Chapter 14: Guṇa-traya-vibhāga-yoga:: Verse 18
ऊर्ध्वं गच्छन्ति सत्त्वस्था मध्ये तिष्ठन्ति राजसा: ।
जघन्यगुणवृत्तिस्था अधो गच्छन्ति तामसा: ॥
ūrdhvaṃ gacchanti sattvasthā madhye tiṣṭhanti rājasā:
jaghanyaguṇa-vṛttisthā adho gacchanti tāmasā: – 14.18
Sāttvika people go upwards, rājasa ones remain in the middle, while the tāmasa people, given to lowest tendencies and activities, go downwards.
Chapter 14: Guṇa-traya-vibhāga-yoga: - Verse 18
Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha
Krishna makes a chart of the three gunas enumerating their rewards or punishments. Holy actions have undoubtedly their elevating effect on the actor, the performer. Thus sattva-guna and its impulsions lead the performers to the higher holy realms, as revealed in the Vedas and allied scriptures.
Those given to rājasa activities will be led by their effects. This will make them meander in the same plane as they are now, the sensory world of attractions and repulsions, to be undergoing the same rājasa compulsions again. It will be a revolving fate without any progression or evolution.
Different from both, the tāmasa propulsions will take the actors to the still lower levels of life. Human life has the unique merits of thinking, discriminating and elevating itself. But all this is clearly denied in the tāmasa level. It is virtually a fall to abysmal levels, most pitiable in every way!
