The Three Ladders

Introduction — The Mirror No One Escapes

Examine yourself for one honest moment. Are the qualities growing in you the qualities of a demon, of a gentleman, or of a devotee? Do not be offended by the question. It is not an insult; it is the precise diagnostic that the Bhagavad-gītā places before every human being without exception, and your offence will not excuse you from the examination. The modern man submits his body to a physician once a year and never once submits his character to śāstra. He knows his cholesterol and does not know his qualities.

The Gītā conducts this examination in three places. In the sixteenth chapter Kṛṣṇa names the six qualities that drag the soul downward into bondage, and against them the twenty-six that liberate. In the eighteenth He gives the nine virtues of the brāhmaṇa, the perfected man of goodness. And in the twelfth He describes someone else entirely — the devotee, about whom He says what He says of no one else in the entire book: sa me priyaḥ, he is dear to Me.

dambho darpo 'bhimānaś ca krodhaḥ pāruṣyam eva ca
ajñānaṃ cābhijātasya pārtha sampadam āsurīm (16.4)

Translation: Pride, arrogance, conceit, anger, harshness and ignorance — these qualities belong to those of demoniac nature, O son of Pṛthā.

Six qualities only — and see how economical bondage is. The demoniac man does not know he is demoniac; that is the whole horror of his position. His hypocrisy he calls diplomacy, his arrogance confidence, his anger passion, his harshness plain speaking, and his ignorance practicality. The disease writes the medical report, and naturally the report comes back clean.

Inside the full illustrated e-book: the six marks of the demon and the world they build, the twenty-six divine qualities, the nine virtues of the brāhmaṇa and why even goodness is a golden shackle, the portrait of the devotee dear to Kṛṣṇa, the secret of how qualities descend rather than being climbed for — and the five-step practice for stepping across to the right ladder.