Those established in sattva rise upward; those in rajas remain in the middle; those abiding in the lowest quality — tamas — go downward.

A vertical cosmology of the guṇas: sattva leads upward (toward higher states of being, toward liberation); rajas keeps one in the middle (in the ordinary human world of striving and partial satisfaction); tamas pulls downward (toward denser births, heavier states of consciousness). The direction of one's existence is set by the quality one predominantly inhabits. This is not fatalism — it is a map of the forces at work — and the entire teaching of the Gita is about how to orient one's movement upward, and ultimately beyond even the highest of the three.