पुरुषः प्रकृतिस्थो हि भुङ्क्ते प्रकृतिजान्गुणान् | कारणं गुणसङ्गोऽस्य सदसद्योनिजन्मसु || २२ ||
puruṣaḥ prakṛti-stho hi bhuṅkte prakṛti-jān guṇān kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad-yoni-janmasu
puruṣaḥ—the living entity; prakṛti-sthaḥ—situated in material nature; hi—indeed; bhuṅkte—enjoys; prakṛti-jān—produced by material nature; guṇān—the modes; kāraṇam—the cause; guṇa-saṅgaḥ—association with the modes; asya—of this; sat-asat—good and evil; yoni—species of life; janmasu—in births.
“The Purusha, dwelling in Prakriti, experiences the gunas born of Prakriti. Attachment to the gunas is the cause of its birth in good and evil wombs.”
The mechanism of rebirth is clearly stated here: it is guna-sanga — attachment to the gunas (qualities of matter) — that causes the individual soul to take on various births. When the soul identifies with Prakriti's qualities and becomes attached to them, it is bound to the cycle of becoming. Liberation occurs when this attachment is released through discriminative knowledge, devotion, and grace.
Every strong attachment — to a pleasure, an identity, a relationship, an outcome — is a 'guna-sanga' in miniature. The teaching is not to destroy attachments by force but to understand their mechanism: they create suffering because the objects attached to are impermanent while the one who attaches is identified with what is permanent. As this is seen clearly, attachment loosens naturally.