Srimad Bhagavatam: Canto 5

(1) The wise [S'ukadeva] said: 'Those who take the body for the real self, being different with the mode of goodness and such, consider matters from the wrong perspective. Basing themselves on the six gateways of their senses and their mind, they alternatively operating favorably, unfavorably or with a mixed approach, have to deal with a never ending process of transmigration through different series of physical frames they time and again have to forsake and pick up again. In relation to Vishnu, the Transcendental Personality who is the Lord, the bound soul who acting under the control of mâyâ, the illusory of matter, moves on the difficult path of the hard to cross forest of material existence, is engaged like a merchant who wants to make money with things desired by the people. He who engages his body for the sake of the profit experiences the material world in which he landed as a cemetery [a dead-end street for his self-realization] where he encounters a lot of resistance for as long as he does not succeed to progress in following the example of the bumblebees, the ones devoted to the lotus feet of the Lord and His representatives, who put an end to the trouble of reaching His jewel [His glory].

(2) In that forest he is guaranteed faced with the six senses and the mind whom one, because of their activities may call one's plunderers. From the wanton soul, who as someone lacking in self-control is walking the wrong path, they steal away every little bit of hard-won wealth so perfectly suited for performing sacrifices. The acquired wealth, that one at home for the purpose of gratifying one's senses cherishes in one's determination to see, touch, hear, taste and smell, leads, so say the sages, only to a better life in the hereafter when one directly uses it for the religious [varnâs'rama] practice according to the principles, a practice that is characterized by the worship of the Supreme Personality. (3) In this respect the members of his family, beginning with those whom he calls his wife and children, are tigers and jackals in their actions; they seize, despite his resistance against it, the wealth he miserly does not want to share, just like a lamb that before the eyes of the herdsman [by predators] by force is seized from the midst of the herd. (4) Just as in a field, that is plowed every year, the seeds of the bushes, grasses and creepers that did not burn are preserved and sprout again together with the plants sown, as it happens in any other garden, so too in the field of action of one's family life, the karmic [fruitive] activities do not disappear. For that reason this world is called the storehouse of desires. (5) Being lost in that life, on this material path of existence sometimes wandering in the spheres of wealth - his life-breath so to say, he [the follower of falsehood] is disturbed by low-class characters, who are like gadflies and mosquitos, as also by thieves [who are like] rats, locusts and birds of prey. Ignorant in his fruitive motives because of a lusty mind, he looks with a wrong vision at this human world where one never reaches one's goal: he sees castles in the air. (6) He who sometimes is engaged in chasing a fata morgana in his eagerness to drink, eat and have sex and such, is there [in that human world] consequently a reprobate, someone who is a slave of his senses. (7) Sometimes looking for gold, he, being obsessed by that particular type of yellowish rubbish, which is also an unlimited source of wickedness, is just like someone who [in the dark] aching for fire chases a fathom light. (8) A person thus, in this material forest, at times is fully engaged in running hither and thither for the sake of the various items of a dwelling place, water and wealth, deemed necessary for one’s subsistence. (9) Sometimes, in the dark of night driven by a momentary whirlwind of passion, he copulates like mad, in a total neglect of the rules. Blinded by the strength of that passion he, notwithstanding the divinities [of the sun and the moon, of regularity and order], then loses all notion