Text 13
sattvam rajas tama iti
guṇās tad-vṛttayaś ca yāḥ
tvayy addhā brahmaṇi pare
kalpitā yoga-māyayā
sattvam rajaḥ tamaḥ iti — known as goodness, passion and ignorance; guṇāḥ — the modes of material nature; tat — their; vṛttayaḥ — functions; ca — and; yāḥ — which; tvayi — within You; addhāḥ — manifestly; brahmaṇi — within the Absolute Truth; pare — supreme; kalpitāḥ — arranged; yoga-māyayā — by Yoga-māyā (the internal potency of the Supreme Lord that facilitates His pastimes).
The modes of material nature — namely goodness, passion and ignorance — together with all their functions, become directly manifest within You, the Supreme Absolute Truth, by the arrangement of Your Yoga-māyā.
Vasudeva’s description of how the Supreme Lord expands Himself into the products of the three material modes may possibly be misunderstood to imply that He is touched by the modes, or even that He is subject to destruction. To negate these misunderstandings, Vasudeva states here that the three modes and their products function by the arrangement of the Lord’s creative energy, Yoga-māyā, who is always completely under His control. Thus the Lord is never tainted in the least by any material contact.