Shloka 7
Guṇa-viveka, Haṁsa-gītā, and the Yoga that Cuts False Ego
वेणुसङ्घर्षजो वह्निर्दग्ध्वा शाम्यति तद्वनम् । एवं गुणव्यत्ययजो देह: शाम्यति तत्क्रिय: ॥ ७ ॥
veṇu-saṅgharṣa-jo vahnir dagdhvā śāmyati tad-vanam evaṁ guṇa-vyatyaya-jo dehaḥ śāmyati tat-kriyaḥ
ဝါးတောထဲတွင် လေကြောင့် ဝါးတံများ ပွတ်တိုက်ရာမှ မီးတောက်ပေါ်လာပြီး ထိုမီးသည် မိမိမွေးဖွားရာ ဝါးတောကိုပင် လောင်ကျွမ်းစေကာ နောက်ဆုံးတွင် ကိုယ်တိုင်ပင် ငြိမ်းသက်သွားသည်။ ထိုနည်းတူ ဂုဏ်များ၏ အပြန်အလှန် ထိတွေ့ယှဉ်ပြိုင်မှုကြောင့် ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာနှင့် စိတ်ခန္ဓာ ပေါ်ပေါက်လာသည်; စိတ်နှင့် ကိုယ်ကို ဉာဏ်ပညာပွားရေးတွင် အသုံးချလျှင် ထိုအလင်းဉာဏ်သည် မွေးဖွားစေသော ဂုဏ်အာနိသင်ကို ဖျက်ဆီး၍ ကိုယ်-စိတ်ကို ငြိမ်းချမ်းစေသည်။
The word guṇa-vyatyaya-jaḥ is significant in this verse. Vyatyaya indicates change or inversion in the normal order of things. Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura has described the concept of vyatyaya by giving the Sanskrit synonym vaiṣamya, which indicates inequality or disproportionate diversity. Thus, it is understood by the term guṇa-vyatyaya-jaḥ that the body is generated by the unstable relationships of the three modes of material nature, which exist everywhere in constantly changing proportions. There is constant strife among the modes of nature. A good person is sometimes torn by passion, and a passionate person sometimes wants to give up everything and rest. An ignorant person may sometimes become disgusted with his depraved life, and a passionate person may sometimes indulge in bad habits in the mode of ignorance. Due to the interactive conflict of the modes of nature, one wanders throughout material nature creating one body after another by one’s own work, karma. As it is said, variety is the mother of enjoyment, and the variety of material modes gives hope to the conditioned souls that by changing their material situation their unhappiness and frustration can be turned into happiness and satisfaction. But even if one acquires relative material happiness, that will soon be disturbed by the inevitable flux of the material modes.
FAQs
This verse explains that the body is produced by the interaction of the three guṇas, and in due course it is extinguished—along with the activities done through it—just as a fire born from bamboo friction burns the grove and then dies out.
Kṛṣṇa instructs Uddhava in renunciation and spiritual clarity: by seeing the body as a temporary product of material modes, one becomes less entangled in karma and more fixed in devotion and liberation.
Remember that bodily roles and achievements are temporary products of material nature; act responsibly, but reduce attachment and ego, and redirect your identity toward the eternal self and devotion to Bhagavān.