S.B. Canto 3 Ch 31. Lord Kapila's Instructions on the Movements of the Living Entities
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The Personality of Godhead said:
Under the supervision of the Supreme Lord and according to the result of his work, the living entity, the soul, is made to enter into the womb of a woman through the particle
of male semen to assume a particular type of body.
On the first night, the sperm and ovum mix, and on the fifth night the mixture ferments into a bubble. On the tenth night it develops into a
form like a plum, and after that, it gradually turns into a lump of
flesh or an egg, as the case may be.
In the course of a month, a head is formed, and at the end of two months the hands, feet and other limbs take shape. By the end of three
months, the nails, fingers, toes, body hair, bones and skin appear,
as do the organ of generation and the other apertures in the body,
namely the eyes, nostrils, ears, mouth and anus.
When the body of the child is completely formed at the end of six months, the child, if he is male, begins to move on the right side, and if
female, she tries to move on the left side.
Deriving its nutrition from the food and drink taken by the mother, the fetus grows and remains in that abominable residence of stools and urine,
which is the breeding place of all kinds of worms.
Bitten again and again all over the body by the hungry worms in the abdomen itself, the child suffers terrible agony because of his tenderness.
He thus becomes unconscious moment after moment because of the
terrible condition.
Owing to the mother's eating bitter, pungent foodstuffs, or food which is too salty or too sour, the body of the child incessantly suffers
pains which are almost intolerable.
Placed within the amnion and covered outside by the intestines, the child remains lying on one side of the abdomen, his head turned towards his
belly and his back and neck arched like a bow.
The child thus remains just like a bird in a cage, without freedom of movement. At that time, if the child is fortunate, he can remember
all the troubles of his past one hundred births, and he grieves
wretchedly. What is the possibility of peace of mind in that
condition?
Thus endowed with the development of consciousness from the seventh month after his conception, the child is tossed downward by the airs that
press the embryo during the weeks preceding delivery. Like the worms
born of the same filthy abdominal cavity, he cannot remain in one
place.
The living entity in this frightful condition of life, bound by seven layers of material ingredients, prays with folded hands, appealing to
the Lord, who has put him in that condition.
The human soul says: I take shelter of the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who appears in His various eternal forms and
walks on the surface of the world. I take shelter of Him only,
because He can give me relief from all fear and from Him I have
received this condition of life, which is just befitting my impious
activities.
I, the pure soul, appearing now bound by my activities, am lying in the womb of my mother by the arrangement of maya. I offer my
respectful obeisances unto Him who is also here with me but who is
unaffected and changeless. He is unlimited, but He is perceived in
the repentant heart. To Him I offer my respectful obeisances.
I am separated from the Supreme Lord because of my being in this material body, which is made of five elements, and therefore my
qualities and senses are being misused, although I am essentially
spiritual. Because the Supreme Personality of Godhead is
transcendental to material nature and the living entities, because He
is devoid of such a material body, and because He is always glorious
in His spiritual qualities, I offer my obeisances unto Him.
The human soul further prays: The living entity is put under the influence of material nature and continues a hard struggle for
existence on the path of repeated birth and death. This conditional
life is due to his forgetfulness of his relationship with the Supreme
Personality of Godhead. Therefore, without the Lord's mercy, how can
he again engage in the transcendental loving service of the Lord?
No one other than the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as the localized Paramatma, the partial representation of the Lord, is
directing all inanimate and animate objects. He is present in the
three phases of time-past, present and future. Therefore, the
conditioned soul is engaged in different activities by His direction,
and in order to get free from the threefold miseries of this
conditional life, we have to surrender unto Him only.
Fallen into a pool of blood, stool and urine within the abdomen of his mother, his own body scorched by the mother's gastric fire, the
embodied soul, anxious to get out, counts his months and prays, "O
my Lord, when shall I, a wretched soul, be released from this
confinement?"
My dear Lord, by Your causeless mercy I am awakened to consciousness, although I am only ten months old. For this causeless mercy of the
Supreme Personality of Godhead, the friend of all fallen souls, there
is no way to express my gratitude but to pray with folded hands.
The living entity in another type of body sees only by instinct; he knows only the agreeable and disagreeable sense perceptions of that
particular body. But I have a body in which I can control my senses
and can understand my destination; therefore, I offer my respectful
obeisances to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, by whom I have been
blessed with this body and by whose grace I can see Him within and
without.
