire and the impulse for exertion and profit develop. When the mode of ignorance predominates, the symptoms of stupor, inertia, illusion and darkness are present.
Those who die when the influence of the mode of goodness is prominent, attain to the pure celestial planets where living beings with higher knowledge reside. Those who dies with the prevalence of the mode of passion, they are born among those attached to profitable material activities. When one dies in the mode of ignorance, they take birth in an animal species.
Good actions result in purity. Passionate actions produce pain and sorrow, and ignorant actions produce darkness. Knowledge develops from the mode of goodness; greed develops from the mode of passion; and from ignorance comes confusion, foolishness and illusion.
Those situated in the mode of goodness ascend upward; those in the mode of passion stay in the middle; and those in the mode of ignorance descend to the lower planes of suffering.
When you see that these three modes of material nature are the only impetus for action in this world, and the Supreme Lord is beyond these modes, then you can attain my divine nature. Transcending these three modes, the soul becomes free from birth, old age and death and tastes the nectar of immortality.
Arjuna said, Krishna, what are the symptoms of someone who is beyond these modes? How do they act and how do they transcend the modes of nature?
Lord Krishna said, Those who have transcended the modes of material nature do not hate illumination, attachment and delusion when they appear, nor desire them when they disappear.
They are not distracted or concerned by the modes of nature, knowing it is only the modes that act.
They look upon dirt, rocks or gold with the vision of equality; they see joy and sorrow as alike; they are wise; remain the same in honour and dishonour and they consider blame and praise to be equal.
They behave fairly with both friends and enemies and they have abandoned all mundane endeavours. Such people are said to have transcended the modes of nature.
Those who do not deviate in any circumstance from serving me with devotion transcend the modes of material nature and come to know their internal spiritual identity.
I am the foundation of that spiritual nature, which is eternal, imperishable, immortal and supreme bliss.
