SB 10.87.22 · Srimad-Bhagavatam

Devanagari

त्वदनुपथं कुलायमिदमात्मसुहृत्प्रियव- च्चरति तथोन्मुखे त्वयि हिते प्रिय आत्मनि च । न बत रमन्त्यहो असदुपासनयात्महनो यदनुशया भ्रमन्त्युरुभये कुशरीरभृत: ॥ २२ ॥

Verse text

tvad-anupathaṁ kulāyam idam ātma-suhṛt-priya-vac carati tathonmukhe tvayi hite priya ātmani ca na bata ramanty aho asad-upāsanayātma-hano yad-anuśayā bhramanty uru-bhaye ku-śarīra-bhṛtaḥ

Synonyms

tvat — You ; anupatham — useful for serving ; kulāyam — body ; idam — this ; ātma — self ; suhṛt — friend ; priya — and beloved ; vat — as ; carati — acts ; tathā — nevertheless ; unmukhe — who are favorably disposed ; tvayi — in You ; hite — who are helpful ; priye — who are affectionate ; ātmani — who are their very Self ; ca — and ; na — not ; bata — alas ; ramanti — they take pleasure ; aho — ah ; asat — of the unreal ; upāsanayā — by worship ; ātma — themselves ; hanaḥ — killing ; yat — in which (worship of the unreal) ; anuśayāḥ — whose persistent desires ; bhramanti — they wander ; uru — greatly ; bhaye — in the fearful (material existence) ; ku — degraded ; śarīra — bodies ; bhṛtaḥ — carrying .

Translation

When this human body is used for Your devotional service, it acts as one’s self, friend and beloved. But unfortunately, although You always show mercy to the conditioned souls and affectionately help them in every way, and although You are their true Self, people in general fail to delight in You. Instead they commit spiritual suicide by worshiping illusion. Alas, because they persistently hope for success in their devotion to the unreal, they continue to wander about this greatly fearful world, assuming various degraded bodies.

Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

When this human body is used for Your devotional service, it acts as one's self, friend and beloved. But unfortunately, although You always show mercy to the conditioned souls and affectionately help them in every way, and although You are their true Self, people in general fail to delight in You. Instead they commit spiritual suicide by worshiping illusion. Alas, because they persistently hope for success in their devotion to the unreal, they continue to wander about this greatly fearful world, assuming various degraded bodies. KB 10.87.22 The personified Vedas continued: “Dear Lord, when a person is able to purify his mind, senses and intelligence by engaging himself in devotional service in full Kṛṣṇa consciousness, his mind becomes his friend. Otherwise, his mind is always his enemy. When the mind is engaged in the devotional service of the Lord, it becomes the intimate friend of the living entity because the mind can then think of the Supreme Lord always. Your Lordship is eternally dear to the living entity, so when the mind is engaged in thought of You one immediately feels the great satisfaction for which he has been hankering life after life. When one’s mind is thus fixed on the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, one does not take to any kind of inferior worship or inferior process of self-realization. By attempting to worship a demigod or by taking to any other process of self-realization, the living entity becomes a victim of the cycle of birth and death, and no one can estimate how much the living entity is degraded by entering abominable species of life such as cats and dogs.” Śrī Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura has sung that persons who do not take to the devotional service of the Lord but are attracted to the process of philosophical speculation and fruitive activities drink the poisonous results of such actions. Such persons eat all kinds of obnoxious things, such as meat, and take pleasure in alcohol and other intoxicants, and after death they are forced to take birth in lower species of life. Materialistic persons generally worship the transient material body and forget the welfare of the spirit soul within the body. Some take shelter of materialistic science to improve bodily comforts, and some take to the worship of demigods to be promoted to the heavenly planets. Their goal in life is to make the material body comfortable, but they forget the interest of the spirit soul. Such persons are described in the Vedic literature as suicidal, because attachment for the material body and its comforts forces the living entity to wander through the process of birth and death perpetually and suffer the material pangs as a matter of course. The human form of life is a chance for one to understand his position. Therefore the most intelligent person takes to devotional service just to engage his mind, senses and body in the service of the Lord without deviation.

