Sanskrit
प्रकाशं च प्रवृत्तिं च मोहमेव च पाण्डव । न द्वेष्टि संप्रवृत्तानि न निवृत्तानि काङ्क्षति ॥
prakāśaṃ ca pravṛttiṃ ca moham eva ca pāṇḍava na dveṣṭi sampravṛttāni na nivṛttāni kāṅkṣati
Translation
He, O Pândava, who hateth not radiance, nor outgoing energy, nor even delusion, when present, nor longeth after them, absent;
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The portrait opens by naming the three gunas by their symptoms one more time — radiance (sattva), outgoing energy (rajas), delusion (tamas) — and defining the transcended state purely negatively: no hatred when they arise, no craving when they’re absent. This is a precise, almost clinical, definition of non-reactivity, distinct from either preferring sattva or suppressing rajas and tamas — the gunatita simply doesn’t relate to any of the three as something to chase or avoid. The first mark of the guṇātīta: he neither resents the guṇas’ effects (clarity, activity, dullness) when they come, nor misses them when they go. The same “neither rejoices nor recoils” as BG 2.57, applied to one’s own inner weather.
Study deeper
Word by word
- prakāśaṃ ca pravṛttiṃ caप्रकाशं च प्रवृत्तिं च
- light, and activity (prakāśam + ca + pravṛttim + ca)
- moham eva ca pāṇḍavaमोहं एव च पाण्डव
- and delusion, O Pāṇḍava (moham + eva + ca + pāṇḍava)
- na dveṣṭi sampravṛttāniन द्वेष्टि संप्रवृत्तानि
- he does not hate [them] when present (na + dveṣṭi + sampravṛttāni)
- na nivṛttāni kāṅkṣatiन निवृत्तानि काङ्क्षति
- nor long for them when absent (na + nivṛttāni + kāṅkṣati)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The surprising clause here is the neutral stance toward delusion itself — not just tolerance of the difficult states but no hatred even of tamas when it’s present. Most self-improvement models train a person to resist the bad guna and chase the good one; this verse forbids both reactions toward all three, sattva included, which rules out the tempting shortcut of treating gunatita as sattva maximized and the other two suppressed.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- Don't treat inner discipline as hating your worst impulses and chasing your best moods — this verse describes freedom as relating to neither with reactivity, which means the goal isn't a better mood to chase but no longer needing to chase or resist any mood at all.
Professional
- Don't run a team by rewarding the 'good' behaviors and punishing the 'bad' ones as a binary — a team that stops reacting to both extremes with either praise-chasing or blame tends to build steadier judgment than one trained to swing between the two.
Family & Social
- Don't manage a difficult family dynamic by hating the bad moments and craving the good ones — that keeps you reactive to both; steadiness comes from relating evenly to the whole range, not from successfully avoiding one half of it.
Ask yourself
A few ways to take this verse past reading. Ticks and the note stay in this browser.