BG 14 (1968)
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
XIV
THE THREE MODES OF MATERIAL NATURE
1: THE SUPREME PERSONALITY of Godhead said: Again, I shall declare to you this supreme wisdom, the best of all knowledge; knowing which, all the sages have attained to supreme perfection.
PURPORT
FROM THE SEVENTH CHAPTER to the end of the Twelfth Chapter, everything has been said about the Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Now, the Lord Himself is attempting to further enlighten Arjuna. If one understands this chapter through the process of philosophical speculation, he will come to an understanding of devotional service. In the Thirteenth Chapter, it was clearly explained that, by developing knowledge, with an attitude of humility, there is the possibility of being freed from the material entanglement. It has also been explained that it is due to association with the modes of Nature that the living entity is entangled in this world. Now, in this chapter, the Supreme Personality will explain what those modes of Nature are, how they act, how they bind, and how they give liberation. The knowledge explained in this chapter is said by the Supreme Lord to be better than the knowledge given so far in other chapters. And, by understanding this knowledge, various great sages have attained perfection, and transferred to the spiritual world.
2: By becoming fixed in this knowledge, one can attain to the transcendental Nature, like My own; and not be born at the time of creation, nor disturbed at the time of dissolution.
PURPORT
THE PARTICULAR MEANING of this verse is that, after acquiring perfect transcendental knowledge, one acquires qualitative equality with the Supreme Personality of Godhead—becoming free from the repetition of birth and death. One does not, however, lose his identity as an individual soul. It is understood from Vedic literature that the liberated souls who have reached the transcendental planets of the spiritual sky always look to the Lotus Feet of the Supreme Lord, being engaged in His transcendental loving service. So, even after liberation, such devotees do not lose their individual identities.
3: The total material substance, called Brahma, is the source of birth, and in that Brahma do I create pregnancy. Thus come the possibilities for the births of all living beings.
PURPORT
THE SCORPION LAYS its eggs in piles of rice, and sometimes it is said that the scorpion is born out of rice. But the rice is not the cause of the scorpion. Actually the eggs were laid by the mother. Similarly, material Nature is not the cause of birth of the living entities. The seeds are given by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and they only seem to come out as products of material Nature. And thus every living entity, according to his past activities, has a different body, created by this material Nature, so that he can enjoy or suffer according to those deeds. And the Lord is the Cause of all the manifestations of living entities in this material world.
4: It should be understood that all species of life, O son of Kunti, are made possible by birth in this material Nature, and that I am the seed-giving Father.
5: The material Nature consists of the three modes—goodness, passion, and ignorance. And when the living entity comes in contact with Nature, he becomes conditioned by these modes.
6: O sinless One, the mode of goodness, being purer than the others, is illuminating, and frees one from all sinful reactions. Those situated in that mode develop knowledge, and become conditioned by the sense of happiness.
PURPORT
THE DIFFICULTY HERE is that, when a living entity is situated in the mode of goodness, he becomes conditioned to feeling that he is advanced in knowledge and is better than others. The best examples are the scientist and the philosopher: Each is very proud of his knowledge; and because he generally improves his living conditions, he feels a sort of material happiness. This sense of advanced happiness in conditioned life makes him bound by the mode of goodness of material Nature. As such, he is attracted toward working in the mode of goodness; and, as long as he has an attraction for working in that way, he has to take some type of body in the modes of Nature. There is no likelihood of liberation, or of being transferred to the spiritual world. Repeatedly, he may become a philosopher, a scientist, or a poet; and repeatedly he has the same disadvantages of birth and death. But due to the illusion of the material energy, he thinks that sort of life is nice.
7: The mode of passion is born of unlimited desires and longings, O son of Kunti, and, on account of this, one is bound to material, fruitive activities.
PURPORT
THE MODE OF PASSION is exemplified in the attraction between man and woman. Woman has an attraction for man, and man has an attraction for woman. And when the mode of passion is increased, one develops the hankering for material enjoyment. For sense gratification, a man in the mode of passion wants some honor in society, or in the nation; and he wants to have a happy family, with nice children, a wife, and a house. These are the products of the development of the mode of passion. As soon as one is hankering after these things, he has to work very hard. And therefore it is clearly stated here that he becomes associated with the fruits of his activities, and thus becomes bound by such activities. The whole material world is more or less in the mode of passion. Modern civilization is considered to be advanced in the standards of this mode, although formerly the advanced condition was considered to be in the mode of goodness. As there is no liberation even in the mode of goodness, what then to speak of those who are entangled in passion?
