00:00Srimad Bhagavad Gita chapter 14 verses 21, 22 and 26. Arjun said, By what marks, O Lord,
00:18is he known who has gone beyond these three gunas? What is his conduct and how does he
00:24pass beyond these three gunas? Next verse, He who hates not the appearance of light,
00:34which is the effect of sattva, activity, the effect of rajas, and delusion, the effect
00:42of tamas, in his own mind, O Pandava, nor longs for them when absent. And then the next
00:52shloka would have said, nor delights in them when present. And then verse 26, And he who
01:02serves me with unswerving devotion, he, going beyond the gunas, is fitted for becoming Brahma.
01:13So the question reads, To go beyond all the three gunas is first coming to sattvic predominant
01:21state necessary? And if sattvic state is all about light and wisdom, why would one
01:27want to go beyond that? If Shri Krishna is saying, is Shri Krishna saying that devotion
01:37to him is higher than wisdom? So two things are being asked. First, to go beyond the three
01:50gunas, is it necessary to take a linear route, which is to come to sattva guna first and
01:59then from there graduate to a state beyond gunas? Or is it possible to have some kind
02:15of a bypass or shortcut? The questioner is curious whether one can straight away move
02:24from, let's say, rajo guna to a state transcending all three gunas. That's the first part.
02:36And the second part he is saying, if the sattvic state is about light and wisdom, why is it
02:43needed at all that one transcends it? Theoretically it is possible that one moves straight away,
02:58even from tamo guna to transcendence. It is possible. But it is highly improbable. Won't
03:12really happen. Chances of this happening are maybe one in a million. For this to happen,
03:26one requires an explosion in one's consciousness. And explosions are very difficult for consciousness
03:38to tolerate. Especially a tamo guni consciousness is too deeply drowned in its own self-delusion
03:50for it to be able to tolerate any explosions. What does an explosion do? It demolishes,
04:03it shatters everything around. An explosion in your consciousness would bring your entire
04:10world down. Therefore, even though theoretically feasible, it is practically quite impossible.
04:24You have to take the linear route which is more feasible and safer. In the linear route,
04:34there is incremental change in your consciousness. So let's say you are tamo guni. All you do
04:42is drink and sleep and remain in your dreams and delusions. That's your life. You live
04:51in your own personal universe. Drugs and booze are your staple food. And you have
05:05grandiose concepts of your own that have nothing to do with ground realities at all. That's
05:10the tamo guni life. Your mind stinks, your life stinks, and your bed stinks. But you
05:19keep sleeping. And you have no repugnance towards yourself. You are alright and happy
05:31and confident. That's tamo guni. Now, one day it happens that those things you are dependent
05:46on to maintain your deluded state run out of stock. That's when you realize that even
05:58to sleep like a log, you first of all require to achieve a little. So you go out to achieve.
06:12When you go out to achieve, you find achievement is not only difficult, it is a difficult spiral,
06:19spiraling upwards. You want to achieve one thing, that necessitates achieving another
06:25thing and that necessitates achieving another thing and another thing and another thing.
06:31So now gradually you move to the rajo guni state. Even though you had entered that phase
06:42just to continue with your tamsa, yet now you find that you are truly a rajasic one.
06:57And then remaining caught in this spiral of action, ambition and achievement for long,
07:08all you experience for yourself is doom and despair. And you have been fortunate enough
07:20to have been learning from experience. You have gathered knowledge about yourself, seeing
07:33yourself run around for so long and because you have been running around to all corners
07:38of the world, now you have gathered knowledge of the world as well. That does not happen
07:43with everybody. I am taking a specific case of someone who has successfully managed the
07:49transition from rajo guni to sattva guni. That's a special case. So now this fellow
07:58in the process of fulfilling his achievements, in the process of attaining this and that
08:05has gathered enough knowledge of the world and in gathering knowledge he has started
08:10to value knowledge. That does not happen with everyone, I repeat. In gathering knowledge
08:17he has started to value knowledge. And when he starts valuing knowledge, he says, if knowledge
08:22is valuable, then instead of achieving worldly goods, let me achieve knowledge. That's how
08:28his very achievement or tendency to achieve pushes him into sattva guni. Knowledge too
08:36becomes a kind of achievement for him. He says I have been trying to achieve power,
08:40position, money for so long, now let me achieve knowledge. So now he runs after knowledge
08:47and knowledge does what it does. Knowledge liberates him from all kinds of delusion.
08:55Knowledge liberates him from his compulsive running around. Now he can settle down and
09:01relax and that gives him a lot of freedom from his previous states. That is sattva guni.
09:10But remember this freedom has come on the back of knowledge, not wisdom. We have mentioned
09:18here that if sattvic state is all about light and wisdom, no. Sattva guni has to do with
09:23gyan which is knowledge, not wisdom. The sattva guni is not really wise. He knows a lot but
09:31he has still not achieved the center of all knowledge. Maybe he has some peripheral insight
09:42but that you cannot really call as bodh or illumination or wisdom. That is something
09:49that comes to you when you transcend even the sattva guni state and that is transcend
09:57when you realize that you cannot have happiness without being a little tense within. If liberation
10:09from despair is dependent on knowledge, then that liberation is not complete because it
10:15is still dependent. Any kind of dependence is bondage. So then you want a liberation
10:24that is independent of even knowledge. In sattva guni you have liberation with knowledge,
10:30because of knowledge, dependent on knowledge. The last dependency still remains. Finally
10:38you realize that of what use is liberation if I am still dependent on something even
10:44if that something is knowledge. Then you transcend. Then you move beyond even sattva guni. That
10:50is called the gunatit state. Now you have gone beyond prakriti in its totality. Now
10:58neither are you identified with tamas nor rajas not even sattva. You have gone totally
11:10beyond the three gunas which means now you are totally away from and free from prakriti
11:16which means now you are in your pure consciousness state. That is how it happens. That's why
11:26Shri Krishna is saying that the ones who are devoted to me go beyond even sattva guni.
11:35Being devoted to Shri Krishna is being devoted to transcendence. You have to exceed even
11:42the sattvic state. But then that's a far cry. First of all reach the sattvic state
11:49first. Even that is too distant for most people.
Comments