Live the Bhāgavatam · SB 10.24.22
Visarga· Brahmā's creationRecognizing a Mechanistic Explanation of Nature
“The causes of creation, maintenance and destruction are the three modes of nature — namely goodness, passion and ignorance. In particular, the mode of passion creates this universe and through sexual combination causes it to become full of variety.”
What the purport teaches
- The verse describes goodness, passion and ignorance as the causes of maintenance, creation and destruction.
- In this explanation, passion produces the universe and fills it with variety through sexual combination.
- The purport explains that Lord Kṛṣṇa introduces atheistic Sāṅkhya to anticipate an objection about dependence on Indra for rain. Attributing exclusive causality to nature’s apparently mechanical functions is an ancient tendency.
Try this today
Reread the purport and note why Kṛṣṇa introduces this mechanistic argument.
Ask yourself
Do I assume that describing nature’s mechanisms fully explains existence?
Carry the question through the day, then answer it in your own words before sleep.
From Canto 10, chapter 14 onward, the translation and purports were completed by Śrīla Prabhupāda's disciples after his departure, and published by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.