A declaration · expansive in mood · builds on earlier teachings
“Freedom begins when the three qualities no longer define you.”
The embodied one who rises beyond these three qualities, which arise from the body, is freed from birth, death, old age, and sorrow, and attains immortality.
The verse in reading order — each Sanskrit word with its meaning beneath. Tap a word to focus on it.
Read literallyqualities · these · having gone beyond · three · the embodied one · born from the body · by birth, death, old age, and sorrow · freed · immortality · attains
A person who rises above the three qualities that shape the body is no longer bound by birth, death, old age, or sorrow.
Krishna speaks this verse, on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, in the chapter titled "Gunatraya Vibhaga Yoga" (The Three Modes of Material Nature).
Verse 20 sits in Chapter 14 of the Bhagavad Gita — Gunatraya Vibhaga Yoga, "The Three Modes of Material Nature". The chapter has 27 verses in total.
Sitting with a grandparent in a hospital corridor, you see how ageing and illness press on everyone. Krishna speaks of a freedom beyond the forces that tie a person to that cycle, and he treats it as reachable.
Did you like this verse?
Krishna promises that whoever rises beyond the three gunas is freed from birth, death, old age and sorrow.
What this verse means
A person who rises above the three qualities that shape the body is no longer bound by birth, death, old age, or sorrow.
Context & commentary
Krishna has just explained the three qualities and their grip on human life. Now he points to the way beyond them: freedom from the cycle of bodily suffering.
What it looks like today
Sitting with a grandparent in a hospital corridor, you see how ageing and illness press on everyone. Krishna speaks of a freedom beyond the forces that tie a person to that cycle, and he treats it as reachable.
“Go beyond the three qualities and you go beyond birth, ageing, death and sorrow.”
Explore related themes: gunas (47 verses), moksha (34 verses)