arrogant, led astray by wealth and fatuity, he sometimes makes sacrifices, but outside of all principles and rules, they can only bear the name.
Having sought refuge in false ego [identifying with one's body and seeking to dominate matter], in power, pride, lust and anger, the demonic blasphemes true religion and envies Me, I the Supreme Lord, who resides in his own body, as in that of others.
The envious and evil, the last of men, I plunge them into the ocean of material existence under the various forms of demonic life. These, being reborn life after life in the demonic species, can never approach Me. Little by little, they sink into the most sinister condition.
Three doors open on this hell; lust, anger and greed. Let every sane man close them, because they lead the soul to its destruction. The man who knew how to avoid these three gates of hell dedicates his existence to acts which engage in spiritual realization. He thus gradually attains the supreme goal.
He, on the other hand, who rejects the precepts of the holy scriptures to act according to his whim, he attains neither perfection, nor happiness, nor the supreme goal.
What is your duty and what it is not, know how to determine it in the light of the principles which give the holy scriptures. Knowing these laws, act in such a way as to rise gradually.
Question posed by a sage to the Lord: By what signs do we recognize the being who has exceeded the three gunas [the three attributes and modes of influence of material nature; virtue, passion and ignorance], how does he behave, and by what means does he transcend these gunas?
The blessed Lord answers: He who has no aversion, whether before enlightenment, attachment or illusion, who also feels no thirst for these things in their absence, who, above these fruits that the three gunas bear, stands as neutral, always inflexible, aware that nothing acts outside of them, who looks with the same eye on pleasure and suffering, and for whom the clod of earth, gold and stone are of equal value, who is wise and holds praise and blame the same, who is affected neither by glory nor by reproach, who treats equally friends and enemies, and who has renounced any self-interested enterprise, of which one says that he has transcended the three gunas.
He who is completely absorbed in devotional service, without ever failing, therefore transcends the three gunas and thus attains the level spiritual.
I am the foundation of the Impersonal Spiritual Being [the only aspect of God known to believers on earth], which is immortal, inexhaustible, eternal, and which constitutes the very principle of ultimate happiness.