Verse 17.3

Verse 17.3: “The faith of each one, O Scion of Bharata, is in accordance with his inner constitution. A person is just the totality of his beliefs: whatsoever one believes in, just that he actually becomes.

Commentary called Jnaneshwari by Jnaneshwar:

In short, there is no separate existence, Oh you Righteous One, for faith, independent of the Sattva, Rajas and Tamas Gunas, in the assemblage of the beings. Therefore even though the faith is natural, yet being coloured by the three Gunas it has also distinctions such as Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. Water, although a life preserver, becomes fatal if mixed with poison, or becomes pungent if mixed with black pepper, or becomes sweet if mixed with sugar-cane (juice). In that way, one dominated by Tamas gets born and dies again and again and his faith also takes the Tamas form. One can make no distinction between lamp-black and soot; in that way when the faith becomes Tamas-ridden, there exists nothing else in it but the Tamas. Similarly, in the case of Rajas-ridden beings, the faith is of the Rajas quality while that in a Sattva-dominated person is of the Sattva kind. In this way the entire universe is cast solely in the mould of faith. But note the fact that Faith is stamped with three different marks being over-ridden by the three Gunas. A tree is identified (known) by its flowers, or the mind known from the talk, while actions of past lives are known from the sort of pleasure and pain one experiences in the present life. In that way three kinds of faith are known from different signs about which do hear now.