SB 1.11 - Kṛṣṇa is beyond the guṇas

Ignorant people think of the Lord as a human being, one of themselves, contaminated by matter because of seeing unappealing behavior such as His compliance with Satyabhāmā’s attachment to getting the Pārijāta tree. The fools think that prema is material attachment just as they think that sapphire is glass. The Lord is completely independent to act as He likes, but all His actions are full of bliss, knowledge and eternity. The mental speculators consider His impersonal feature as inexplicable Brahman to be all. Such a conception is also a product of conditioned life because they cannot go beyond their own personal capacity. Due to ignorance only they always think that Lord Kṛṣṇa is like one of them and make their own conclusions.

Someone may say that the Lord’s pastimes with women may be non material because the women belong to the cit-śakti. But He appeared in the material Yadu family in the material world and perceived material objects. Therefore it cannot be denied that He is associated with the guṇas. To answer this Bhāgavatam says that though the Lord is situated in prakṛti, He has no contact with the guṇas of prakṛti. He is situated in the guṇas and the guṇas are also situated in Him. But He has no contact with the guṇas. The Lord is said to be without guṇas though He is the basis of the whole material realm and the controller of it.

The Lord’s consciousness is not like the consciousness of the conditioned souls who have taken shelter of the material nature. It is just like the intelligence of the greatest devotees, which has as its object the Lord, and always remembers Him. Though the intelligence is situated in prakṛti and is situated in the guṇas of sattva, rajas and tamas while being contended, praising or criticizing, while being full or afflicted with hunger and thirst, and while waking, sleeping and in deep sleep, it is not connected to the guṇas because of its indifference to the guṇas. In the same way, though the Lord accepts the material objects of the senses, He is not affected by them at all because He is devoid of attachment to them.