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.
Concepts