8: O son of Bharata, the delusion of all living entities is the mode of ignorance. The result of this mode is madness, indolence, and sleep, which bind the conditioned soul.
PURPORT
THIS MODE OF ignorance is just the opposite of the mode of goodness. In the mode of goodness, by development of knowledge, one can understand what is what. Everyone under the spell of the mode of ignorance becomes mad; and a madman cannot understand what is what. Instead of making advancement, they become degraded. For example, everyone can see that his grandfather has died, and therefore he will die; man is mortal. The children that he has fathered will also die. So death is sure. Still, the people are madly accumulating money, and working very hard all day and night, without any care for the eternal spirit. This is madness. In their madness, they are very reluctant to make advancement in spiritual understanding. Such people are very lazy. When they are invited to associate for spiritual understanding, they are not much interested. They are not even active like the man who is conducted by the mode of passion; and so another symptom of one embedded in the mode of ignorance is that he sleeps more than is required. Six hours of sleep is sufficient; but a man in the mode of ignorance sleeps at least ten or twelve hours a day. Such a man appears to be always dejected, and is addicted to intoxicants and sleeping.
9: The mode of goodness conditions one to happiness, passion conditions him to the fruits of action, and ignorance to madness.
10: Sometimes the mode of passion becomes prominent, defeating the mode of goodness, O son of Bharata; and sometimes the mode of goodness defeats passion; and again the mode of ignorance defeats goodness and passion. In this way, there is ever a competition for supremacy.
11: The manifestation of the mode of goodness can be experienced when all the gates of one's body are illuminated by knowledge.
PURPORT
THERE ARE NINE GATES in the body: two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, the mouth, the genital, and the anus. In the mode of goodness, one can see things in the right perspective; one can hear things in the right perspective, and taste things in the right perspective. One becomes cleansed inside and outside. At every gate there is the development of the symptoms of happiness; and that is the position of goodness.
12: O chief of the Bharatas, when there is an increase in the mode of passion, the symptoms of great attachment, uncontrollable desire, hankering, and intense endeavor develop.
13: O son of Kuru, when there is an increase in the mode of ignorance, madness, illusion, inertia, and darkness are manifested.
14: When one dies in the mode of goodness, he attains to the pure higher planets.
15: One who dies in the mode of passion takes birth among those engaged in fruitive activities; and one who dies in the mode of ignorance takes birth in the animal kingdom.
PURPORT
SOME PEOPLE HAVE the impression that when the soul reaches the platform of human life, he never goes down again. This is incorrect. According to this verse, if one develops the mode of ignorance, after his death he is degraded to the animal form of life. From there one has to again elevate himself by the evolutionary process, to come to the human form of life. Therefore, those who are actually serious about human life should take to the mode of goodness.
16: By acting in the mode of goodness, one becomes purified; works done in the mode of passion result in distress; and actions performed in the mode of ignorance result in foolishness.
17: From the mode of goodness real knowledge develops; from the mode of passion, grief develops; and from the mode of ignorance, foolishness, madness, and illusion develop.
18: Those situated in the mode of goodness gradually go upward to the higher planets; those in the mode of passion live on earth-like planets; and those in ignorance go down to the hellish worlds.
19: When you see that there is nothing beyond these modes of Nature in all activities, and that the Supreme Lord is transcendental to this, then you can know My spiritual Nature.
