Chapter 14 - Verse 6

It is stainless like a pebble-stone, and therefore lucid and healthy.‡ Sattva binds the Self by making Him think ‘I am happy;’—it binds Him by causing in Him attachment to happiness §, by bringing about a union of the subject (the

It is stainless, because it is able to ward off all veiling; lucid, as able to reflect Consciousness; health, because it is so pure as to perfectly mirror the Spiritual Bliss…A.

The happiness and knowledge here spoken of are those modifications of the Sattva in which Atman’s inherent happiness and consciousness are manifested.—A.

Self) with the object (happiness). It makes Him think “Happiness has accrued to me.” This attachment to happiness is an illusion; it is avidya. An attribute of the object cannot indeed belong to the subject; and it has been said by the Lord that all the qualities from ‘desire’ to ‘courage,’ (xiii. 6) are all attributes of Kṣetra (matter), the object. Thus it is through avidya alone—which forms an attribute (dharma) of the Self as the non-discrimination between the object and the subject,—that Sattva causes the Self to be attached as it were to happiness which is not His own, causes Him, who is free from all attachment, to be engrossed as it were in happiness; causes to feel happy as it were Him who does not possess the happiness. Similarly, Sattva binds the Self by attachment to knowledge. From its mention here along with ‘happiness,’ ‘knowledge’ meant here must be an attribute of the antahkarana—of the Kṣetra (matter), of the Object,—not of the Self; for if it were an attribute of the Self, it cannot be an attachment and cannot be a bondage. Attachment to knowledge arises in the same way that attachment to happiness arises.