The main theme of the Chapter starts now wherein Sri Krishna explains what the Gunas are and how they bind the Spirit within matter to create individualized Ego sense in us. Sattva has the characteristic of effulgence. It is harmony, goodness or purity. Rajas is passion or activity. Tamas is inertia or dullness. These three qualities indicate the triple mentality which produces attachment in the individual Self, delude It and bind It down to the worldly life.

Just as childhood, youth and old age are found in the same body these three Gunas are found in the same mind. The individual Self gets identified with the body and the three qualities and thereby it feels the changes in the body as Its own changes. It becomes subject to sorrows and joys of the body till it realizes its identity with the Supreme Self. This delusion is on account of the influence of the Gunas. When the soul identifies itself with the modes of nature, it forgets its own reality and uses the mind, life and body for the egoistic satisfaction.

Gunas are not merely qualities but they are the primary constituents of nature. They are the base for all substances. They are the three different influences under which every human mind expresses itself in a variety of ways at different moments of changing environments.

If water in a vessel is stirred, the sun reflected in that water also appears to be agitated. So too, the pure Supreme Self appears to be bound by the three qualities of Nature through superimposition. In reality the Self is ever free and untainted and beyond them.

The Gunas depend for their existence on the Knower of the Field whom they bind very fast. The knowledge of Gunas is therefore necessary to come out of their clutches. These three Gunas are always present in all human beings and none is free from them. However, they are not always constant; every time any one of them will be predominant.
One should analyze all phenomena in terms of these three modes of nature and know their characteristics. One should stand as a witness of these qualities but must not identify with

them. Rising above these Gunas one should become Gunatita and attain supreme peace, immortality and eternal bliss.

NATURE OF SATTVA, RAJAS & TAMAS AND THE WAY THEY BIND

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O mighty-armed one-who are possessed of hands which are great and mighty, and extend upto the knees, gunah, the qualities are named sattva, rajas and tamas. And they, prakrti- sambhavah, born of Nature, born of Maya which belongs to God; nibadhnanti, bind, as it were; the avyayam, immutable-the immutability has been spoken of in the verse, ‘Being without beginning…,’ etc. (13.31); dehinam, embodied being; dehe, to the body. The word guna is a technical term, and is not a quality like colour etc. which inhere in some substance. Nor is it meant here that quality and substance are different. Therefore they are ever dependent on the Knower of the field, just as qualities are dependent (on some substance). Being of the nature of ignorance, they bind the Knower of the field, as it were. They come into being, making That (Knower) their sustainer. In this sense it is said that they bind.
Objection; Was it not said that the embodied one does not become defiled (see 13.31-2)? So, why as it contrarily said here that ‘they bind’?

Reply: We have rebutted this objection by using the word iva (as it were) in ‘they bind, as it were’.