Prabhupāda: Hmm. This is very important verse in Bhagavad-gītā. It is a turning point of life. Kārpaṇya-doṣa. Miserly. Doṣa means fault When one does not act according to his position, that is fault, and that is called miserly. So everyone has got his natural propensities, svabhāva. Yasya hi svabhāvasya tasyāso duratikramaḥ. Svabhāva, natural propensities. It is a common example, it is given, that yasya hi yaḥ svabhāvasya tasyāso duratikramaḥ. One . . . habit is the second nature.
One who has, who is habituated, or one whose nature, characteristic in some way, it is very difficult to change. The example is given: śvā yadi kriyate rājā saḥ kiṁ na so uparhanam. If you make a dog a king, does it mean that he'll not lick up shoes? Yes, dog's nature is to lick up shoes. So even if you dress him like a king and let him sit down on a throne, still, as soon as he'll see one shoe, he'll jump over and lick it. This is called svabhāva. Kārpaṇya-doṣa.
So in the animal life it is not possible to change one's nature, which is given by the material energy, prakṛti. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni (BG 3.27). Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya . . . kāraṇaṁ guṇa-sangaḥ asya sad-asad-janma-yoniṣu (BG 13.22). Why? All living entities are part and parcel of God. Therefore originally the characteristic of the living entity is as good as God. Simply it is a question of quantity. Quality is the same. Quality is the same. Mamaivāṁśo jīva-bhūtaḥ (BG 15.7).
The same example—if you take a drop of seawater, the quality, the chemical composition, is the same, but the quantity is different. It is a drop, and the sea is vast ocean. Similarly, we are exactly of the same quality as Kṛṣṇa. We can study. Why people say God is impersonal? If I am of the same quality, so God is also person, how He can be imperson? If qualitatively we are one, then as I feel individually, so why God should be refused individuality? This is another nonsense.
The impersonalist rascal, they cannot understand what is the nature of God. In the Bible also it is said: "Man is made after God." You can study God's quality by studying your quality, or anyone's quality. Simply the difference is the quantity's different. I have got some quality, some productive capacity. We also produce, every individual soul is producing something. But his production cannot be compared with the production of God. That is the difference. We are producing one flying machine. We are taking very much pride that, "Now we have discovered the sputnik. It is going to the moon planet." But that is not perfect. It is coming back. But God has produced so many flying planets, millions and trillions of planets, very heavy, heavy planets.
Just like this planet is carrying so many big, big mountains, sea, but still it is flying. It is floating in the air just like a cotton swab. This is God's power. Gām āviśya (BG 15.13). In the Bhagavad-gītā, you'll find: ahaṁ dhārayāmy ojasā. Who is sustaining all these big, big planets? We are explaining "gravity." And in the śāstra we find that it is being carried by Saṅkarṣaṇa.
So the quality is the same, but the quantity is different. So because the quality's same, so we have got all the propensities as God has, as Kṛṣṇa has. Kṛṣṇa has got loving propensities with His pleasure potency, Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. Similarly, because we are part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, we have also got this loving propensity. So this is svabhava. But when we come in contact with this material nature . . . Kṛṣṇa does not come into the contact of the material nature. Therefore, Kṛṣṇa's name is Acyuta. He never falls down. But we are prone to fall down, to be under the . . . prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni. We are now under the influence of prakṛti.
Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ (BG 3.27). As soon as we fall down under the clutches of this prakṛti, material nature, which means . . . prakṛti's composed of three qualities: goodness, passion and ignorance. So we capture one of the quality. That is the cause, kāraṇaṁ, guṇa-sanga (BG 13.22). Guṇa-saṅga means associating with different quality, guna-saṅga, asya jīvasya, of the living entity. That is the cause. One can ask: "If the living entity is as good as God, why one living entity has become dog and one living entity has become god, demigod, Brahmā?" Now, the answer is kāraṇam. The reason is guṇa-saṅga asya. Asya jīvasya guṇa-saṅga: because he's associating with a particular guṇa: sattva-guṇa, rajo-guṇa, tamo-guṇa.
So these things are described very vividly in Upaniṣad, how guṇa-sanga acts. Just like a fire; there are sparks. The . . . sometimes the sparks fall down from the fire. Now there are three condition of the fire spark falling down: If the spark falls down on dry grass, then it can immediately ignite the grass, the dry grass. If the spark falls down on ordinary grass, then it burns for some time, then again it becomes extinguished. But if the spark falls down on the water, immediately extinguished, the fiery quality. So those who are captured by the sattva-guṇa, sattva-guṇa, they are intelligent. They have got knowledge. Just like brāhmaṇa. And those who are captured by the rajo-guṇa, they are busy in material activities. And those who have captured tamo-guṇa, they are lazy and sleepy. That's all. These are the symptoms.