Therefore, my Lord, although I am living in a terrible condition, I do not wish to depart from my mother's abdomen to fall again into the blind well
of materialistic life. Your external energy, called deva-maya,
at once captures the newly born child, and immediately false
identification, which is the beginning of the cycle of continual
birth and death, begins.
Therefore, without being agitated any more, I shall deliver myself from the darkness of nescience with the help of my friend, clear
consciousness. Simply by keeping the lotus feet of Lord Vishnu
in my mind, I shall be saved from entering into the wombs of many
mothers for repeated birth and death.
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PURPORT
The miseries of material existence begin from the very day when the spirit soul takes shelter in the ovum and sperm of the mother and
father, they continue after he is born from the womb, and then they
are further prolonged. We do not know where the suffering ends. It
does not end, however, by one's changing his body. The change of body
is taking place at every moment, but that does not mean that we are
improving from the fetal condition of life to a more comfortable
condition. The best thing is, therefore, to develop Krishna
consciousness. Here it is stated, upasadita-vishnu-padah.
This means realization of Krishna consciousness. One
who is intelligent, by the grace of the Lord, and develops Krishna
consciousness, is successful in his life because simply by keeping
himself in Krishna consciousness, he will be saved
from the repetition of birth and death.
The child prays that it is better to remain within the womb of darkness and be constantly absorbed in Krishna consciousness
than to get out and again fall a victim to the illusory energy. The
illusory energy acts within the abdomen as well as outside the
abdomen, but the trick is that one should remain Krishna
conscious, and then the effect of such a horrible condition cannot
act unfavorably upon him. In Bhagavad-gita it is said
that one's intelligence is his friend, and the same intelligence can
also be his enemy. Here also the same idea is repeated:
suhridatmanaiva, friendly intelligence. Absorption of
intelligence in the personal service of Krishna and
full consciousness of Krishna always are the path of
self-realization and liberation. Without being unnecessarily
agitated, if we take to the process of Krishna
consciousness by constantly chanting Hare Krishna,
Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna,
Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare
Hare, the cycle of birth and death can be stopped for good.
It may be questioned herein how the child can be fully Krishna conscious within the womb of the mother without any paraphernalia
with which to execute Krishna consciousness. It is
not necessary to arrange for paraphernalia to worship the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, Vishnu. The child wants to remain
within the abdomen of its mother and at the same time wants to become
free from the clutches of maya. One does not need any
material arrangement to cultivate Krishna
consciousness. One can cultivate Krishna
consciousness anywhere and everywhere, provided he can always think
of Krishna. The maha-mantra, Hare Krishna,
Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna,
Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare
Hare, can be chanted even within the abdomen of one's mother. One can
chant while sleeping, while working, while imprisoned in the womb or
while outside. This Krishna consciousness cannot be
checked in any circumstance. The conclusion of the child's prayer is:
"Let me remain in this condition; although it is very miserable,
it is better not to fall a victim to maya again by going
outside."
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Lord Kapila continued: The ten-month-old living entity has these desires even while in the womb. But while he thus extols the Lord, the wind
that helps parturition propels him forth with his face turned
downward so that he may be born.
Pushed downward all of a sudden by the wind, the child comes out with great trouble, head downward, breathless and deprived of memory due to
severe agony.
The child thus falls on the ground, smeared with stool and blood, and plays just like a worm germinated from the stool. He loses his
superior knowledge and cries under the spell of maya.
After coming out of the abdomen, the child is given to the care of persons who are unable to understand what he wants, and thus he is nursed by
such persons. Unable to refuse whatever is given to him, he falls
into undesirable circumstances.
Laid down on a foul bed infested with sweat and germs, the poor child is incapable of scratching his body to get relief from his itching
sensation to say nothing of sitting up, standing or even moving.
In his helpless condition, gnats, mosquitoes, bugs and other germs bite the baby, whose skin is tender, just as smaller worms bite a big
worm. The child, deprived of his wisdom, cries bitterly.
In this way, the child passes through his childhood, suffering different kinds of distress, and attains boyhood. In boyhood also he suffers
pain over desires to get things he can never achieve. And thus, due
to ignorance, he becomes angry and sorry.
