Link to purport by A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada

Transcript of Bhakti-Shastri class on this verse by Chaitanya Charan

Bg 17.2

śrī-bhagavān uvāca
tri-vidhā bhavati śraddhā
dehināṁ sā svabhāva-jā
sāttvikī rājasī caiva
tāmasī ceti tāṁ śṛṇu

Synonyms: 

śrī–bhagavān uvāca — the Supreme Personality of Godhead said; tri–vidhā — of three kinds; bhavati — becomes; śraddhā — the faith; dehinām — of the embodied; sā — that; sva–bhāva–jā — according to his mode of material nature; sāttvikī — in the mode of goodness; rājasī — in the mode of passion; ca — also; eva — certainly; tāmasī— in the mode of ignorance; ca — and; iti — thus; tām — that; śṛṇu — hear from Me.

Translation: 

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: According to the modes of nature acquired by the embodied soul, one’s faith can be of three kinds – in goodness, in passion or in ignorance. Now hear about this.

śrī-bhagavān uvāca, Sri Bhagvan says

tri-vidhā bhavati śraddhā, that Sradha is of three types

dehināṁ sā svabhāva-jā, for the dehināṁ, for the embodied living being svabhāva-jā, it is born from faith.

sāttvikī rājasī caiva, that there is goodness, there is passion, 

tāmasī ceti tāṁ śṛṇu, and there is tamsi also

So Sradha is of three types, now in Arjuna’s already faith in three modes goodness passion and ignorance in mentioned? Then what is the point of Sri Krishna repeating the same thing? So the emphasis of Sri Krishna’s point is svabhāva-jā, which means born of one’s nature. Of course we can say that nature is born of one’s past karma, dehināṁ sā svabhāva-jā.

So our faith is determined by our nature what does it means? Nature means the way we think we act, the way we perceive, the way we respond, that is our nature, our nature also determines our faith, there is nobody who is faithless even a faithless person is also not faithless generally for faithless is used for somebody who is atheist, so even atheist has their own version of faith. They have faith in nonexistence of God. But no one can prove that there is no God; as invisibility is not a proof of non-existence. For atheism there is no experiential verification possible but Vedic theism is experiential there is whole process of Yoga, there are various yoga and there is Bhakti Yoga. Bhakti Yoga enables one to experiential verification of what is taught in scriptures and in that way one can realize what the truth is. 

So actually both atheist and theist have to escribe inconceivability to something, where the universe has come from and how all the majestic variety of universe has come about that is something there is no logical explanation about it. If we use logic in the narrow sense of material cause and effect how matter suddenly gave our consciousness, how matter developed self-organizing capability, how matter design the level of complexity and intricacies that we see around the world that is inconceivable, so the atheist escribe inconceivable characteristic to matter but there is no process by which we can realize matter, so atheism is faith in faithlessness. 

Purport: The association of the living entity with the different modes of nature has been going on perpetually; since the living entity is in contact with material nature, he acquires different types of mentality according to his association with the material modes. But this nature can be changed if one associates with a bona fide spiritual master and abides by his rules and the scriptures….

…. One has to consider things carefully, with intelligence, in the association of a bona fide spiritual master.

So svabhāva-jā, we are born with a particular kind of nature and that shapes our faith but it can be changed, in fact the whole BG is spoken to elevate our understanding of faith.

End of transcription.