Bhagavatapurana 11.25

English (machine translation) 11.25

Language: English

11.25.1

The Lord said:
Listen, best of men, as I declare this: / how a person becomes characterized by the unmixed qualities.

Calmness, self-control, endurance, discrimination, austerity, truthfulness, compassion, mindfulness, / contentment, renunciation, lack of desire, faith, modesty, charity and the like, and delight in the self;

11.25.3

Desire, exertion, pride, thirst, obstinacy, longing, division, pleasure, / enthusiasm born of passion, love of fame, ridicule, vigor, and aggressive effort;

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Anger, greed, falsehood, violence, begging, hypocrisy, fatigue, quarrel, / grief, delusion, despondency, distress, sleep, expectation, fear, and sluggishness;

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These have been largely described in order as the functions / of sattva, of rajas, and of tamas; now hear about their combination.

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The combination, Uddhava, is the notion 'I' and 'mine'; / worldly activity through the mind, subtle elements, senses, and vital breaths is this combination.

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When one is devoted to dharma, wealth, and pleasure, / this conjunction of the qualities brings about faith, attachment, and wealth.

11.25.8

When a person is established in the stage of a householder characterized by active involvement, / and follows his own dharma, that indeed is the meeting of the qualities.

11.25.9

One should infer a person endowed with sattva by calmness and the rest, / one endowed with rajas by desire and the rest, and one endowed with tamas by anger and the rest.

11.25.10

When one worships me with devotion through one's own actions, without desire for reward, / one should know that person, whether man or woman, to be of the nature of sattva.

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When, desiring blessings, one worships me through one's own actions, / one should know them to be of the nature of rajas; and desiring harm, of tamas.

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Sattva, rajas, and tamas are qualities of the individual soul, never of me; / born of the mind, they are that by which the attached living being is bound.

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When sattva, luminous, pure, and auspicious, overcomes the other two, / then a person becomes endowed with happiness, dharma, knowledge, and the like.

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When rajas, which is attachment, division, and restlessness, overcomes tamas and sattva, / then one becomes endowed with suffering, action, fame, and wealth.

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When tamas, bewildered, sluggish, and inert, overcomes rajas and sattva, / one becomes endowed with grief, delusion, sleep, violence, and expectation.

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When the mind is serene, the senses find rest, / fearlessness fills the body, and the mind is unattached, know that to be purity, my realm.

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When the intellect is agitated through activity, the senses fail to withdraw, / the body feels unwell, and the mind wanders, perceive passion through these signs.

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When the failing intellect dissolves, incapable of grasping, / the mind is lost, and there is torpor and gloom, understand that to be darkness.

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When the quality of purity increases, the strength of the gods increases; / when passion increases, that of the Asuras; and when darkness increases, O Uddhava, that of the Rākṣasas.

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One should know wakefulness from purity, attribute dreaming to passion, / and deep sleep to darkness for the embodied being; the fourth state is continuous through all three.

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People devoted to the Veda go higher and higher by means of purity; / by darkness they go lower and lower down to inert matter; by passion they wander in between.

11.25.22

Those who die in purity go to heaven; those who die in passion, to the world of men; / those who die in darkness go to hell; but those beyond the qualities come only to me.

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One's prescribed duty, offered to me or performed without desire for fruit, is of purity; / that undertaken with desire for results is of passion; and that consisting mostly of violence and the like is of darkness.

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Absolute liberation is knowledge born of purity; that which is based on distinctions is born of passion; / materialist knowledge is born of darkness; and that fixed upon me is considered beyond the qualities.

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Dwelling in the forest is of purity, dwelling in a village is said to be of passion, / dwelling in a gambling house is of darkness, but dwelling in my abode is beyond the qualities.

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An agent free from attachment is of purity; one blinded by desire is considered of passion; / one bereft of memory is of darkness; and one who has taken refuge in me is beyond the qualities.

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Faith centered on the self is of purity; faith in rituals is of passion; / faith in adharma is of darkness; but faith in service to me is beyond the qualities.

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Wholesome, pure, and obtained without distress—such food is considered of purity; / that which is intensely dear to the senses is of passion; and that which causes suffering and is unclean is of darkness.

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Happiness arising from the self is of purity; that arising from sense objects is of passion; / that arising from delusion and dejection is of darkness; and that having refuge in me is beyond the qualities.

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Material, place, fruit, time, knowledge, action, and agent, / faith, condition, form, and commitment—all these indeed consist of the three qualities.

11.25.31

All states of being made of the guṇas rest on the puruṣa and the unmanifest,
whether seen, heard, or conceived by the intellect, O bull among men.

11.25.32

These transmigrations of the person are rooted in the guṇas and karma.
When these mind-born guṇas are overcome by the soul, O gentle one,
devoted to me through the yoga of devotion, he attains to my being.

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Therefore, having obtained this body that can generate knowledge and realization,
the wise should shake off attachment to the guṇas and worship me.

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Free from attachment, attentive, and with senses conquered, the wise sage should worship me;
he should conquer passion and darkness by cultivating purity.

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And the disciplined person of tranquil intellect should conquer purity through desirelessness.
Freed from the guṇas, the soul abandons the [individual] soul-nature and attains me.

11.25.36

The soul, fully liberated from the [individual] soul-nature and from the guṇas arisen in the mind,
filled with me alone, with Brahman, should wander neither outward nor inward.

Translations (1)

The Srimad Bhagavatam — S. Subba Rau 1928, English

Commentaries (1)

Padaratnāvalī — Vijayadhvaja Tīrtha, Sanskrit

Linked texts (1)

Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit