“Those who, taking refuge in this knowledge, have attained to My own nature (mama sādharmyam) are not born at the time of creation, nor disturbed at the dissolution.” The promise sets the stakes of the chapter. To understand the guṇas — and thereby to rise above them — is to step outside the whole cosmic cycle of birth-and-dissolution (recall 8.17–19, 9.7). One who has attained “likeness to His nature” is no longer swept out at each cosmic dawn nor dissolved at each cosmic night; he has reached the changeless (the Akṣara of 8.21). This is the reward held out for mastering what follows.