Those spiritual seekers who, with the sword of non-attachment, have cut away the roots that bind them to action after action in this world are no longer deluded by the illusion of creation and are thus liberated from pride and craving for honor, free from selfish longings and remain even-minded in the presence of all the pairs of opposites that generate pleasure and pain. They abide in their true soul-self and are immutably established in the supreme bliss of union with God.

How does someone go about rising above the influence of the three qualities of nature? How do they act? What are the signs that distinguish someone as having transcended these three qualities? When someone has become completely undisturbed by the three modes of nature’s influence, he or she will not want to feed in to their effect nor treat their presence as being evil. All experiences should be seen as the natural result of the interaction of the three characteristics of creation, so the enlightened person is not inwardly stirred by the things that agitate or elate the average person. Having abandoned the egoistic notion that one is responsible for the outcome of his or her actions, the wise person remains unconcerned that they have been presented with joy or sorrow, praise or blame, pleasant or unpleasant people, respect or insult and they remain firmly identified with their true soul-Self. Secure in his or her divine reflection of God’s image, those who have risen above this triad remain the same in attitude whether they are given a clod of earth, a stone or a piece of gold. They treat friends and enemies alike. They are operating in the midst of creation without ego involvement. Ultimately, then, the way to achieve this is by unswerving devotion to God because He alone is the immortal, indestructible source of eternal truth that brings unalloyed bliss.

Those whose minds stay focused primarily on harmony and goodness will find their spiritual evolution uplifted. Those who, like most everyone else, go through life seeking pleasure and material gain find their activities result in a combination of good and selfish outcomes so their spiritual evolution is largely mired in the middle. If one persists in being lazy and ignorant, he or she can lose ground spiritually. The spiritually evolved person can see that everyone’s actions are just a result of their perception of the three qualities of creation, so they begin to seek the wisdom of the One who is beyond the illusion and they accelerate their spiritual development until they eventually unite with God. Having transcended the influence of the three qualities of nature which bind people to their physical bodies, they become free from the cycle of birth, old age and death by fully realizing their spiritual immortality.

When these qualities exert their influence on your mind, your actions will reflect it and you will become bound by the results of those actions (your karma). Those who think that they will be reincarnated believe that these actions influence the kind of birth they receive in their next life on earth. If the mind is predominantly pure, the soul goes to the pure realm of the wise. When passionate energy prevails at the time of death, a person is reborn into a family which encourages activities that satisfy the senses. If one’s mind is permeated with darkness and decay at death, he or she will be reborn into a family which is deluded by the illusion of the world and thus are ignorant of the truth, so they teach their children the same. Therefore, the fruit of goodness begets harmony and happiness in one’s life. The fruit of actions driven by passionate energy is ultimately pain and suffering. The fruit of an action born of delusion is ignorance and will cause one to mistake what is unreal for reality.

Everyone and everything is a result of the interplay of the three qualities of nature. Sometimes or in some things, one attribute predominates over the other two, but all three are always present. When the light of wisdom shines above the lure of the senses, the quality of purity predominates. Whenever someone or something encourages the desire for greedy behavior or the restless compulsion to seek sensual pleasures, the quality of passionate energy is dominant. And when the quality of delusion is overshadowing the other two, a tendency toward laziness, neglect of responsibilities and ignorance will manifest itself.

How the three qualities of nature keep us bound to our bodies

Of these three constituents of nature, even the stainless quality of purity, harmony and goodness that brings enlightenment and health will bind you to your physical body by giving rise to happiness and knowledge which your mind becomes attached to getting and keeping. The quality of restlessness, passion and dynamic energy gives birth to desire and compulsive behavior which strongly binds the soul to the physical body by encouraging it to perform selfish actions. The quality of darkness, inertia and decay is born of ignorance about reality and will bind you to your body by creating delusion, carelessness, laziness and dullness. Good, bad or indifferent, they all lead to attachment to the illusion of the world in their own way.

The three qualities of everything in creation

According to the cosmology of the Bhagavad Gita, everything in creation is imbued with a combination of three qualities in varying amounts. The name for these qualities literally means “a strand within a rope” which gives a good analogy for what amounts to a primary constituent of everything in nature. The concept that creation has inherent in it these three attributes, or strands, is more ancient than any of the classical systems of philosophy and was already a widespread part of Indian culture by the time any of the oldest oral traditions were first put into writing. Because the names for these three qualities have been used in many contexts over thousands of years, their meaning is difficult to translate especially since they encompass both psychological as well as physiological influences. In simplified or general terms, we can use a few words to translate the concept that each of the qualities represents, then let the text of the Gita explain them further. First there is the quality of purity, harmony and goodness. Secondly, because nothing is inherently all good or all bad, there must be an element of darkness, inertia and decay. Then there is the force or amount of energy that is a part of the other two qualities. It is translated as restlessness, passion and dynamic energy. All three are the natural result of the universal cosmic energy becoming creation itself and each of them contributes to the illusion that binds us to and keeps us imprisoned in our physical bodies.