This material energy consists of the three attributes and modes of influence of material nature; virtue, passion and ignorance, and one must rise at least to virtue before entering the path which leads to the knowledge of the Supreme Lord. Otherwise, it will be necessary to remain in passion and ignorance, the two attributes which are at the source of demonic existence.
Men dominated by passion and ignorance denigrate the original holy scriptures, holy men, the very attitude necessary to understand the teaching of God, and neglect the rules of the holy scriptures. They do not want to listen to God or to the true spiritual master, servant of the Lord, and want to act as they see fit. These are some of the faults that plague human society and lead it to demonic mode of existence.
It is ignorance that prevents the embodied soul from acting properly.
Ignorance is at the origin of the distraction, blindness, perdition, violence, aggressiveness, criminality and atheism of living beings. The real responsible for all this is ignorance.
Ignorance is, among other things, ignoring everything about God, not knowing what He really is. It is ignoring that each of us is a spiritual soul and not the body of matter. It is to ignore all of the true spiritual knowledge and the spiritual values of existence. It is ignoring everything about the bond that unites us to God, as well as the bond that binds us to each other. It is to ignore all of the absolute truth.
This is why the knowledge of Krishna, God, the Supreme Person, of his word and of his teaching marks the beginning of the spiritual life. Lord Krishna teaches it, the human being must learn that he is not the body of matter, but a spiritual soul. The true knowledge of Krishna, God, the Supreme Person, helps to combat ignorance. Truly knowing Krishna as He really is allows one to know all about Absolute Truth.
Human beings do not realize that there are two kinds of energies, material energy and spiritual energy. They say and really mean it, that everything is the product of material energy. Their mistake is that they take matter as their starting point, and not spiritual energy.
Or in a sense, because matter comes from the spirit, everything is spiritual. The spiritual energy forming the origin can exist independently of the material energy, but the reverse is not true. They believe that consciousness comes from matter, but in reality it has been around forever. However, when consciousness is covered by ignorance, it becomes a kind of unconsciousness.
The word “material” is the translation of forgetting God, and by the word “spiritual” it is necessary to understand to be “fully aware of God”.
The Lord continues: The man who knew how to avoid these three gates of hell dedicates his existence to acts which engage in the realization spiritual. He thus gradually attains the supreme goal.