Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 3 Chapter 29 Verse 4

Canto 3: The Status Quo | Chapter 29: Explanation of Devotional Service by Lord Kapila

Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 3.29.4

kālasyeśvara-rūpasya

pareṣāḿ ca parasya te

svarūpaḿ bata kurvanti

yad-dhetoḥ kuśalaḿ janāḥ

SYNONYMS

kālasya — of time; īśvara-rūpasya — a representation of the Lord; pareṣām — of all others; ca — and; parasya — the chief; te — of You; svarūpam — the nature; bata — oh; kurvanti — perform; yat-hetoḥ — by whose influence; kuśalam — pious activities; janāḥ — people in general.

TRANSLATION

Please also describe eternal time, which is a representation of Your form and by whose influence people in general engage in the performance of pious activities.

PURPORT

However ignorant one may be regarding the path of good fortune and the path down to the darkest region of ignorance, everyone is aware of the influence of eternal time, which devours all the effects of our material activities. The body is born at a certain time, and immediately the influence of time acts upon it. From the date of the birth of the body, the influence of death is also acting; the advancement of age entails the influence of time on the body. If a man is thirty or fifty years old, then the influence of time has already devoured thirty or fifty years of the duration of his life.

Everyone is conscious of the last stage of life, when he will meet the cruel hands of death, but some consider their age and circumstances, concern themselves with the influence of time and thus engage in pious activities so that in the future they will not be put into a low family or an animal species. Generally, people are attached to sense enjoyment and so aspire for life on the heavenly planets. Therefore, they engage themselves in charitable or other pious activities, but actually, as stated in Bhagavad-gītā, one cannot get relief from the chain of birth and death even if he goes to the highest planet, Brahmaloka, because the influence of time is present everywhere within this material world. In the spiritual world, however, the time factor has no influence.

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