ये चैव सात्त्विका भावा राजसास्तामसाश्च ये।मत्त एवेति तान्विद्धि नत्वहं तेषु ते मयि॥
ye caiva sāttvikā bhāvā rājasās tāmasāś ca yematta eveti tān viddhi na tvahaṃ teṣu te mayi
Word by word
The verse says
Whatever states there are — clear, driven or heavy — know that they all come from me. But I am not in them. They are in me.
In plain words
The three words behind clear, driven and heavy are sattva, rajas and tamas: the three settings everything in nature runs on.
All three are his. Including the dull, heavy one.
Then the reversal in the last line. They are in him; he is not in them. Holding something is not the same as being inside it.
Where you've felt this · in family life
A house has been through every kind of week. The week of the wedding. The week everybody had flu. The week nobody was speaking to anybody. The walls were in none of those moods. They held all of them, and none of them left a mark that lasted.
Going deeper
Guṇa means strand or thread, and this book uses it for the three settings everything in nature moves between: clarity, drive and heaviness.
The first half of the verse is generous. All three come from him, including the flat, sluggish one we treat as a failure of character. A dull Sunday is not you dropping out of the divine.
The second half is the philosophy. They are in him; he is not in them. A room holds an argument without being angry. The argument could not happen without the room, and the room takes no side in it.
This matters most on your worst days. A heavy mood is not evidence that something has gone wrong between you and whatever is holding you up. It is one of three weathers, moving through something that is not itself made of weather.