icchā-dveṣa-samutthena
dvandva-mohena bhārata
sarva-bhūtāni sammohaḿ
sarge yānti paran-tapa
Translation of Bhagavad Gita 7.27
O scion of Bharata, O conqueror of the foe, all living entities are born into delusion, bewildered by dualities arisen from desire and hate.
Commentary by Sri A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada of Gaudiya Sampradaya:
The real constitutional position of the living entity is that of subordination to the Supreme Lord, who is pure knowledge. When one is deluded into separation from this pure knowledge, he becomes controlled by illusory energy and cannot understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The illusory energy is manifested in the duality of desire and hate. Due to desire and hate, the ignorant person wants to become one with the Supreme Lord and envies Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Pure devotees, who are not deluded or contaminated by desire and hate, can understand that Lord Sri Krishna appears by His internal potencies, but those who are deluded by duality and nescience think that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is created by material energies. This is their misfortune. Such deluded persons, symptomatically, dwell in dualities of dishonor and honor, misery and happiness, woman and man, good and bad, pleasure and pain, etc., thinking, “This is my wife; this is my house; I am the master of this house; I am the husband of this wife.” These are the dualities of delusion. Those who are so deluded by dualities are completely foolish and therefore cannot understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Commentary by Sri Vishvanatha Chakravarthi Thakur of Gaudiya Sampradaya:
When do the jivas become bewildered by your maya? At the beginning of the creation of this universe (sarge), all the jivas (sarva bhutani) become bewildered. How? Desire for objects favorable to the senses, and hatred for things which obstruct the pleasure of the senses, arising from previous actions, give rise to illusion of duality—of respect and disrespect, hot and cold, happiness and distress, and woman and man. One thinks “I am happy, being respected.” “I am sad, being disrespected.” “This is my wife.” “This is my husband.” This duality gives rise to ignorance (moha). That in turn gives rise to complete bewilderment (sammoham), extreme attachment to wife and sons.
Those who are extremely attached are not qualified for devotion to me. I will explain this to Uddhava:
yadrcchaya mat-kathadau jata-sraddhas tu yah puman
na nirvinno nati-sakto bhakti-yogo ‘sya siddhi-dah
If somehow or other by good fortune one develops faith in hearing and chanting My glories, such a person, being neither very disgusted with nor attached to material life, should achieve perfection through the path of loving devotion to Me. SB 11.20.8
Commentary by Sri Ramanuja of Sri Sampradaya:
7.27 As soon as beings are born they are deluded. This delusion springs from sense experiences described as pairs of opposites like heat and cold. Such reactions spring from desire and hate. The purport is this: Desire and hatred for the pairs of opposites like pleasure and pain, which are constituted of Gunas, have their origin in the Jivas from the past experiences they had in their previous births. The subtle impressions or Vasanas of these previous experiences manifest again as instinctive desire and hatred towards similar objects in every succeeding birth of the Jivas. The delusive force of these impressions make them deluded from the very beginning. It becomes their nature to have love or hatred for such objects, in place of having happiness and misery at union with or separation from Me. The Jnanin, however, feels happiness when he is in union with Me and misery when separated from Me. No other being is born with such a nature as found in the Jnanin.
Commentary by Sri Sridhara Swami of Rudra Sampradaya:
Thus the ignorance of embodied beings and their lack of cognisance in regard to the Supreme Lord due to the influence of maya or illusory impressions superimposed upon the mind has been stated. The reason for the severity of such ignorance is spoken by Lord Krishna with the words sarva bhutani sammoham meaning all forms of life are completely deluded. At one’s very birth when the physical body comes into existence the delusion begins due to the influence of dualities. The external perceptions of happiness and misery, heat and cold, success and failure which arise out of the desire for what is pleasing and the aversion for that which is displeasing, deeply binds an embodied being to primarily identify with their physical body and thus the delusion increases. Always occupied with how to acquire happiness and constantly worrying about how to avoid misery people take no time to acquire knowledge about the Supreme Lord and having no knowledge they remain deluded never knowing who He is and worshipping Him.
Commentary by Sri Madhvacharya of Brahma Sampradaya:
Embracing the delusion of the dualities such as pleasure and pain, praise and ridicule, joy and grief along with desire and attachment to sense objects it impossible to acquire the awareness of atma tattva or soul realisation which is the essential and exclusive prerequisite to God consciousness. All these obstacles and hindrances were mandated as Lord Krishna reveals by the word sarge meaning at the very beginning of creation as soon which means for us as soon as our atma or eternal soul became an embodied being. With the acceptance of a physical body dualities, desires and attachments arise and before the acceptance of a the physical body there was no awareness of them.
Now begins the summation.
The delusions of duality are illusionary and opposed to knowledge. As in darkness everything appears similar so in the case of delusion everything is in illusion. The Mahabharata has discussed this point in detail as follows. There is duality between the Supreme Lord and the embodied being and this is real knowledge. All other dualities are illusory and are known as dvanda-moha or a delusion of dualities. Avidya or non-knowledge is its effect and because its effect leads to even greater delusions there is a resultant mixture of anger. The Agni Purana states that: The embodied being who assumes that they are the same as the Supreme Lord or that the Supreme Lord is the same as the embodied being or that there is no difference between the Supreme Lord and the embodied being is one who is beguiled and bewildered by maya or illusory impressions superimposed upon the mind.
Commentary by Sri Keshava Kashmiri of Kumara Sampradaya:
In this way human beings are ignorant and kept in the dark about knowledge of the Supreme Lord. This is due to maya or illusory impressions superimposed upon the mind. This is what is being stated by the words dvanda-mohena or the delusion arising due to dualities such as joy and sorrow, success and failure, pleasure and pain, etc. When all beings take birth in their gross physical bodies they acquire an ego sense and fall prey to infatuation. In situations where the transitory body feels happiness from sense objects there is attraction and in situations where it feels unhappiness from sense objects there is aversion. Hence bewildered and befuddled constantly the embodied being thinks of themselves as the physical body and never attempts for self-realisation to discover the atma or immortal soul within themselves. The subsequent reactions from these two mentalities of attraction and aversion have been accumulated from all an embodied beings previous lifetimes through the delusion of I am happy because of this; or I am unhappy because of that. This is why most humans do not recognise Lord Krishna’s supreme position and propitiate Him, they are consumed by the reactions to their past actions while busily performing new actions based on the infatuation of attraction and aversion ceaselessly increasing more and more future reactions.
Commentary by Sri Adi Shankaracharya of Advaita Sampradaya:
7.27 Iccha-dvesa-samutthena, by what arises from likes and dislikes: iccha, likes, and dvesa, dislikes, are iccha-dvesau; anything arising from them is icchadvesa-samutthah. (Creatures are duluded) by that. By what? When that is thus sought to be known in particular, the Lord answers: dvandva-mohena, by the delusion of duality. Delusion (moha) that originates from duality (advandva) is dvandva-moha. Those very likes and dislikes, which are mutually opposed like heat and cold, which relate to happiness and sorrow and their causes, and which come into association with all beings in due course, are termed as duality (and this deludes all creatures). As regards them, when likes and dislikes arise from the experience of happiness, sorrow and their causes, then, by bringing the wisdom of all beings under their control, they create bewilderment which is the cause of the impediment to the rise of knowledg about the reality of Self, the suprem Truth. Indeed, exact knowledg about objects even in the external world does not arise in one whose mind is overpowered by the defects, viz likes and dislikes. It goes without saying that knowledge of the indwelling Self, beset with many obstacles as it is, does not arise in a completely bewildered person whose intelligence has been overcome by them. Therefore, bharata, O scion of the Bharata dynasty; owing to that delusion of duality arising from likes and dislikes, sarvabhutani, all creatures become deluded. Parantapa, O destroyer of foes; they yanti sammoham, become bewildered, come under delusion; sarge, at the time of their birth, i.e. at the time of their origination. The idea is that all creatures that come into being do so prepossessed by delusion. ‘Since this is so, therefore all creatures, being deluded and having their wisdom obstructed by that delusion of duality, do not know Me who am their Self. Hence, they do not adore Me as their Self.’ ‘Who, again, are those that, becoming free from the delusion of duality, come to know You, and adore You as the Self in accordance with the scriptures?’ In order to elaborate the subject enquired about, it is being said:
Commentary by Sri Abhinavagupta of Kaula Tantra Sampradaya:
7.27 Iccha-etc. [At the time of destruction] he (the personal Soul) is led to expand exceedingly, while he still remains unconcious on account of his desire, aversion, agner, dellusion etc. On account of this, the entire world takes recourse to the sleeping stage while it continues to exist in its entirity within the stomach of the Prakrti (the Prime Casue); and to exist just being (temporarily) not capable of performing its activities. For, as long as there is delusion, the mental impressions are to be experienced, as in the case of the sleeping stage in the night time every day. But on that account no emancipation is gained. For, when the experience of loss of unconsciousness is over (i.e., when consciousness is regained), again the mundane life with its varieties of activites is found.
Sanskrit Shloka Without Transliteration Marks:
icchā-dveṣa-samutthena
dvandva-mohena bhārata
sarva-bhūtāni sammohaḿ
sarge yānti paran-tapa
Sanskrit to English Word for Word Meanings:
icchā — desire; dveṣa — and hate; samutthena — arisen from; dvandva — of duality; mohena — by the illusion; bhārata — O scion of Bharata; sarva — all; bhūtāni — living entities; sammoham — into delusion; sarge — while taking birth; yānti — go; param-tapa — O conqueror of enemies.
