Verse 2.1.212

Bengali text, Devanagari and Unicode transliteration of verse 2.1.212:

যে করযে বন্দী, প্রভু! ছাডায সে-ই সে সহজ-মৃতেরে, প্রভু! মাযা কর’ কিসে ॥ ২১২ ॥

ये करये बन्दी, प्रभु! छाडाय से-इ से सहज-मृतेरे, प्रभु! माया कर’ किसे ॥ २१२ ॥

ye karaye bandī, prabhu! chāḍāya se-i se sahaja-mṛtere, prabhu! māyā kara’ kise || 212 ||

ye karaye bandi, prabhu! chadaya se-i se sahaja-mrtere, prabhu! maya kara’ kise (212)

English translation:

(212) “O Lord, one who binds someone can alone set him free. Therefore, O Lord, why do You deceive one who is dead by nature?

Commentary: Gauḍīya-bhāṣya by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura:

While living within the womb of his mother, a living entity in his seventh month pathetically prays to the Lord as follows: “The Supreme Lord’s illusory energy, who has bound me with the three ropes of goodness, passion, and ignorance as a prisoner within the prison house of material existence—in other words, the external material energy of the Lord by whom I, who am averse to and forgetful of Kṛṣṇa, have been bewildered and who is constantly burning me with the threefold miseries by making me mad to enjoy material happiness—this same illusory energy of the Lord, on seeing my inclination towards the service of the Lord that I receive by the mercy of Guru and Kṛṣṇa, can, in her form as the internal spiritual potency, deliver me from the miseries of the material prison. O Lord, the moment I forgot You and became averse to You by not accepting You as my eternally worshipable Lord and the cause of all causes and the moment I became absorbed in illusory objects not related to You, from that moment, as a result of my perverted intelligence, I have become like a dead body, though breathing. In other words, as a result of identifying myself as the enjoyer and becoming the servant of unconscious matter, and I am no better than a dead corpse. Why are You again further deceiving me through Your illusory energy, which bewilders persons who are averse to You?”

Being forgetful of Kṛṣṇa and always remaining busy gratifying our senses with the help of our sensual knowledge, we become averse to the transcendental service of Adhokṣaja. This the proof of our natural tendency for either lording it over the material nature or becoming the servant of matter. In other words, just as material objects are bereft of the characteristic of independent action, as a result of misusing our constitutional propensity for independence, we also become merged in ignorance, being bewildered by the illusory energy.