This is how ignorance deceives him.

Confounded by manifold anxieties and caught in a net of illusions, he becomes too attached to sense pleasure, and sinks into hell.

Vain of himself, always arrogant, led astray by wealth and fatuity, he sometimes makes sacrifices, but out of all principle and rule, these can only be in name.

Having sought refuge in the false ego (he identifies himself with his body, and wants to dominate matter and material nature), in power, pride, concupiscence and anger, the demoniac blasphemes the true religion and envies Me, the Supreme Lord, who resides in his own body, as well as in that of others.

The envious and evil ones, the last of men, I plunge into the ocean of material existence in the various forms of demonic life.

These, reborn life after life within the demonic species, can never approach Me. Little by little they sink into the most sinister condition.

Three doors open into this hell: concupiscence, anger and greed. Let every sane man close them, for they lead the soul to its doom.

Those who have avoided these three gates of hell dedicate their lives to acts that lead to spiritual realisation. In this way, he gradually reaches the supreme goal (finding God, and going to his eternal kingdom).

He, on the other hand, who rejects the precepts of the Scriptures in order to act according to his own whim, attains neither perfection, nor happiness, nor the supreme goal.

What your duty is and what it is not, know how to determine in the light of the principles given in the Scriptures. Knowing these laws, act in such a way as to gradually elevate yourself.

The branches of faith

Arjuna questions Lord Krishna again.

As for those who do not follow the principles of the scriptures, but devote themselves to a cult of their own invention, what is their condition, O Krishna?

Is it that of virtue, passion or ignorance?