The Blessed Lord said: I shall again declare the supreme knowledge, the best of all knowledge, knowing which all the sages have attained the highest perfection.

By taking refuge in this knowledge, having attained My nature, they are not born at creation nor disturbed at dissolution.

The great Brahman (nature) is My womb; in that I place the seed. From that, O Bharata, comes the birth of all beings.

Whatever forms are produced in all wombs, O son of Kunti, the great Brahman is their womb, and I am the seed-giving father.

Sattva, rajas, and tamas—these qualities born of nature bind the imperishable soul to the body, O mighty-armed one.

Of these, sattva, being pure, is illuminating and free from disease. It binds by attachment to happiness and by attachment to knowledge, O sinless one.

Know that rajas is of the nature of passion, arising from craving and attachment. It binds the embodied soul by attachment to action, O son of Kunti.

Know that tamas, born of ignorance, is the deluder of all embodied beings. It binds by negligence, laziness, and sleep, O Bharata.

Sattva attaches to happiness, rajas to action, O Bharata, while tamas, covering knowledge, attaches to negligence.

Sometimes sattva prevails over rajas and tamas, O Bharata; sometimes rajas over sattva and tamas; and sometimes tamas over sattva and rajas.

When light and knowledge arise in all the gates of the body, then it should be known that sattva is predominant.

Greed, activity, undertaking of actions, restlessness, and longing—these arise when rajas is predominant, O best of the Bharatas.

Darkness, inertia, negligence, and delusion—these arise when tamas is predominant, O joy of the Kurus.

If the embodied one dies when sattva is predominant, then he attains the pure worlds of those who know the highest.

Dying in rajas, one is born among those attached to action; dying in tamas, one is born in the wombs of the deluded.

The fruit of good action is said to be sattvic and pure; the fruit of rajas is pain; the fruit of tamas is ignorance.

From sattva arises knowledge; from rajas, greed; from tamas arise negligence and delusion, and also ignorance.

Those established in sattva rise upward; those in rajas remain in the middle; those in tamas, abiding in the lowest quality, go downward.

When the seer perceives no doer other than the gunas and knows that which is beyond the gunas, he attains My nature.

Transcending these three gunas which originate in the body, the embodied one, freed from birth, death, old age, and sorrow, attains immortality.

Arjuna said: By what signs is one who has transcended these three gunas known, O Lord? What is his conduct, and how does he transcend these three gunas?

The Blessed Lord said: One who does not hate illumination, activity, or delusion when present, O Pandava, nor longs for them when absent—

Who sits like one unconcerned, undisturbed by the gunas, knowing that the gunas alone act—who remains firm and does not waver—

Equal in pain and pleasure, self-contained, to whom a clod, a stone, and gold are the same, equal toward the pleasant and unpleasant, wise, equal in blame and self-praise—

Equal in honor and dishonor, equal toward friend and foe, renouncing all undertakings—he is said to have transcended the gunas.

One who serves Me with unwavering devotion, transcending these gunas, becomes qualified for Brahman.

For I am the foundation of Brahman, of the immortal and imperishable, of eternal dharma, and of absolute bliss.