This is the lower Nature, not the higher; it is base, impure, working harm, of the very form of the bondage of transmigration. Apart from this lower Nature, know My other Nature, the wholly pure, which is My own Self, the higher, which has become the living being, marked as the knower of the field, the cause of the upholding of the vital breath, O mighty-armed one. By this Nature, having entered within, this world is upheld.

This is My lower nature; but other than this, know My other nature, distinct from this insentient one which is the thing to be enjoyed by the conscious, a nature of a kind unlike it, become the soul, higher, since it is the chief over that insentient nature by being its enjoyer, conscious in form, Mine; by which this whole insentient world is upheld.

'The lower' means the one that is not the highest. Compared with the one yet to be spoken of, Shri, who has become the living beings, who upholds the life-breath of the living beings, is of the form of consciousness and ever exists, as the scripture says, 'this is the great, this is the great being' (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.4.12). The Naradiya tells it: 'two are the prakritis of God, the insentient and the sentient. The insentient, named the unmanifest, is in turn divided eightfold by creation: the great principle, the buddhi, the mind, and the five elements. That insentient one is the lower; and this higher one, Shri, is upheld likewise. She is of the form of consciousness, endless, beginningless and endless, the higher. There is nothing dear that is equal to the great-souled Vishnu; she is the queen of Narayana, and the mother even of Brahma. By these two Hari, the king of beings, creates this whole world'.