Let Me instruct you in the five factors of the act, which the Sankhya philosophy describes: they are the place, the doer, the senses, the effort and, above all, the Supreme Soul.

Whatever act, good or bad, a man performs through the body, the mind or the word, proceeds from these five factors.

And therefore he who thinks he is acting alone, who does not consider the five factors of the act, does not show great intelligence, and is thus unable to see things in their true light.

He whose acts are not motivated by the false ego (identification with his body, and domination of matter and material nature), whose intelligence is not bogged down, never kills, even if he kills in this world. Nor do his actions ever bind him.

Knowledge, the object of knowledge, and the knower are the three factors that give rise to the act. The senses, the act itself and its author form the threefold basis of all action.

There are three orders of knowledge, acts and doers; they correspond to the three gunas (virtue, passion, ignorance). Listen to Me describing them to you.

The knowledge by which one distinguishes in all existences a single, imperishable spiritual essence, one within the multiple, this knowledge, know this, proceeds from Virtue.

But the knowledge by which one perceives the existence, in various bodies, of so many beings of different natures, this knowledge, know this, belongs to Passion.

As for the knowledge by which, blind to the truth, one attaches oneself to one kind of action, as if it were all, this knowledge, very limited, is said to belong to the darkness of Ignorance.

The act which is dictated by duty, the act which is performed without attachment, without attraction or aversion, and is accompanied by the renunciation of its fruits, this act is said to proceed from Virtue.

But the act performed with great effort, the act which aims at the gratification of desires, and which is motivated by the false ego, this act is said to belong to Passion.

As for the act performed in unconsciousness and error, without considering the consequences or the chain of events it entails, which does violence to others and proves impracticable, this act is said to belong to ignorance.

The person who acts free from material attachment, free from false ego, enthusiastic, resolute, and indifferent to success or failure, is said to be under the sign of Virtue.