Link to purport by A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada

Transcript of Bhakti-Shastri class on this verse by Chaitanya

He is transcendental also so how He is transcendental and what transcendence of Krishna implies that will be discussed in next verse

Bg 7.13

tribhir guṇa-mayair bhāvair
ebhiḥ sarvam idaṁ jagat
mohitaṁ nābhijānāti
mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam

Word for word: 

tribhiḥ — three; guṇa–mayaiḥ — consisting of the guṇas; bhāvaiḥ — by the states of being; ebhiḥ — all these;sarvam — whole; idam — this; jagat — universe; mohitam — deluded; na abhijānāti — does not know; mām — Me; ebhyaḥ — above these; param — the Supreme; avyayam — inexhaustible.

Translation: 

Deluded by the three modes [goodness, passion and ignorance], the whole world does not know Me, who am above the modes and inexhaustible.

 

We completed first section in 07th chapter in BG, first section about knowledge about Sri Krishna, then second section from BG 07.13 to BG 07.25 is about how knowledge of Krishna leads to surrender and talks about people who surrenders and people who don’t surrender and people who surrender to something other than Sri Krishna.

tribhir guṇa-mayair bhāvair

So there are three modes, filled with the three modes, made with the three modes comprising of this three existence i.e. bhāvair

ebhiḥ sarvam idaṁ jagat

this whole world is mohitaṁ, everything in this world everyone in this world is bewildered by the three modes 

nābhijānāti

they do not know, what they do not know 

mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam

that I am Param, that I am transcendental and I am imperishable param avyayam

So here Sri Krishna is talking about His relationship with the three modes and Sri Krishna is emphasizing the point that He is beyond the three modes. His position is transcendental always. So 

tribhir guṇa-mayair bhāvair

we have this three modes but Sri Krishna’s position is transcendental to three modes and in fact it is three mode which cause the bewilderment and which make people forget Krishna

mohitaṁ nābhijānāti
So how does mode make us forget Sri Krishna? The modes color our perception for everything, if I have red tinted glasses then everything seems red to me so the modes itself comprises of different color tinted glasses. So goodness is one kind of tinted glass, passion is one kind of tinted glass, ignorance is one kind of tinted glass. And all these three are different glasses and they all causes different kind of tinting. But more tinting is coloring contamination of our vision, now beyond that in general all the three modes are material so overall there is a material covering there is a material contamination material distortion of our perception and because of that we won’t understand Krishna’s transcendental position. 

mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam

Krishna is saying Param, I am transcendentally situated and avyayam which means imperishable. So transcendental and imperishable.

So Krishna is beyond the limits of time and space so Param can be correlated with space, avyayam can be correlated with time. Everything in this world is limited by time and space but Krishna is transcendental to time and space mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam.

Srila Prabhupada talked in the purport how even people in goodness are bewildered about Krishna. How we see that? We see that in SB 10th canto, where practically everyone demigods like Indra, Brahma, and even Shiva, there is description of directly that Shiva is bewildered in Vrindavan but later on Shiva take side of Banasur and later on when Shiva Jvara is defeated by Narayan Jvara in the fight on Banasur forces with Krishna forces, at that time Shiva surrender and offers prayers. So in this way everybody is bewildered by the three modes. So contamination of three modes prevents us from understanding what reality is. And that causes us to stay is illusion. And now people talk about illusion in relative term also that means a drunker thinks that alcohol is a source of happiness although alcohol is a source of bondage and misery so like that there are illusions in the material world also. Within material world there are things which seems pleasurable but turns out to be miserable afterwards so that is true but what Krishna is talking here is much greater, actually Krishna is talking about how in this world everyone is overcome by illusion with respect to understanding Him. Illusion with respect to things of this world get us to material bondage they may cause the effect like a person is in passion and get addicted to alcohol and goes to ignorance and sometime the person may be in ignorance may be addicted to something and by some laborious effort by will power or by some therapy may become sober and give up addiction that person will be freed from illusion caused by mode of ignorance but still the person may have illusion of passion e.g. now I am free from illusion and now I can work hard and I can make big in life I will have big house, family and I will be happy in life so that is in illusion and passion so there may be movement in various kinds of illusions from passion down to ignorance or from ignorance to passion or even to goodness but overall the person stays in illusion as long as we do not understand Sri Krishna properly we stay in illusion so the three mode may cause their individual illusions but beyond the three modes also cause illusion about Sri Krishna and that illusion Sri Krishna is focusing over here because that is the illusion which keeps us in bondage in material existence.

So now naturally the question will come up if modes binds the person and keep the person in illusion then how can such a person come out of illusion that Srila Prabhupada described in the next verse and Krishna has answered in the next verse.

End of transcription.