Bhakti means fulfilling Krishna's desires; karma means fulfilling your own—choose wisely for liberation.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Bhagavad-gītā 16.4 — January 30, 1975, Honolulu 750130BG-HONOLULU [26:21 Minutes] BG-16.04_750130BG-HONOLULU Nitāi: [leads chanting of verse, etc.] dambho darpo 'bhimānaś ca krodhaḥ pāruṣyam eva ca ajñānaṁ cābhijātasya pārtha sampadam āsurīm [Bg. 16.4] [break] [02:01] "Arrogance, pride, anger, conceit, harshness and ignorance—these qualities belong to those of demoniac nature, O son of Pṛthā." Prabhupāda: dambho darpo 'bhimānaś ca krodhaḥ pāruṣyam eva ca ajñānaṁ cābhijātasya pārtha sampadam āsurīm [Bg. 16.4] We have discussed last night some of the divine characteristics, and abhayaṁ sattva-saṁśuddhiḥ, like that, sixteen divine characteristics. And here the demonic characteristics. We can understand a thing by analysis of characteristics. In the chemical laboratory, things are tested by characteristics.
Just like this chemical: "Color is like this. Shape is like this. Then taste is like this. Then chemical reaction is like this." They are stated for each and every chemical, and we can understand the purity by the characteristic.
The characteristic is also called dharma. Just like a snake. The snake characteristic is that unnecessarily, without any offense, it bites, and the animal which is bitten, he dies. This is the characteristic.
Without any fault... The snake is going, and the other animal is going. Go, but the characteristic of snake is unnecessarily bites. This is the characteristic. Cāṇakya Paṇḍita says, sarpaḥ krūraḥ khalaḥ krūraḥ sarpāt krūrataraḥ khalaḥ, that "Two kinds of krūraḥ, envious animals, are there.
One is the snake, and the other is envious man." So Cāṇakya Paṇḍita said that "Both of them envious, but the envious man is more dangerous than the envious snake." Why? "Now, because the snake can be brought into submission..." [tapping noise] [aside:] What is that? "...by herbs and mantra." There are snake charmer. They chant mantras, and they apply some herb, and the snake come under subjugation.
But khalaḥ kena nivāryate: "But the snakelike man, he cannot be subdued at any cost." So there are characteristics. By the characteristics we can understand who is a godly man and who is a demonic man. They are stated. And the next verse is there, daivī sampad vimokṣāya: if one has this divine characteristic, then he is eligible for going to the spiritual world.
Vimokṣāya. Daivī sampad vimokṣāya nibandhāya āsurī matā [Bg. 16.5]. But these demonic characteristic, dambho darpaḥ abhimānaś ca pāruṣyam ajñānaṁ sampad āsurī, if we develop this kind of characteristic, then it is our material bondage. So we are the cause of material bondage and freedom from material world.