being overcome by a mind full of lust. (10) Occasionally, he for a moment awakens to the meaninglessness of the bodily concept of his self that destroys his remembrance and because of which he runs after matters like after the water of a mirage. (11) Exactly like it is with the typical penetrating, repeated sounds of owls and crickets, there is sometimes the agitation caused, directly or indirectly, by enemies and state officials, who by their punitive actions trouble his ear and heart. (12) When the conditioned soul has exhausted [the merit of] his good deeds in his previous life and at that time [in need of financial support] approaches the rich with their dead souls, he himself is then just as dead within, because they are like the kâraskara, kâkatunda and more of such [fruitless] trees. They are just like fouled wells never capable of making one happy. (13) Occasionally associating with insincere people of a limited understanding, it is as if he's diving in a shallow river [so that he breaks his neck]; seeking the company of atheists will make him very unhappy in both respects [spiritual and physical]. (14) When he fails in [acquiring] the wealth of others, he next gives trouble to his father and son, even about the most insignificant that his father or son possesses. (15) Burned by the flames of grief he, getting most disappointed, sometimes experiences his life at home as a forest fire that brings no good but only more and more sadness. (16) Sometimes, the wealth he holds dear is plundered by a carnivorous government that grew corrupt over time, so that he, bereft of all his good life, remains like a corpse with the life air expired. (17) Then again thinking that his father, grandfather and others, who deceased a long time ago, are there again for real [as an incarnation], he experiences the type of happiness one feels in dreams. (18) At other times he, as a householder with a mind in hot pursuit of material matters, wants to climb the mountain of precepts for [religious sacrifices for the sake of] fruitive activities and next he then [being frustrated about all the demands] laments like having entered a field full of thorns and sharp stones. (19) Occasionally [fasting religiously but] unable to bear the fire of hunger and thirst, he runs out of patience and gets angry with his family members. (20) Repeatedly being devoured by the python of sleep he, in the grip of ignorance finding himself in deep darkness, is like a corpse that, left behind in the forest, just lies there not knowing a thing any more [see also B.G. 6: 16 & 14: 8]. (21) So now and then with his teeth of honor broken by [the envy of] his serpent-like enemies, he suffers insomnia and then falls into the blind well of illusion with a consciousness gradually deteriorating because of a [by debilitating rumination] disturbed heart. (22) And then it happens that, searching for the sweet [honey] drops of desire of another man's woman or riches, he appropriates them so that he is severely chastised by the government or the relatives involved and thus ends up in an incomparably hellish life. (23) This now is the reason why the Vedic authority states that the fruitful activity [the karma] of a living entity constitutes the cause of both this life and a next one in the ocean of matter. (24) If he manages to stay away from the chastising, a trader such ['Devadatta'] takes his money away and another friend of Vishnu so ['Vishnumitra'] in his turn takes it from him again, and so the riches [as a part of the Lord's opulence] then move from one hand to the other. (25) It also happens that one, because of natural causes like heat and cold, other living beings and the operation of one's own body and mind [resp. adhidaivika, adhibhautika, adhyâtmika kles'as, see also 2.10: 8], is unable to counter the conditions of life, so that one remains being troubled by severe anxieties and depressions. (26) Sometimes, trading with one another, about whatever little bit of money or farthing that was appropriated with cheating, however insignificant, there rises enmity because of the dishonesty.

