Bhaktisashtri, BG unit 3, question 1

Question One.
With reference to Bhagvad-Gita Chapter 14, verses and purports discuss in your own words:
(A) Ways you are personally influenced by modes of passion and ignorance.
(B) Practical ways you can develop mode of goodness.

Answer (by Diptiman Gaurahari das)

(A) “If the world is devoted to the modes of passion and ignorance, there can be no peace
or prosperity. In the mode of passion, people become greedy, and their hankering for
sense enjoyment has no limit.” (Bhagavad-Gita 14.17)
Passion is exactly like it sounds, you are passionate about life and you are driven. People
in the mode of passion, they are just driven, they always have unlimited desires to
achieve this, achieve that, success, success. They are the people who are always trying
to get ahead, of what I do not know. Get ahead of themselves, make money, and make
money, business, and more business.
Also wars are in the mode of passion. All these kinds of things are the influence of the
mode of passion. Anger, you see is the mode of passion. People are driven by lust,
everybody is in lust in the material world but it’s at the highest level in the mode of
passion. So everything is about that whether it’s sex, business, competition, whatever it
is.
“Penance performed out of pride and for the sake of gaining respect, honor and worship
is said to be in the mode of passion. It is neither stable nor permanent. Sometimes
penance and austerity are executed to attract people and receive honor, respect and
worship from others. Persons in the mode of passion arrange to be worshipped by
subordinates and let them wash their feet and offer riches.” (Bhagavad-gita 17.18)
The power, the control, these are the mad men; completely mad, driven mad. And anger
is the next phase. The more you are in the mode of passion the more you are angry and
so you’re destroyed by that anger, it is completely miserable.
While on the other hand, The mode of ignorance is dark, very dark. Some of the symptoms
are intoxication, meat eating, lots of sleep, no ambition, just enough to survive. They are
not trying to go anywhere; they are just on the bottom looking up. It is a very dark hellish
mode, so that is not a good place to be. It is as if you are in a cloud; you’re just covered.
Then foods, and again, in the mode of ignorance, the number one is meat, completely in
the mode of ignorance. It covers you up and it covers your consciousness. You can only
go but so far spiritually if you eat meat.
Even if you are interested which most of the time they are not but even if they are they
can only go so far. It is like, this is the ceiling, and you cannot go past that point. It’s just
the way it is; it covers the consciousness. Meat eating makes people more aggressive. This
is a big subject and I cannot spend too much time. The Vedas teach, “Do not do it”.
No intoxication, “do not do it”. It will cover you and make you a completely insane person;
it will cover you completely.
And dark colors are mode of ignorance colors, like black. Also mode of ignorance sound,
all this modern music – passion and ignorance, they are all passion and ignorance.
 Bhaktisashtri, BG unit 3, question 1
(B) It will vary from person to person what specific measures to take but in general we have
to find out what are the factors that take our consciousness upwards, towards goodness
and Krishna consciousness and what are the things that take our consciousness
downwards towards passion and ignorance and accordingly maximize the first and
minimize the second.
For example, if exposure to certain things or having too many things to do that drags our
consciousness towards passion then we cannot avoid in having lot of things to do but we
can try to schedule some things. Broadly speaking if for example, we know that sleeping
in the day time puts us in the mode of ignorance then we can try to find out how we can
avoid that, may be by taking more rest at night or may be ensuring that we only take short
naps, or whatever.
Now more important than avoiding the negative is affirming the positive. That means
the mind is always going to be like a sine wave for a conceivable future because the
mind has the tendency to oscillate. The important thing is we have to find out what
keeps us sustained. That means when mind starts going down to the lower modes then
what can we do to bring ourselves back. For example, short breaks where in we hear
some favorite kirtans, sing some bhajans, or repeat some prayers, or even read some
favorite passages from scripture. Those are things which can help pull our consciousness
upwards.
Basically we can compare this to gravity. We know that gravity pulls us down but if there
are something which holding us up, there certain support, certain props by which we
can hold us up than by holding on to that we will move up. So we have to find out what
are the things that hold us up or what are things by holding which we can pull ourselves
upwards.
If we observe our own spiritual life we will find that these are the things which bring my
consciousness back up. Off course this is not mechanical, it is not that every time we do
our activity immediately our consciousness will move upwards but this is broad
principle, sometimes it’s like a war. Sometimes in a war one particular weapon doesn’t
work than we try our second weapon or third weapon. We try till something works and
then we start winning.
So because the mind is like a child and it is sometimes unpredictable in the sense that
sometimes the same activity may be relishable or sometimes it may not be relishable.
But overall the mind follows patterns. When we observe the mind carefully than from
that we learn what is the best way to deal with it.