Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 5 Chapter 10 Verse 10

Canto 5: The Creative Impetus | Chapter 10: The Discussion Between Jaḍa Bharata and Mahārāja Rahūgaṇa

Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 5.10.10

sthaulyaḿ kārśyaḿ vyādhaya ādhayaś ca

kṣut tṛḍ bhayaḿ kalir icchā jarā ca

nidrā ratir manyur ahaḿ madaḥ śuco

dehena jātasya hi me na santi

SYNONYMS

sthaulyam — being very stout and strong; kārśyam — being skinny and weak; vyādhayaḥ — the pains of the body, such as disease; ādhayaḥ — the pains of the mind; ca — and; kṣut tṛṭ bhayam — hunger, thirst and fear; kaliḥ — quarrels between two persons; icchā — desires; jarā — old age; ca — and; nidrā — sleep; ratiḥ — attachment for sense gratification; manyuḥ — anger; aham — false identification (in the bodily concept of life); madaḥ — illusion; śucaḥ — lamentation; dehena — with this body; jātasya — of one who has taken birth; hi — certainly; me — of me; na — not; santi — exist.

TRANSLATION

Fatness, thinness, bodily and mental distress, thirst, hunger, fear, disagreement, desires for material happiness, old age, sleep, attachment for material possessions, anger, lamentation, illusion and identification of the body with the self are all transformations of the material covering of the spirit soul. A person absorbed in the material bodily conception is affected by these things, but I am free from all bodily conceptions. Consequently I am neither fat nor skinny nor anything else you have mentioned.

PURPORT

Śrīla Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura has sung: deha-smṛti nāhi yāra, saḿsāra-bandhana kāhāń tāra. One who is spiritually advanced has no connection with the body or with the bodily actions and reactions. When one comes to understand that he is not the body and therefore is neither fat nor skinny, one attains the topmost form of spiritual realization. When one is not spiritually realized, the bodily conception entangles one in the material world. At the present moment all human society is laboring under the bodily conception; therefore in the śāstras people in this age are referred to as dvipada-paśu, two-legged animals. No one can be happy in a civilization conducted by such animals. Our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is trying to raise fallen human society to the status of spiritual understanding. It is not possible for everyone to become immediately self-realized like Jaḍa Bharata. However, as stated in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (1.2.18): naṣṭa-prāyeṣv abhadreṣu nityaḿ bhāgavata-sevayā. By spreading the Bhāgavata principles, we can raise human society to the platform of perfection. When one is not affected by the bodily conceptions, one can advance to the Lord's devotional service.

naṣṭa-prāyeṣv abhadreṣu

nityaḿ bhāgavata-sevayā

bhagavaty uttamaśloke

bhaktir bhavati naiṣṭhikī

[SB 1.2.18]

The more we advance our freedom from the bodily conception, the more we are fixed in devotional service, and the more we are happy and peaceful. In this regard, Śrīla Madhvācārya says that those who are too materially affected continue the bodily conception. Such persons are concerned with different bodily symptoms, whereas one freed from bodily conceptions lives without the body even in the material condition.

<<< >>>

Copyright © The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International, Inc.
His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness