1216
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 4, Ch. 26]
the three qualities [goodness, passion and ignorance]. In this way a living entity becomes devoid of his real intelligence and becomes perpetually lost in the cycle of birth and death. Thus he goes up and down from a microbe in stool to a high position in the Brahmaloka planet.
PURPORT
There are many important words in this verse. The first is  anyathā , “otherwise,” which indicates one who does not care for the Vedic rules and regulations. The rules and regulations laid down in the  Vedas  are called  śāstra-vidhi .  Bhagavad-gītā  clearly states that one who does not accept the  śāstra-vidhi , or rules and regulations mentioned in the Vedic scriptures, and acts whimsically or puffed up with false pride, never attains perfection in this life, nor does he attain happiness or liberation from the material condition.
yaḥ śāstra-vidhim utsṛjya vartate kāma-kārataḥ na sa siddhim avāpnoti na sukhaṁ na parāṁ gatim
“He who discards scriptural injunctions and acts according to his own whims attains neither perfection, nor happiness, nor the supreme destination.” (Bg. 16.23)
Thus one who is deliberately transgressing the rules and regulations of the  śāstras  is simply involving himself more and more in material existence in the three modes of material nature. Human society should therefore follow the Vedic principles of life, which are summarized in  Bhagavad-gītā . Otherwise life in material existence will continue. Foolish persons do not know that the soul is passing through 8,400,000 species of life. By the gradual process of evolution, when one comes to the human form of life, he is supposed to follow the rules and regulations laid down in the  Vedas . Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu says that the living entity, since time immemorial, is suffering the threefold miseries of material nature due to his demoniac attitude, which is his spirit of revolt against the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Kṛṣṇa also confirms this in  Bhagavad-gītā :
mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ manaḥ ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi prakṛti-sthāni karṣati