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This is the inferior Prakriti, O mighty-armed (Arjuna); know thou as different from it My higher Prakriti (Nature), the very life-element, by which this world is upheld.

This is the lower nature. But know my other, higher nature, mighty-armed one, which has become the living beings and by which this world is upheld.

Krishna calls the eightfold nature his lower nature. Beyond it is his higher nature, which has become the living beings, jīva-bhūta, and by which the whole world is sustained. Traditions understand this higher nature differently: as the conscious principle in all beings, as the countless individual souls who belong to the Lord, or as consciousness appearing in many forms. All agree that the verse distinguishes matter from the conscious life that animates it, and places both under Krishna as their source.