Verse 2.1.204

Bengali text, Devanagari and Unicode transliteration of verse 2.1.204:

মরিযা-মরিযা পুনঃ পায গর্ভ-বাস সর্ব-অঙ্গে হয পূর্ব-পাপের প্রকাশ ॥ ২০৪ ॥

मरिया-मरिया पुनः पाय गर्भ-वास सर्व-अङ्गे हय पूर्व-पापेर प्रकाश ॥ २०४ ॥

mariyā-mariyā punaḥ pāya garbha-vāsa sarva-aṅge haya pūrva-pāpera prakāśa || 204 ||

mariya-mariya punah paya garbha-vasa sarva-ange haya purva-papera prakasa (204)

English translation:

(204) “The living entity repeatedly dies and suffers the miseries of

Commentary: Gauḍīya-bhāṣya by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura:

confinement within the womb. The reactions to his sinful activities manifest in every one of his limbs.

The statements of Lord Kapiladeva to His mother, Devahūti, found in Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, Third Canto, Chapter Thirty and Chapter Thirty-one, verses 1-31, are as follows:

“The Personality of Godhead said: As a mass of clouds does not know the powerful influence of the wind, a person engaged in material consciousness does not know the powerful strength of the time factor, by which he is being carried.

“Whatever is produced by the materialist with great pain and labor for so- called happiness, the Supreme Personality, as the time factor, destroys, and for this reason the conditioned soul laments.

“The misguided materialist does not know that his very body is impermanent and that the attractions of home, land and wealth, which are in relationship to that body, are also temporary. Out of ignorance only, he thinks that everything is permanent.

“The living entity, in whatever species of life he appears, finds a particular type of satisfaction in that species, and he is never averse to being situated in such a condition.

“The conditioned living entity is satisfied in his own particular species of life; while deluded by the covering influence of the illusory energy, he feels little inclined to cast off his body, even when in hell, for he takes delight in hellish enjoyment.

“Such satisfaction with one’s standard of living is due to deep-rooted attraction for body, wife, home, children, animals, wealth and friends. In such association, the conditioned soul thinks himself quite perfect. “Although he is always burning with anxiety, such a fool always performs all kinds of mischievous activities, with a hope which is never to be fulfilled, in order to maintain his so-called family and society.

“He gives heart and senses to a woman, who falsely charms him with māyā. He enjoys solitary embraces and talking with her, and he is enchanted by the sweet words of the small children.

“The attached householder remains in his family life, which is full of diplomacy and politics. Always spreading miseries and controlled by acts of sense gratification, he acts just to counteract the reactions of all his miseries, and if he can successfully counteract such miseries, he thinks that he is happy.

“He secures money by committing violence here and there, and although he employs it in the service of his family, he himself eats only a little portion of the food thus purchased, and he goes to hell for those for whom he earned the money in such an irregular way.

“When he suffers reverses in his occupation, he tries again and again to improve himself, but when he is baffled in all attempts and is ruined, he accepts money from others because of excessive greed.

“Thus the unfortunate man, unsuccessful in maintaining his family members, is bereft of all beauty. He always thinks of his failure, grieving very deeply.

“Seeing him unable to support them, his wife and others do not treat him with the same respect as before, even as miserly farmers do not accord the same treatment to their old and worn-out oxen.

“The foolish family man does not become averse to family life although he is maintained by those whom he once maintained. Deformed by the influence of old age, he prepares himself to meet ultimate death.

“Thus he remains at home just like a pet dog and eats whatever is so negligently given to him. Afflicted with many illnesses, such as dyspepsia and loss of appetite, he eats only very small morsels of food, and he becomes an invalid, who cannot work any more.

“In that diseased condition, one’s eyes bulge due to the pressure of air from within, and his glands become congested with mucus. He has difficulty breathing, and upon exhaling and inhaling he produces a sound like ghura-ghura, a rattling within the throat.

“In this way he comes under the clutches of death and lies down, surrounded by lamenting friends and relatives, and although he wants to speak with them, he no longer can because he is under the control of time.

“Thus the man, who engaged with uncontrolled senses in maintaining a family, dies in great grief, seeing his relatives crying. He dies most pathetically, in great pain and without consciousness.

“At death, he sees the messengers of the lord of death come before him, their eyes full of wrath, and in great fear he passes stool and urine.

“As a criminal is arrested for punishment by the constables of the state, a person engaged in criminal sense gratification is similarly arrested by the Yamadūtas, who bind him by the neck with strong rope and cover his subtle body so that he may undergo severe punishment.

“While carried by the constables of Yamarāja, he is overwhelmed and trembles in their hands. While passing on the road he is bitten by dogs, and he can remember the sinful activities of his life. He is thus terribly distressed.

“Under the scorching sun, the criminal has to pass through roads of hot sand with forest fires on both sides. He is whipped on the back by the constables because of his inability to walk, and he is afflicted by hunger and thirst, but unfortunately there is no drinking water, no shelter and no place for rest on the road.

