^102:12 Because success . . . human world: Worldly success is much easier of attainment than Self-knowledge. Hence it is that the ignorant do not go in for the latter.

^103:13 This sloka is intended to explain the diversity of human temperaments and tendencies. All men are not of the same nature, because of the preponderance of the different Gunas in them.

The caste system was originally meant to make perfect the growth of humanity, by the special culture of certain features, through the process of discriminate selection.

Though I am the author &c.: The Lord, though the author of the caste system, is yet not the author. The same dread of being taken as a doer or an agent crops up again and again. The paradox is explained in Chap. IX. 5-10. Maya is the real author, but He is taken as such, because it is His light which gives existence, not only to all actions, but to Maya herself.

^104:14 Actions do not taint Me: Karma cannot introduce into Me anything foreign. I never depart from My true Self, which is All-fullness.

^104:15 Knowing thus: Taking this point of view, that is, that the Self can have no desire for the fruits of action and cannot be soiled by action.

^105:16 Evil: the evil of existence, the wheel of birth and death.

^106:18 An action is an action so long as the idea of actor-ness of the Self holds good. Directly the idea of actor-ness disappears, no matter what or how much is done, action has lost its nature. It has become harmless: it can no longer bind. On the other hand, how much soever inactive an ignorant person may remain, so long as there is the idea of actor-ness in him, he is constantly doing action. Action equals to belief in the actor-ness of oneself and inaction its reverse.

He is the doer of all action: He has achieved the end of all action, which is freedom.

^107:19 Whose undertakings &c.: Who is devoid of egoism.

^108:21 Evil consequences: resulting from good and bad actions, for both lead to bondage.

^109:24 How can the whole Karma of a person engaged in work melt away as stated here? Because after knowledge, his whole life becomes one act of Yajna, in which the process of oblation, the offering, the fire, the doer of the sacrifice, the work, and the goal, are all Brahman. Since his Karma produces no other result than the attainment of Brahman, his Karma is said to melt away.

^110:25 Others offer &c.: The sacrifice referred to here, is, divesting the Self of Its Upadhis (limiting adjuncts), so that It is found to be the Self.

^110:26 Others offer sound &c.: Others direct their senses towards pure and unforbidden objects, and in so doing regard themselves as performing acts of sacrifice.

^111:28 Offer Yoga as sacrifice: Practise the eightfold Yoga as an act of sacrifice.