By the delusion that arises from desire and aversion. By what, when a further qualification is sought? By the delusion born of the pairs of opposites, the delusion caused by the pairs. Those very two, desire and aversion, contrary to each other like cold and heat, having for their objects pleasure and pain and their causes, joined in their season to all beings, are denoted by the word 'pairs'. When desire and aversion, by the attainment of pleasure, pain and their causes, have come into their own being, then those two, by bringing the discerning insight of all beings under their own sway, give rise to delusion, the cause that obstructs the arising of the knowledge whose object is the supreme reality, the truth of the Self. For to one whose mind is overcome by the fault of desire and aversion, knowledge of things as they truly are does not arise even concerning outward things; how much less, for one whose understanding is invaded by those two and who is utterly deluded, does knowledge arise concerning the inmost Self, where the obstructions are many. Therefore, by that delusion of the pairs of opposites which arises from desire and aversion, O Bhārata, born in the line of Bharata, all beings are deluded; they go into delusion, into bewilderment, at their coming-to-be, at birth, O scorcher of foes. The intent is that all beings, as they arise, arise under the sway of delusion. Since it is so, all beings, their insight obstructed by that delusion of the pairs, deluded, do not know Me who am their very Self; and for that very reason they do not worship Me as the Self. Who, then, freed from this delusion of the pairs, having known You, worship You according to the scripture as the Self? To show this sought-for meaning He says.

For so it is: by delusion arisen from desire and aversion, the delusion called the pairs of opposites, cold, heat, and the rest, all beings, at their creation, at the very time of their birth, go to utter delusion. This is what is said: in the quality-made pairs of opposites, pleasure, pain, and the rest, in this and that earlier birth, the desire and aversion, the passion and hatred, that had those for their objects were practised; by the impress of that, at the very time of birth, that same thing called the pairs of opposites, presenting itself as the object of desire and aversion, becomes a delusion for beings; by that delusion all beings go to utter delusion, become beings whose nature is desire and aversion toward those things, and not beings whose nature is the joy and pain of union with and parting from Me. But the man of knowledge has, as his single nature, the joy and pain of union with and parting from Me; no being is born of that nature.

By the delusion of the pairs of opposites, the delusion about objects such as pleasure and pain, when desire and aversion have grown great, nothing at all can be known. This is a further cause. From the very time of creation, while there is a body, desire and the rest are present; before that there is only ignorance.