With the growth of the body, the living entity, in order to vanquish his soul, increases his false prestige and anger and thereby creates
enmity towards similarly lusty people.
By such ignorance the living entity accepts the material body, which is made of five elements, as himself. With this misunderstanding, he
accepts nonpermanent things as his own and increases his ignorance in
the darkest region.
For the sake of the body, which is a source of constant trouble to him and which follows him because he is bound by ties of ignorance and
fruitive activities, he performs various actions which cause him to
be subjected to repeated birth and death.
If, therefore, the living entity again associates with the path of unrighteousness, influenced by sensually minded people engaged in the
pursuit of sexual enjoyment and the gratification of the palate, he
again goes to hell as before.
He becomes devoid of truthfulness, cleanliness, mercy, gravity, spiritual intelligence, shyness, austerity, fame, forgiveness,
control of the mind, control of the senses, fortune and all such
opportunities
One should not associate with a coarse fool who is bereft of the knowledge of self-realization and who is no more than a dancing dog
in the hands of a woman.
The infatuation and bondage which accrue to a man from attachment to any other object is not as complete as that resulting from attachment to
a woman or to the fellowship of men who are fond of women.
At the sight of his own daughter, Brahma was bewildered by her charms and shamelessly ran up to her in the form of a stag when she
took the form of a hind.
Amongst all kinds of living entities begotten by Brahma, namely men, demigods and animals, none but the sage Narayana is
immune to the attraction of maya in the form of woman.
Just try to understand the mighty strength of My maya in the shape of woman, who by the mere movement of her eyebrows can keep
even the greatest conquerors of the world under her grip.
One who aspires to reach the culmination of yoga and has realized his self by rendering service unto Me should never associate with an
attractive woman, for such a woman is declared in the scripture to be
the gateway to hell for the advancing devotee.
The woman, created by the Lord, is the representation of maya, and one who associates with such maya by accepting services
must certainly know that this is the way of death, just like a blind
well covered with grass.
A living entity who, as a result of attachment to a woman in his previous life, has been endowed with the form of a woman, foolishly
looks upon maya in the form of a man, her husband, as the
bestower of wealth, progeny, house and other material assets.
A woman, therefore, should consider her husband, her house and her children to be the arrangement of the external energy of the Lord for
her death, just as the sweet singing of the hunter is death for the
deer.
Due to his particular type of body, the materialistic living entity wanders from one planet to another, following fruitive activities. In
this way, he involves himself in fruitive activities and enjoys the
result incessantly.
In this way the living entity gets a suitable body with a material mind and senses, according to his fruitive activities. When the reaction
of his particular activity comes to an end, that end is called death,
and when a particular type of reaction begins, that beginning is
called birth.
When the eyes lose their power to see color or form due to morbid affliction of the optic nerve, the sense of sight becomes deadened.
The living entity, who is the seer of both the eyes and the sight,
loses his power of vision. In the same way, when the physical body,
the place where perception of objects occurs, is rendered incapable
of perceiving, that is known as death. When one begins to view the
physical body as one's very self, that is called birth.
Therefore, one should not view death with horror, nor have recourse to defining the body as soul, nor give way to exaggeration in enjoying the bodily
necessities of life. Realizing the true nature of the living entity,
one should move about in the world free from attachment and steadfast
in purpose.
Endowed with right vision and strengthened by devotional service and a pessimistic attitude towards material identity, one should relegate
his body to this illusory world through his reason. Thus one can be
unconcerned with this material world.
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PURPORT
It is sometimes misunderstood that if one has to associate with persons engaged in devotional service, he will not be able to solve the
economic problem. To answer this argument, it is described here that
one has to associate with liberated persons not directly, physically,
but by understanding, through philosophy and logic, the problems of
life. It is stated here, samyag-darsanaya buddhya:
one has to see perfectly, and by intelligence and yogic practice one
has to renounce this world. That renunciation can be achieved by the
process recommended in the Second Chapter of the First Canto of
Srimad-Bhagavatam.
The devotee's intelligence is always in touch with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. His attitude towards the material existence
is one of detachment, for he knows perfectly well that this material
world is a creation of illusory energy. Realizing himself to be part
and parcel of the Supreme Soul, the devotee discharges his devotional
service and is completely aloof from material action and reaction.
Thus at the end he gives up his material body, or the material
energy, and as pure soul he enters the kingdom of God.
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