Chapter 16

Lord Krishna said: Sublimity, forgiveness, fortitude, external purity, bearing enmity to none and absence of self-esteem, these are, O Arjuna, the marks of him who is born with the divine endowments. Hypocrisy, arrogance, pride, anger, sternness and ignorance are the marks of him who is born with demoniac properties. Men possessing a demoniac disposition know not what is right activity and what is right abstinence from activity.

Hence they possess neither purity (external or internal) nor good conduct nor even truthfulness. Men of demoniac disposition say, “this world is without any foundation, absolutely unreal and godless brought forth by mutual union of the male and female and hence conceived in lust; what else than this”. Held in bondage by hundreds of ties of expectation and wholly giving themselves up to lust and anger, they strive to amass by unfair means of money hoarding and other objects for the enjoyment of sensuous pleasures. Those haters, sinful, cruel and vilest among men, I cast again and again into demoniacal wombs in this world and then they verily sink down to a still lower plane. Desire, anger and greed are the triple gates of hell that bring about the downfall of the soul. Therefore , one should shun all these three. Freed from these three gates of hell, man works for his own salvation and thereby attains the supreme goal i.e. god.