Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 2 Chapter 1 Verse 20

Canto 2: The Cosmic Manifestation | Chapter 1: The First Step in God Realization

Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 2.1.20

rajas-tamobhyām ākṣiptaḿ

vimūḍhaḿ mana ātmanaḥ

yacched dhāraṇayā dhīro

hanti yā tat-kṛtaḿ malam

SYNONYMS

rajaḥ — the passionate mode of nature; tamobhyām — as well as by the ignorant mode of material nature; ākṣiptam — agitated; vimūḍham — bewildered; manaḥ — the mind; ātmanaḥ — of one's own; yacchet — get it rectified; dhāraṇayā — by conception (of Viṣṇu); dhīraḥ — the pacified; hanti — destroys; yā — all those; tat-kṛtam — done by them; malam — dirty things.

TRANSLATION

One's mind is always agitated by the passionate mode of material nature and bewildered by the ignorant mode of nature. But one can rectify such conceptions by the relation of Viṣṇu and thus become pacified by cleansing the dirty things created by them.

PURPORT

Persons generally conducted by the modes of passion and ignorance cannot be bona fide candidates for being situated in the transcendental stage of God realization. Only persons conducted by the mode of goodness can have the knowledge of the Supreme Truth. Effects of the modes of passion and ignorance are manifested by too much hankering after wealth and women. And those who are too much after wealth and women can rectify their leanings only by constant remembrance of Viṣṇu in His potential impersonal feature. Generally the impersonalists or monists are influenced by the modes of passion and ignorance. Such impersonalists think of themselves as liberated souls, but they have no knowledge of the transcendental personal feature of the Absolute Truth. Actually they are impure in heart on account of being devoid of knowledge of the personal feature of the Absolute. In the Bhagavad-gītā, it is said that after many hundreds of births, the impersonal philosopher surrenders unto the Personality of Godhead. To acquire such a qualification of God realization in the personal feature, the neophyte impersonalist is given a chance to realize the relation of the Lord in everything by the philosophy of pantheism.

Pantheism in its higher status does not permit the student to form an impersonal conception of the Absolute Truth, but it extends the conception of the Absolute Truth into the field of the so-called material energy. Everything created by the material energy can be dovetailed with the Absolute by an attitude of service, which is the essential part of living energy. The pure devotee of the Lord knows the art of converting everything into its spiritual existence by this service attitude, and only in that devotional way can the theory of pantheism be perfected.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness