The three modes of material nature — goodness, passion, and ignorance — are three categories that describe the primary characteristics of the external energy. Material nature consists of these modes.
The broad pallete of material characteristics (including all species of life) derive from various mixtures of the modes, just as all possible colours are mixtures of the three primary colours.
In the material world, the modes never exist in a pure state. They are always mixed to some degree or another.
They compete with one another for superiority, sometimes one particular mode gaining prominence over the other two.
The particular mixture of the modes comprising one's body determines one's behaviour, speech, and state of mind. Everyone is conditioned by the modes they have acquired.
The spirit soul bewildered by the influence of false ego thinks himself the doer of activities that are in actuality carried out by the three modes of material nature. (Bhagavad-gita 3.27)
They influence one's particular kind of faith, what one believes, and how one sees the world.
Thus the material modes of nature are a significant factor in shaping existence in the material world.
Krishna dedicates the entire 14th chapter of the Bhagavad-gita to explaining the modes of the material nature and He continues this theme in the 17th and 18th chapters.
Why is understanding this knowledge so important for spiritual life?
Why does Krishna (Bhagavad-gita 14.1) call this knowledge of the modes of material nature "the best of all knowledge, knowing which all the sages have attained the supreme perfection"?
How is it that (Bhagavad-gita 14.2) "By becoming fixed in this knowledge, one can attain to the transcendental nature..."?
In his purport to the first verse, Srila Prabhupada says, "Now, in this chapter, the Supreme Personality explains what those modes of nature are, how they act, how they bind, and how they give liberation."
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