Bhagavad Gita Chapter 3 - Karma Yoga - Sloka 28

The entire content of this mail is from Swami Chidbhavananda's translation of The Bhagavad Gita, published by Ramakrishna Mission.

How to root out the Ego - sloka 27-32

1 Gita Sloka every day - Chapter 3 -Karma Yoga - Sloka 28

Tattva vitthu mahabaho guna karma vibhagayoh I

Guna guneshu vartante iti matva na sajjate II sloka 28

तत्त्व वित्थु महाबाहो गुण कर्म विभागयोः ।

गुण गुणेषु वर्तन्ते इति मत्वा न सज्जते ।। श्लोक २८ 

But O mighty armed, the one intuitive into the nature of guna and karma knows that gunas as senses merely abide with gunas as objects, and does not become entangled.

There is a kinship between the senses and their respective objects. They are both constituted of the same elements and of the same gunas. The element fire for example has its own combination of gunas. Emitting light is characteristic of fire. The combination of gunas in fire takes one form as the sense of sight  and another form as the object of sight. Because of the sameness of nature in both of them, sense experience becomes possible. And this is the fact in regard to all the five senses. Atman  which is consciousness, remains unaffected by the sensations, even as akasa is substratum to the dashing clouds. The sage who realises this truth is free from entanglement. 

What is the attitude of the enlightened towards the ignorant? It is explained in the next sloka.