“While passing on that road to the abode of Yamarāja, he falls down in fatigue, and sometimes he becomes unconscious, but he is forced to rise again. In this way he is very quickly brought to the presence of Yamarāja. “Thus he has to pass ninety-nine thousand yojanas within two or three moments, and then he is at once engaged in the torturous punishment which he is destined to suffer.

“He is placed in the midst of burning pieces of wood, and his limbs are set on fire. In some cases he is made to eat his own flesh or have it eaten by others.

“His entrails are pulled out by the hounds and vultures of hell, even though he is still alive to see it, and he is subjected to torment by serpents, scorpions, gnats and other creatures that bite him.

“Next his limbs are lopped off and torn asunder by elephants. He is hurled down from hilltops, and he is also held captive either in water or

in a cave.

“Men and women whose lives were built upon indulgence in illicit sex life are put into many kinds of miserable conditions in the hells known as Tāmisra, Andha-tāmisra and Raurava.

“Lord Kapila continued: My dear mother, it is sometimes said that we experience hell or heaven on this planet, for hellish punishments are sometimes visible on this planet also.

“After leaving this body, the man who maintained himself and his family members by sinful activities suffers a hellish life, and his relatives suffer also.

“He goes alone to the darkest regions of hell after quitting the present body, and the money he acquired by envying other living entities is the passage money with which he leaves this world.

“Thus, by the arrangement of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the maintainer of kinsmen is put into a hellish condition to suffer for his sinful activities, like a man who has lost his wealth.

“Therefore a person who is very eager to maintain his family and kinsmen simply by black methods certainly goes to the darkest region of hell, which is known as Andha-tāmisra.

“Having gone through all the miserable, hellish conditions and having passed in a regular order through the lowest forms of animal life prior to human birth, and having thus been purged of his sins, one is reborn again as a human being on this earth.

“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.

“Within four months from the date of conception, the seven essential ingredients of the body, namely chyle, blood, flesh, fat, bone, marrow and semen, come into existence. At the end of five months, hunger and thirst make themselves felt, and at the end of six months, the fetus, enclosed by the amnion, begins to move on the right side of the abdomen.

“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 māyā. 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 Paramātmā, 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-māyā, 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 Viṣṇu in my mind, I shall be saved from entering into the wombs of many mothers for repeated birth and death.

“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 māyā.

“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.”—One should seriously discuss these degradations, miseries in the womb, and tortures by the wheel of time experienced by conditioned souls who are averse to and forget of Kṛṣṇa. [The purport up to this point applies to verses 204-236.]

In the course of time every object in the material world of birth, sustenance, and death successively takes birth, grows, stays for some

time, produces by-products, and dies. Misusing his independence, the spiritual living entity gives up the worship of Kṛṣṇa out of greed for material objects that are not related to Kṛṣṇa. At that point his natural characteristics are transposed and the propensity for material enjoyment appears palatable to him. This is the reason for the living entity’s misuse of independence and his suffering the resultant miseries of material existence. As a result of misusing his independence, the living entity is repeatedly covered by gross and subtle bodies and thrown into this perishable world. Forgetting his constitutional position and giving up the endeavor for worshiping Kṛṣṇa, he then desires to either enjoy the fruits of his karma or renounce the fruits through jñāna. Therefore, when he abandons the service of Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet, he becomes bereft of and fallen from his constitutional position and repeatedly wears the garland of birth and death. When such a conditioned soul dies, his gross body gradually mixes with the five gross material elements and his subtle body, which is full of desires for material enjoyment, leaves behind the gross body and anxiously awaits another gross body. Under the direction of the Supreme Lord, who awards everyone the fruits of their activities, that subtle body again takes up residence in a particular type of gross body according to the fruits of his karma. Thus he actively engages in fulfilling his unsatiated desires. After death, when he takes a new gross body in the womb of his mother, his previously accumulated sinful reactions manifest in his gross body in the form of diseases or deformed limbs. In order to suffer the burden of his previously acquired sinful reactions in this new gross body, the conditioned soul obtains deformed limbs and diseased bodies as the result of his sins and then again indulges in gross sense gratification. Thereafter, as a result of past sins, the conditioned soul becomes either a father or mother of sons and daughters that he produces. Until his spiritual knowledge is awakened by the nonduplicitous mercy of the spiritual master and Kṛṣṇa, his fructified and unfructified sinful reactions are not completely exhausted. When the characteristic of averseness to Kṛṣṇa produces in the conditioned souls

the mentality of accepting the body as the self, then the causelessly merciful Kṛṣṇacandra sometimes comes personally and sometimes sends His dear associate as a teacher, preacher, or deliverer of the transcendental sounds of the spiritual world to revive the constitutional position of the unfortunate souls who have forgotten Kṛṣṇa. While living in the womb of his mother, the conditioned soul suffers various miseries or distresses in the form of disease as punishment for his previous sinful activities, thus accounting for those previous sins.