सर्वयोनिषु कौन्तेय मूर्तयः सम्भवन्ति याः।तासां ब्रह्म महद्योनिरहं बीजप्रदः पिता।।14.4।।
सत्त्वं रजस्तम इति गुणाः प्रकृतिसंभवाः।निबध्नन्ति महाबाहो देहे देहिनमव्ययम्।।14.5।।
तत्र सत्त्वं निर्मलत्वात्प्रकाशकमनामयम्।सुखसङ्गेन बध्नाति ज्ञानसङ्गेन चानघ।।14.6।।
O son of Kunti, whatever forms are born from all the wombs, of them the great sustainer is the womb; I am the father who deposits the seed.
O mighty-armed one, the qualities, viz. sattva, rajas, and tamas, born of Nature, are the immutable embodiments belonging to the body.
Among them, sattva, being pure and nirmala (pure-transparent, i.e., capable of resisting any form of ignorance, and hence an illuminator, i.e. a revealer of Consciousness), is harmless. O sinless one, it binds through attachment to happiness and attachment to knowledge.
Osho’s Commentary
In every womb, in every form that is born, nature is the mother and I am the father. And this mother, this Prakriti, has three qualities, three moods: sattva, rajas, and tamas. These three are the threads that weave the fabric of existence. And they bind the immortal soul to the mortal body. Tamas is inertia, darkness, laziness. It is the pull of the earth, the pull of matter. It is a state of deep sleep, of unconsciousness. Rajas is passion, energy, action. It is the force of life, the desire to do, to become, to achieve. It is a whirlwind of activity. And Sattva is purity, balance, light, harmony. It is a state of quiet joy, of clarity, of wisdom. You may think that sattva must be liberation. But Krishna says, “No.” Sattva, too, is a bondage. It is the most beautiful, the most subtle, the most golden of all chains, but it is a chain nonetheless. It binds you through the attachment to happiness and the attachment to knowledge. The pride of the virtuous man is the last and most difficult ego to drop. He feels, “I am happy, I am wise, I am pure.” This very “I” is the bondage. To be truly free, one must go beyond all three qualities—beyond the darkness of tamas, beyond the fever of rajas, and even beyond the subtle light of sattva. One must become a pure witness to the play of all three.