नान्यं गुणेभ्यः कर्तारं यदा द्रष्टानुपश्यति ।
गुणेभ्यश्च परं वेत्ति मद्भावं सोऽधिगच्छति ॥

nānyaṃ guṇebhya: kartāraṃ yadā draṣṭānupaśyati |
guṇebhyaś-ca paraṃ vetti mad-bhāvaṃ so’dhigacchati || 14.19 ||

Understanding non-doership

This is where spiritual wisdom excels in its enunciation. It does not delude people by drawing a blemishless or all beautiful picture of the world, God or the relationship between the two. It tells you what the world is at its best, worst and in between. Every individual, whether he likes it or not, will always be surrounded by an intriguing admixture of the guṇas and their tendencies. Given this inescapable situation, every one has the option and freedom to choose his guṇa level and successfully pursue it to the fulfillment he aspires. Is this possible? Does the world offer scope for it? In answer, Krishna says:

When the Seer does not see anything other than the guṇas as the doer, and at the same time perceives that which reigns superior, then, transcending the guṇas he verily attains to My state.

As he explained the jñeya in the preceding chapter, Krishna here emphasizes how the whole guṇa display is to be viewed and evaluated by the seeker, so that it will help and empower his sādhanā.

Good and noble individuals do form part of the world. Their sight and thought will naturally stimulate the seeking mind towards those characteristics. At the same time the bad and ignoble individuals, who too have an inevitable place in the world, will evoke a negative response in the seeking mind. The question is: should the sight and experience depress and deter the seeker? Equally so, what about those who stand in the middle?

Krishna says that this kind of admixture of the society is a help and compulsion for the seeker to arrive at his ideal. When dealing physically or mentally with any individual or the society, consider that the characteristics displayed belong to prakṛti. Guṇas instill or instigate all actions everywhere, in every one. As guṇas are prakṛti’s constituents, none can blame or credit anyone for anything. In the matter of assessing anyone’s goodness or badness, one should only discern prakṛti’s hand and its display.

Draṣṭā guṇebhyaḥ anyaṃ kartāraṃ na paśyati – The Seer does not see anything other than the guṇas as the doer.

The proposition Krishna makes is quite clear, emphatic. No doership of any kind should be ascribed to anyone. Why? All actions are instigated by the guṇas of prakṛti. What we see is but the peripheral aggregate in an individual, which is constituted by the complex prakṛti.

The seeker should go a step further, to be true to his sādhanā. He should search for and find out what lies beyond the guṇas. Guṇebhyaśca paraṃ vetti are the words Krishna uses here. The seeker should discern with spiritual insight that the peripheral guṇa display is around a spiritual base or nucleus. And that is the focal base of the individual. In other words, true individuality consists in the central guṇa-atīta state, not in the guṇa display level.

Once this kind of perception dawns, whereby the seeker looks at the individual as beyond the guṇas, as the unconditioned and unaffected Soul, he will then have no mental or intellectual confrontation with the world at all. In seeking Self-knowledge as well as on having attained it, this kind of integral perception about the world becomes crucial.

It is, no doubt, a transcendental perception. To transcend does not mean to annihilate or eliminate. It verily means to be above what prevails. In this process, the guṇa display is left as it is. Only the seeker’s perception about it undergoes significant change or evolution.