1 Gita Sloka Every Day - Chapter 13 - Kshetra Kshetrajna Yoga - Sloka 21

The entire content of this mail is from Swami Adidevananda's translation of Ramanuja's  Gita  Bhashya and Swami Chidbhavananda's Bhagavad Gita, both published by Ramakrishna Mission

The Seed of the Mundane Life - 21

1 Gita Sloka  Every Day - Chapter 13 - Kshetra Kshetrajna Yoga - Sloka 21

Purushah prakriti sthah hi bhunkte prakriti gyan gunan I

Karanam guna sangah asya sad asad yoni janmasu II sloka 21

पुरुषः प्रकृति स्थः हि भुङ्क्ते प्रकृति ज्ञान गुणान I 
कारणं गुण संगः अस्य सद्  असद् योनि जन्मसु II श्लोक 21

The self seated in prakriti experiences the gunas born of prakriti. Its attachment to these gunas, which is the cause of birth in good and evil wombs.

He who is exposed to the sun gets heat and he who is exposed to the rain gets wet. Similarly the jivatman gets identified  with prakriti and imagines that its qualities are all his own. The varying sensations  such as happiness and misery and the modifications of the mind such as delusion and discrimination -these are all the outcome of clinging to the one or the other guna. It is this attachment again that prolongs the cycle of birth. By adhering to the superior guna, the jivatman is born as a celestial or fully evolved human being. By holding on to the inferior guna, he is born as an animal or bird. Getting stuck in mingled gunas, he is born as a mediocre man.

Is there then, no way to get out of this wheel of birth and death? The assurance comes in the next slokas.