Canto 11: General HistoryChapter 28: Jñāna-yoga

Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 11.28.30

karoti karma kriyate ca jantuḥ

kenāpy asau codita ā-nipatāt

na tatra vidvān prakṛtau sthito 'pi

nivṛtta-tṛṣṇaḥ sva-sukhānubhūtyā

SYNONYMS

karotihe performs; karma — material work; kriyate — is acted upon; ca — also; jantuḥ — the living entity; kena api — by some force or other; asauhe; coditaḥ — impelled; ā-nipātāt — up to the point of death; na — not; tatra — there; vidvāna wise person; prakṛtauin material nature; sthitaḥ — situated; api — even though; nivṛtta — having given up; tṛṣṇaḥ — material desire; sva — by his own; sukha — of happiness; anubhūtyā — experience.

TRANSLATION

An ordinary living entity performs material work and is transformed by the reaction to such work. Thus he is driven by various desires to continue working fruitively up to the very moment of his death. A wise person, however, having experienced his own constitutional bliss, gives up all material desires and does not engage in fruitive work.

PURPORT

By sexual association with women, a man is driven to enjoy the female form again and again, and indeed he remains lusty up to the moment of death. Similarly, through association with family and friends the knot of material attachment becomes very tight. Thus the reactions of fruitive work bind one more and more in the cycle of material defeat. But a learned person, one who is in touch with the Supreme Lord within his heart, realizes the ultimate frustration of material work and the danger of entering the womb of a pig or dog in a future life as the result of sinful activities. One on the platform of self-realization does not regard himself as an enjoyer of the world. Rather, he regards the entire cosmos as simply an insignificant expansion of the Lord's potency — and himself as the Lord's humble servant.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness
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