After exhausting the classification of the temperaments as determined by tastes exhibited by different people in the world, the Geeta continues to indicate how, in the very type of activities undertaken, there is an unmistakable declaration of the temperamental beauty, or ugliness, of the individual.

PERFORMED BY MEN DESIRING NO FRUIT — Sacrifices undertaken by men of purity are always executed in a spirit of selflessness. We have already explained, earlier in the Geeta, that burning anxiety for the fruits-of-action is an unprofitable channel of dissipation of the sacred and vital human energy. Fruits belong to future periods of time, and to waste the present in anxiety over the future, is indeed an unintelligent policy of existence.

AS REQUIRED BY ORDINANCES — Actions in the world fall under four categories, according to ancient Vedic lore. Of them ‘desire-ridden’ (Kamya) and positively self-insulting, and therefore ‘forbidden’ acts (Nishiddha) are the two types that are to be studiously avoided. The other two classes: (a) (Nitya) the ‘daily duties’ and (b) the ‘special duties’ on special occasions (Naimittika) are the types of actions that should not be avoided but must be most diligently pursued. These two types — Nitya and Naimittika together constitute what the Shastra terms as the ‘unavoidable’ or ‘obligatory duties.’ These actions and duties are indicated here as those required by ordinance. This term is used here in contrast with the Tamasic type of activity, ‘wherein no ordinance is observed’ and men are always devoid of ‘faith’ (XVII-13).

SACRIFICE IS OUR DUTY — This is the motive that propels the ‘good’ to act in life. He suffers no dissipation of his inner energies either through anxieties to drive himself to a particular goal or through his restlessness in herding the environments to settle themselves into a pre-planned and pre-conceived system of harmony. His mind is ever at rest in its own native satisfaction. He is consciously happy that he is pursuing a line of action which is most conducive to the welfare of all. Such actions are classed under the Sattwic type of sacrifices.

That sacrifice is marked by Sattva which is offered by those desiring no fruits, with the ‘conviction’, i.e., with the idea that it ought to be performed or that it should be offered for its own sake as worship of the Lord as enjoined in the injunctions of the Sastras, i.e., with hymns, right materials and proper rituals.