(27) On the path of material existence one encounters these forms of misfortune that are associated with happiness and unhappiness, attachment, hate, fear, false prestige, illusion, madness, lamentation, bewilderment, greed, envy, enmity, insult, hunger, thirst, tribulations, disease, birth, old age, death, and so on. (28) Under the influence of the illusory energy mâyâ, one is sometimes, being firmly embraced by the creepers of the arms of a female companion, deeply embarrassed by finding oneself at a loss, void of all intelligence and wisdom. In one's desire to please her and offer her a suitable place to live, one's heart gets engrossed in the concern with one's consciousness being seized by the talks and nice looks offered by the sons and daughters under the loving care of one's wife. Having lost the command over oneself one is then thrown into the endless darkness of a life ruled by ignorance.

(29) Thus it may happen that, because of the cakra of the Controller, the Supreme Lord Vishnu's disc of Time, the influence of which stretches from the first expansion of atoms to the duration of the complete life of Brahmâ, one has to suffer the symptoms of its rotating. With that rotation in the course of time, swiftly before one's eyes [in terms of eternity], in a moment, all lives of the living entities are spent, from Brahmâ to the simplest blade of grass. Directly of Him, the Controller whose personal weapon is the disc of Time, one is afraid at heart. As a consequence not caring about the Supreme Lord, the Original Person of Sacrifice, one then accepts as worshipable what lacks foundation, with self-invented gods who, operating like buzzards, vultures, herons and crows, are denied by the scriptures of one's civilization. (30) When one as a conditioned soul by the atheists, who themselves are cheated, is cheated even more, one takes to the school of the brahmins. But with them [because of their demands] not finding satisfaction in the good character of engaging with the sacred thread according to principle and scripture, nor in the trusted culture of the dutiful worship of the Supreme Lord and Original Person of Sacrifice, one then turns to the association of karmis [karma motivated people or s'udras], who are not purified by behaving according to the Vedic injunctions. With them, in a materialistic sex life maintaining the family, one finds oneself in the company of those who think they descended from monkeys [instead of spiritual masters]. (31) In that condition uninhibited, unrestricted enjoying [like the monkeys] with a serious lack of knowledge and insight, one forgets how short life is when one, staring into each other's faces and such, hankers only for gratification and material results. (32) Sometimes, just like a monkey with its tree, eager to improve one’s home, one spends time caring about and having fun with one’s wife and children. (33) Being confined to this course one abides, out of fear for the elephant of death, by a darkness as deep as that of a mountain cave. (34-35) In relation to the objects of one's senses one is sometimes, [as said] in one's inability to counteract the insurmountable miseries of the heat and cold of nature, other living beings and one's own existence, caught in sadness because of [the enmity that rose about] whatever little bit of wealth one in mutual transactions happened to acquire by cheating. (36) Now and then running out of money and bereft of the pleasure of accommodations for sleeping, sitting and eating, one has to endure the derision and such of the people that rose as a consequence of what one, having no success, has decided in one's desire to realize matters a dishonest way. (37) Even though one, because of financially determined relations, more and more relates in enmity, one nevertheless engages in marriages that, based on this desire [to advance materially], consequently end in divorces. (38) On this path through the ocean of matter one is plagued by the different miseries of a material existence, to which anyone himself - or anybody else for that matter - now and then thinks that he has won and then again thinks that he has lost. Thereto one experiences in giving up [deceased] relatives and welcoming newborn babies in ones bondage at times a lot of sorrow, illusion and fear to which one loudly cries while one at other times is so happy that one starts to sing. Up to the present day save for the saintly souls no one of this entire world of self-interested human beings has ever returned to the one [place of God] where this material course started and of which the defenders of the peace declare that it is also the end station. (39) They [these materially motivated human beings] do not follow the instructions of yoga, nor do they attain this [supreme abode] that is easily attained by the wise who, naturally living and abiding by peace, are in control of their mind and senses. (40) Even when one is the saintliest of kings, victorious in all fields and expert in performing all the sacrifices, one is but an earthly human being who has to lay down his life, has to give up the fight, has to meet his demise because of the self-created enmity with others and has to stop thinking about things in terms of 'mine' [compare 1.2: 13]. (41) Taking shelter of the creeper of karma [believing in fruitful actions] one somehow or other [living virtuously] may be freed from the misfortune of a hellish position [of being entangled in the material world], but whatever the higher world one is thus promoted to, one yet again, that way treading the worldly path, enters the [conflictuous] field of human self-interest.

(42) There is not a single king able to follow, even in his mind, the path that we celebrated here as the way of the great soul Jada Bharata, the son of the great saintly king Rishabhadeva, any more than a fly can follow Garuda, the carrier of Vishnu. (43) It was he who gave up the difficult to forsake wealth of a family, friends and well-wishers and the royal realm. Fond of Uttamas'loka, the Lord praised in the verses, he, only in his prime years, renounced all that occupied his heart, like it was stool. (44) To those whose minds are attracted by the loving service unto the killer of Madhu [Krishna] being performed by the greatest souls, everything that is so difficult to give up, the world, the children, relatives, riches and a wife, all that is desirable of the goddess of fortune, the glances of mercy of the best demigods and even freedom from rebirth (liberation), is of no significance; and that befitted him as a king. (45) 'The Enjoyer of all sacrifices, the Propounder of the Religion, He who teaches by the regulative principles [the vidhi see 1.17: 24], the yoga in person, the teacher of analysis [sânkhya, see Kapila: 3.25], the Controller of the Creation, Nârâyana, the shelter of all living beings, unto Lord Hari, I offer my obeisances!', was what he prayed aloud with a smile, even when he resided in the body of a deer. (46) He who listens to or describes to others this, by the great devotees highly appreciated, all auspicious narration about the wise king Bharata, so pure in his qualities and actions, will live long, be fortunate, be well thought of, reach the higher worlds or attain beatitude [final liberation]. Glorifying the character of the devotee and the Lord will bring someone all blessings possible, leaving nothing left to desire from others.'

