The Lover Transcends the Three Gunas
Narada teaches that supreme love lifts the devotee beyond the play of the three qualities of nature into pure freedom.
Para bhakti is beyond the three gunas — sattva, rajas, and tamas — for it is the love of the one who is beyond nature, and it carries the devotee likewise beyond nature's bondage (Narada Bhakti Sutra 56). The Gita teaches that crossing the gunas is liberation, and Narada locates that crossing in perfected love. The lover, absorbed in the transcendent beloved, is no longer driven by the restless qualities that bind worldly beings to their compulsions. This freedom is the inner mark of one established in supreme devotion: unmoved by the swings of agitation and inertia, abiding in a love that is purely free. The teaching identifies love itself as the great liberator from nature's grip. Loving the boundless, the soul is drawn beyond every boundary.
Supreme love is beyond the three gunas and beyond all desire for gain.
Narada's placement of perfected love beyond the three gunas aligns with the Bhagavad Gita's teaching (14.26) that unwavering devotion is itself the means of transcending the qualities of material nature.
Narada Bhakti Sutras
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- What the Narada Bhakti Sutras say about freedom
Supreme love is said to lie beyond the three qualities of nature, and so beyond what those qualities bind. This is the technical form of Narada's claim to liberation.