यदा सत्त्वे प्रवृद्धे तु प्रलयं याति देहभृत्।तदोत्तमविदां लोकानमलान्प्रतिपद्यते ॥

Teachers usually read this idea across several verses together, one shared reflection covers the whole unit.

• 14.1The Blessed Lord said, "I will again declare to thee that supreme knowledge, the best of all knowledge, having known which all the sages have gone to supreme perfection after this life."
• 14.2Those who, having taken refuge in this knowledge, have attained unity with Me, are neither born at the time of creation nor disturbed at the time of dissolution.
• 14.3My womb is the great Brahma; in it I place the germ; thence, O Arjuna, is the birth of all beings.
• 14.4Whatever forms are produced, O Arjuna, in any womb whatsoever, the great Brahma is their womb, and I am the seed-giving father.
• 14.5These qualities, O Arjuna, born of Nature, bind fast in the body of the embodied, the indestructible: purity, passion, and inertia.
• 14.6Of these, sattva, which is luminous and healthy due to its stainlessness, binds one by attachment to happiness and knowledge, O sinless one.
• 14.7Know, O Arjuna, that Rajas is of the nature of passion, the source of thirst and attachment; it binds fast the embodied one by attachment to action.
• 14.8But know thou Tamas to be born of ignorance, deluding all embodied beings; it binds fast, O Arjuna, through heedlessness, indolence, and sleep.
• 14.9Sattva attaches to happiness, Rajas to action, O Arjuna, while Tamas, verily shrouding knowledge, attaches to heedlessness.
• 14.10Now, O Arjuna, Sattva prevails, having overpowered Rajas and Tamas; then Rajas, having overpowered Sattva and Tamas; and then Tamas, having overpowered Sattva and Rajas.
• 14.11When the wisdom-light shines through every gate of this body, then it may be known that Sattva is predominant.
• 14.12Greed, activity, the undertaking of actions, restlessness, and longing—these arise when Rajas is predominant, O Arjuna.
• 14.13Darkness, inertia, carelessness, and delusion—these arise when Tamas is predominant, O Arjuna.

• 14.14If the embodied one meets death when Sattva is predominant, then they attain the spotless worlds of the knowers of the Highest.

• 14.15Meeting death in Rajas, he is born among those who are attached to action; and dying in Tamas, he is born in the womb of the thoughtless.
• 14.16They say that the fruit of good action is Sattvic and pure; indeed, the fruit of Rajas is pain, and the fruit of Tamas is ignorance.
• 14.17From Sattva arises knowledge, and greed from Rajas; heedlessness and delusion arise from Tamas, and also ignorance.
• 14.18Those seated in Sattva ascend; those of Rajasic nature dwell in the middle; and those of Tamasic nature, abiding in the function of the lowest Guna, descend.

yadā

when

sattve

in the mode of goodness

pravṛiddhe

when premodinates

tu

indeed

pralayam

death

yāti

reach

deha-bhṛit

the embodied

tadā

then

uttama-vidām

of the learned

lokān

abodes

amalān

pure

pratipadyate

attains