Bhagavad Gita 14.21

arjuna uvāca

kair liṅgais trīn guṇān etān

atīto bhavati prabho

kim ācāraḥ kathaṁ caitāṁs

trīn guṇān ativartate

 

By what signs are these transcended,

The triple modes by which we are bonded?

How does such a person live,

And rise beyond what they give?

 

My dear Lord, I often get so caught in external pursuits that I forget what is going on in my inner world—how the modes of material nature shape my desires and emotions and impel me toward certain perceptions and actions. When those pushes and pulls become irresistible, I end up with a nasty surprise—having done something I should not have and unable to understand why I did it.

O all-pervading Lord, you are the innermost resident of my inner world. Yet apart from you, there are so many unfavorable impressions that obscure my vision of you. If I do not try to understand them, I get driven to stranger and stranger actions, until one day I become a stranger to myself. I am no longer able to recognize myself or see my values and purpose reflected in what I have done.

O unfailing Lord, even when I see with shock a stranger in the mirror, I am never a stranger to you. You remain my unflinching well-wisher, wanting, waiting, and working to draw me toward you and toward my pure self as a soul—your precious part.

O supreme guide, let my curiosity be directed inward and upward. May I probe the questions whose answers lead me through the workings of the modes to you, in this world and beyond it.

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14.21 Arjuna inquired: O my dear Lord, by which symptoms is one known who is transcendental to these three modes? What is his behavior? And how does he transcend the modes of nature?