PURPORT
ONE CAN TRANSCEND all these activities of the modes of material Nature simply by understanding them properly, learning from the proper souls. The real spiritual master is Krishna, and He is imparting this spiritual knowledge to Arjuna. Similarly, it is from those who are fully in Krishna consciousness that one has to learn this science of the real situation of activities, in terms of the modes of Nature. Otherwise, his life is very wrong. By the instruction of a bona fide spiritual master, a living entity can know of his spiritual position, his material body, his senses, how he is entrapped, and how he is under the spell of the material modes of Nature. He is helpless, being in the grip of these modes. But when he can see his real position, then he can attain to the transcendental platform, having the scope for spiritual life. Actually, the living entity is not the performer of different activities. He is forced to act because he is situated in a particular type of body, conducted by some particular mode of material Nature. And unless one has the help of spiritual authority, he cannot understand what position he is actually in. But with the association of a bona fide spiritual master, he can see his real position; and, by such an understanding, he can become fixed in full Krishna consciousness. A man in Krishna consciousness is not controlled by the spell of the material modes of Nature. It has already been stated in the Seventh Chapter that one who has surrendered to Krishna is relieved from the activities of the material Nature. Therefore, for one who is able to see things as they are, the influence of material Nature slowly ceases.
20: When he is able to transcend these three qualities, the embodied being can become free from birth, death, old age, and their distresses, and can enjoy nectar even in this life.
21: Arjuna inquired: O my dear Lord, by what symptoms is one known who is transcendental to those qualities? What is his behavior? And how does he transcend the mode of Nature?
22-23: The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: He who neither hates nor desires the development of the three qualities of illumination, attachment, and delusion, who is transcendentally situated, remaining neutral through all the reactions of the qualities, thinking that they may work, but that he is transcendental;
24: He who looks equally upon happiness and distress, upon a pebble, a stone, or a piece of gold, who is equal toward the desirable and the undesirable, steady and well-situated in defamation or in adoration;
25: He is said to be transcendentally situated, when he treats equally both honor and dishonor, both friend and enemy, and is not engaged in material activities. That is the position of transcendence over the three modes of Nature.
26: One who is engaged in full devotional service, unfailing in all circumstances, at once transcends the modes of material Nature, and thus comes to the level of Brahman.
27: And I am the basis of the impersonal Brahman, which is immortal and imperishable, eternal, the constitutional position of ultimate happiness.
PURPORT
BRAHMAN IS THE beginning of transcendental realization. Paramatman, the Supersoul, is the middle, the second stage of transcendental realization; and the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the ultimate realization of the Absolute Truth. Therefore, both Paramatman and the impersonal Brahman are within the Supreme Person. It is explained in the Seventh Chapter that material Nature is the manifestation of the inferior energy of the Supreme Lord; and, impregnating the inferior material Nature with fragments of the superior Nature, is the spiritual touch. When a living entity, conditioned by this material Nature, begins the cultivation of spiritual knowledge, he elevates himself from the position of material existence, and gradually rises up to the Brahman conception of the Supreme. This attainment of the Brahman conception of life is the first stage in self-realization. At this stage the Brahman-realized person is transcendental to the material position; but he is not actually perfect in realization. If he wants, he can continue to stay in the Brahman position and then gradually rise up to the Paramatman realization, and then to the Supreme Personality of Godhead realization. There are many examples of this in Vedic literature. The four Kumaras were situated first in the impersonal Brahman conception of Truth, but then they gradually rose to the platform of devotional service.
One who cannot elevate himself beyond the impersonal conception of Brahman, to the higher stage of the personal conception of God, runs the risk of falling down. In The Srimad Bhagwatam it is stated that a person may rise to the stage of impersonal Brahman, but, without going further, with no information of the Supreme Person, his intelligence is not perfectly clear. Therefore, in spite of being raised to the Brahman platform, there is the chance of falling down, not being engaged in the devotional service of the Lord. When one understands the Personality of Godhead, the Reservoir of Pleasure, Krishna, then he actually becomes transcendentally blissful. The Supreme Lord is full in six opulences; and when a devotee approaches Him, there is reciprocation with these opulences. The servant of the king enjoys an almost equal level with the king. And so, imperishable happiness, eternal life—these things accompany devotional service. Therefore, all conceptions of Brahman, or eternity, or imperishability are included in devotional service. They are all subordinate to a person who is engaged in devotional service.
Thus end the Bhaktivedanta Purports to the Fourteenth Chapter of The Srimad Bhagavad Gita, in the matter of the Three Modes of Material Nature.