By these three kinds of states, of things, made of the qualities, that is, modifications of the qualities, taking such forms as passion, hatred and delusion, all this host of living beings, this world, being deluded, brought into a state of non-discernment, does not recognise Me, who am beyond these qualities, distinct from them and of a different nature, and imperishable, free of birth and of every change of state. How then does one cross beyond this divine māyā of Viṣṇu, made of the three qualities? It is told.

So, in this way, the whole world, conscious and unconscious in nature, is Mine; from age to age it arises from Me alone and is dissolved in Me, abides in Me alone, is My body, and has Me for its self; so it is I alone who, in the state of effect and in the state of cause, abide, having all things for My body, with all things for My mode. Therefore, by being the cause and the owner, and by My countless host of auspicious qualities, knowledge and the rest, I myself am, in every way, higher; there is nothing other than Me higher by any host of auspicious qualities whatever. This world, abiding as god, animal, man, and unmoving thing, deluded by these states of being, made of the three qualities, sattvic, rajasic, and tamasic, far meaner, perishing in a moment, abiding as the bodies, senses, and things to be enjoyed that conform to earlier karma, does not know Me, who am beyond those three states of being, supreme by My host of auspicious qualities not shared with others and by My being enjoyable in this and that way, supreme, most excellent, imperishable, ever of one form. How is it that, though You stand, of Yourself, in unsurpassed and limitless bliss, eternal, ever of one form, and most excellent even with the modes of being enjoyable that worldly things have, yet, in regard to the utterly mean, quality-made, unsteady states of being, there arises in the whole troop of enjoyers the notion that they are things to be enjoyed? To this the Lord speaks.

Then how is it that He is not known thus? To that Krishna speaks with the three guna-states. The suffix 'maya' is in the sense of identity; so it is said, 'the suffix maya is threefold, in the sense of identity, of modification, and of abundance'. Maya is not a product of the gunas, for He will say 'made of the gunas' (7.14); and the identity even of an effect is established, as the Vyasa-yoga says, 'identity is the conjunction of the property of an effect and the like, between two distinct things'. 'By the states' means by the things. Krishna shows that all the states that are seen are these very things, made of the gunas, with 'by these'. The word 'this' is for the setting-apart of the man of knowledge. The sense is that, having seen the body and the rest made of the gunas, one is deluded by maya into thinking that the Lord's body too is of that kind. The Vyasa-yoga tells it, 'having seen the bodies and the rest of Brahma and the others, which are subordinate, the ignorant man, deluded, thinks that Vishnu too has such a body and the rest'. 'Beyond these' means beyond these that are made of the gunas, since He will say 'and beyond the gunas' (14.19), and from scriptures such as 'alone, and without gunas' (Shvetashvatara Upanishad 6.11) He is said to be free of the three gunas.