The wise [S'ukadeva] said: 'Those who take the body for the real self, being different with the mode of goodness and such, consider matters from the wrong perspective. Basing themselves on the six gateways of their senses and their mind, they alternatively operating favorably, unfavorably or with a mixed approach, have to deal with a never ending process of transmigration through different series of physical frames they time and again have to forsake and pick up again. In relation to Vishnu, the Transcendental Personality who is the Lord, the bound soul who acting under the control of mâyâ, the illusory of matter, moves on the difficult path of the hard to cross forest of material existence, is engaged like a merchant who wants to make money with things desired by the people. He who engages his body for the sake of the profit experiences the material world in which he landed as a cemetery [a dead-end street for his self-realization] where he encounters a lot of resistance for as long as he does not succeed to progress in following the example of the bumblebees, the ones devoted to the lotus feet of the Lord and His representatives, who put an end to the trouble of reaching His jewel [His glory].

The wise [S'ukadeva] said: 'Those who think the body to be the real self, depart, in particular reasoning to the modes of goodness and such, from the wrong basis; sometimes they obtain the favorable, sometimes the unfavorable and sometimes they have a mixture of both. On the basis of the six gateways of their senses and the mind, they are faced with a never ending process of transmigration that is characterized by the over and over giving up of one body and the again accepting of a new one. On that difficult path traversing the dense forest of material life it so happens that of Vishnu, the Supreme Lord who is the controller, the soul bound acting under the control of mâyâ, the illusory of matter, in this exactly is like a merchant with an object of desire who is after the money. With his body acting on behalf of the fruits, he experiences the material world he has landed in as if it were a burial place, since he up to that moment was of no success and of all kinds of trouble out here in not gaining on the road of following the devoted, the bumblebees, to the lotus feet of the Lord and His representatives that would pacify the misery experienced. (Vedabase)

Text 2

In that forest he is guaranteed faced with the six senses and the mind whom one, because of their activities may call one's plunderers. From the wanton soul, who as someone lacking in self-control is walking the wrong path, they steal away every little bit of hard-won wealth so perfectly suited for performing sacrifices. The acquired wealth, that one at home for the purpose of gratifying one's senses cherishes in one's determination to see, touch, hear, taste and smell, leads, so say the sages, only to a better life in the hereafter when one directly uses it for the religious [varnâs'rama] practice according to the principles, a practice that is characterized by the worship of the Supreme Personality.

By the certain activities of the senses it suffers no doubt that these, with whatever little wealth that a person so dutifully earned after so much hard labor, could be called his plunderers. They merciless plunder the desirous soul who is out of control and on the wrong path, the way he by his private home directly concludes to sense gratification in his determination to see, touch, hear, taste and smell all the acquired good; a matter to which the wise declare that it, religiously following the practice of the principles, only would serve a better life in the hereafter when one, with sacrifices, is faithfull in the worship of the Lord. (Vedabase)

Text 3

In this respect the members of his family, beginning with those whom he calls his wife and children, are tigers and jackals in their actions; they seize, despite his resistance against it, the wealth he miserly does not want to share, just like a lamb that before the eyes of the herdsman [by predators] by force is seized from the midst of the herd.

In this do also his family members, starting with his wife and children, act like tigers and jackals as surely, in the midst of the family that he above all tries to protect, he miserably trying not to waste his wealth, feels like a lamb that is seized by force. (Vedabase)

Text 4

Just as in a field, that is plowed every year, the seeds of the bushes, grasses and creepers that did not burn are preserved and sprout again together with the plants sown, as it happens in any other garden, so too in the field of action of one's family life, the karmic [fruitive] activities do not disappear. For that reason this world is called the storehouse of desires.

As sure as a field that is every year plowed will still keep the seeds of the bushes, grasses and creepers that again, like in any garden, pop up with the plants sown, will this certainly also take place in the field of activities of family life, if one is not sure that all karma has been overcome; therefore is this world called the storehouse of fruitive desire. (Vedabase)

Text 5

Being lost in that life, on this material path of existence sometimes wandering in the spheres of wealth - his life-breath so to say, he [the follower of falsehood] is disturbed by low-class characters, who are like gadflies and mosquitos, as also by thieves [who are like] rats, locusts and birds of prey. Ignorant in his fruitive motives because of a lusty mind, he looks with a wrong vision at this human world where one never reaches one's goal: he sees castles in the air.

