14.18 Sattvasthah, people who conform to sattva, to the actions of sattva ality; gacchanti, go, are born; undhavam, higher up, in the worlds of gods and others. Rajasah, those who conform to rajas; [Those who are endowed with sense-knowledge and actions conseent on the preponderance of rajas.] tisthanti, stay, are born; madhye, in the middle, among human beings. Tamasah, those who conform to tamas, jaghanya-gunavrttasthah [A variant reading is vrttisthah.-Tr.], who conform to actions of the lowest ality of tamas, those who are attached to its actions-sleep, laziness, etc.-, the foolish; gacchanti, go; adhah, down, (i.e.) they are born among cattle etc.
The association, owing to the false ignorance in the form of 'being seated in Nature', that an individual soul has with the gunas-in the form of happiness, sorrow and delusion, and which are matters of experience in such ways as, 'I am happy,' 'I am sorrowful,' 'I am ignorant,'-that (association) is the cause of the individual soul's mundane existence characterized by coming to have births in good and bad species. This was stated briefly in the earlier chapter. Elaborating that here in the text beginning with, 'the alities, viz sattva, rajas and tamas, born of Nature' (5), the Lord has said that the nature of the alities, the conduct conforming to the alities, and the power to bind that the alities have through actions conforming to them, and also the course of a person under the bondage, of behaviour conforming to the alities,-all this is false knowledge; it has ignorance as its root and is the cause of bondage.
Now, it is necessary to state that Liberation follows from right knowledge. Hence the Lord says: