Goodness, passion, and darkness are the modes (guṇāḥ) born of material nature. They bind the eternal embodied spirit soul that is dwelling in the body. The mode of goodness (sattvaṁ) is illuminating and engenders clarity. However, it also binds the soul with attachment to happiness and knowledge. The mode of passion (rajas) is born from the thirst for material association and binds the embodied soul with attachment to material fruitive actions. The mode of darkness (tamas), born of ignorance, binds the soul with madness, lethargy, and sleep.

From the mode of goodness, knowledge develops, which leads to clarity. From the mode of passion develops greed alone, which finally results in misery. From the mode of darkness develop madness and illusion resulting in ignorance. Those situated in the mode of goodness go upward to the higher planets. Those in the mode of passion stay among fruitive workers and those situated in the most abominable mode – the mode of darkness – go downward into animal species of life. In our life, we experience a combination of these three modes, and yet owing to our food habits, our actions, and our friend-circle, our consciousness gets predominantly influenced by a particular mode, which defines our future destination.

The modes of material nature seem insurmountable but there is a way out. One who serves Krishna with unadulterated bhakti yoga can transcend the three modes of material nature completely and come to the stage of spiritual perfection. This stage of transcendence is characterized by one’s equal disposition toward the dualities offered by this material world — happiness and distress, stone and gold, desirable and undesirable events, praise and blame, honor and dishonor, friends and enemies — thus carrying a spirit of renunciation and indifference in all material endeavors.