Lost in that life, sometimes on this material path of existence wandering in the spheres of wealth, is he [the follower of falsehood] disturbed by low-class characters, that equal gadflies and mosquitos, and by thieves that are like rats, locusts and birds of prey. Because of a lusty mind ignorant in its fruitive motives, does he look at this human world, in which one never reaches one's goal, with a wrong vision: he sees castles in the air. (Vedabase)

Text 6

He who sometimes is engaged in chasing a fata morgana in his eagerness to drink, eat and have sex and such, is there [in that human world] consequently a reprobate, someone who is a slave of his senses.

There [in that human world] is he also, sometimes like being after a fata morgana in his eagerness to drink and eat and to have sex and such, a debauchee addicted to his senses. (Vedabase)

Text 7

Sometimes looking for gold, he, being obsessed by that particular type of yellowish rubbish - which is also an unlimited source of wickedness - is just like someone who [in the dark] aching for fire chases a fathom light.

Sometimes, as someone obsessed by that particular type of yellowish rubbish that is also an unlimited source of faults, tries he to get hold of gold, just like someone who looking for fire follows a phosphorescent fathom light. (Vedabase)

Text 8

A person thus, in this material forest, at times is fully engaged in running hither and thither for the sake of the various items of a dwelling place, water and wealth, deemed necessary for one’s subsistence.

This way is a person in this material forest at times fully absorbed in running hither and thither for the various items of a dwelling place, water and wealth, that are deemed necessary for sustenance. (Vedabase)

Text 9

Sometimes, in the dark of night driven by a momentary whirlwind of passion, he copulates like mad, in a total neglect of the rules. Blinded by the strength of that passion he, notwithstanding the divinities [of the sun and the moon, of regularity and order], then loses all notion being overcome by a mind full of lust.

Sometimes does he also, in the dark of night, driven by a momentary whirlwind of passion, mount an alluring woman; in total neglect of the higher vision does he then, blinded by the strength of that passion, notwithstanding the divinities of sun and moon, lose all notion in being overcome by a mind full of lust. (Vedabase)

Text 10

Occasionally, he for a moment awakens to the meaninglessness of the bodily concept of his self that destroys his remembrance and because of which he runs after matters like after the water of a mirage.

Occasionally for an instant he wakes up to the meaninglessness of the bodily conception of his self that destroyed his remembrance and of which he surely to the objects of his senses was running like after the water of a mirage. (Vedabase)

Text 11

Exactly like it is with the typical penetrating, repeated sounds of owls and crickets, there is sometimes the agitation caused, directly or indirectly, by enemies and state officials, who by their punitive actions trouble his ear and heart.

At times, exactly like with the penetrating, repeated, typical sounds of owls and crickets, is there directly or indirectly the agitation caused by enemies and state officials, who by their punitive actions bring grief to the ear and heart. (Vedabase)

Text 12

When the conditioned soul has exhausted [the merit of] his good deeds in his previous life and at that time [in need of financial support] approaches the rich with their dead souls, he himself is then just as dead within, because they are like the kâraskara, kâkatunda and more of such [fruitless] trees. They are just like fouled wells never capable of making one happy.

When the conditioned soul has exhausted [the merit of] his good deeds in his previous life(s) and at that time approaches the wealthy ones with their dead souls, is he then himself just as dead within, because they are like the kâraskara, kâkatunda and such [fruitless trees]; they are just as fouled wells, incapable of making one happy ever. (Vedabase)

Text 13

Occasionally associating with insincere people of a limited understanding, it is as if he's diving in a shallow river [so that he breaks his neck]; seeking the company of atheists will make him very unhappy in both respects [spiritual and physical].

Once he, in defiance of the authority, is after the association with the untrue, acts he like someone jumping into shallow waters and does he, from whatever side he leaps, approach the atheistic path, even though it brings distress. (Vedabase)

Text 14

When he fails in [acquiring] the wealth of others, he next gives trouble to his father and son, even about the most insignificant that his father or son possesses.

When he, in spite of other plans destitute, blind to himself can't get his share from his father or his sons, will he then surely trouble his kith and kin about things as insignificant as a blade of grass. (Vedabase)

Text 15

Burned by the flames of grief he, getting most disappointed, sometimes experiences his life at home as a forest fire that brings no good but only more and more sadness.

Sometimes experiencing the life at home as a forest fire that brings no good but only more and more sadness, does he, burnt by the flames of grief, land in the deepest disappointment. (Vedabase)