Purport

The Vedas have strong words for those who choose to remain in illusion rather than serve the all-merciful Personality of Godhead. The Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad (4.3.15) states, ārāmam asya paśyanti na taṁ paśyati kaścana; na tam vidātha ya imā jajānānyad yuṣmākam antaram babhūva; nīhāreṇa prāvṛtā jalpyā cāsu-tṛpa uktha-śāsaś caranti: “Everyone can see the place where the Lord manifested Himself in this world for His own pleasure, but still no one sees Him. None of you know Him who generated all these living beings, and thus there is a great difference between your vision and His. Covered by the fog of illusion, you performers of Vedic rituals indulge in useless talk and live only to gratify your senses.” The Supreme Lord pervades this universe, as He says in the Bhagavad-gītā (9.4) , mayā tataṁ idaṁ sarvaṁ jagat. Nothing in this world, not even the most insignificant clay pot or shred of cloth, is devoid of the presence of the Personality of Godhead. But because He keeps Himself invisible to envious eyes ( avyakta-mūrtinā ), materialists are misled by His material energy and think that the source of material creation is a combination of atoms and physical forces. Displaying their compassion for such foolish materialists, the personified Vedas advise them in this prayer to remember the real purpose for which they exist: to serve the Lord, their greatest well-wisher, with loving devotion. The human body is the ideal facility for reviving one’s spiritual consciousness; its organs — ears, tongue, eyes and so on — are quite suitable for hearing about the Lord, chanting His glories, worshiping Him and performing all the other essential aspects of devotional service. One’s material body is destined to remain intact for only a short time, and so it is called kulāyam, subject to “dissolving into the earth” ( kau līyate ). Nonetheless, if properly utilized it can be one’s best friend. When one is immersed in material consciousness, however, the body becomes a false friend, distracting the bewildered living entity from his true self-interest. Persons too much infatuated with their own bodies and those of their spouses, children, pets and so on are in fact misdirecting their devotion to the worship of illusion, asad-upāsanā. In this way, as the śrutis state here, such people commit spiritual suicide, insuring future punishment for failing to carry out the higher responsibilities of human existence. As the Īśopaniṣad (3) declares: asuryā nāma te lokā andhena tamasāvṛtāḥ tāṁs te pretyābhigacchanti ye ke cātma-hano janāḥ “The killer of the soul, whoever he may be, must enter into the planets known as the worlds of the faithless, full of darkness and ignorance.” Those who are overly attached to sense gratification, or who worship the impermanent in the form of false, materialistic scriptures and philosophies, maintain desires that carry them into more degraded bodies in each successive life. Since they are entrapped in the perpetually rotating cycle of saṁsāra, their only hope for salvation is getting a chance to hear the merciful instructions spoken by the Supreme Lord’s devotees. Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī prays: tvayy ātmani jagan-nāthe man-mano ramatām iha kadā mamedṛśaṁ janma mānuṣaṁ sambhaviṣyati “When will I receive a human birth in which my mind may take pleasure in You, who are the Supreme Soul and Lord of the universe?”

Purport (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

After describing the devotes who renounce the enjoyments of the house, the srutis lament the jivas who are attached to the house and do not perform bhakti yoga. This nest of the bird (kulayam) called jivatma, the body, is suitable for performing bhakti yoga (tvad anupatham), since it has ears, tongue and other organs suitable for hearing and chanting. "kulayam", the body, can also be derived differently: that which merges (laya) into the earth (ku)). This body shines as the self, the friend and dear one. As the body does not appear as the self, friend and dear one when dead, it acts in this manner only by relationship with you. How unfortunate (bata) that they derive not enjoy in you, who are inclined to be merciful to them (unmukhe; a benefactor (hite), since you are their friend; who are dear because of such closeness to the body and soul; the paramatma (atmani), most easy to serve. They do not worship you with service attitude. By bad practices of studying and preaching false scriptures or having too much affection for sons, wife, house and body (asad upasanaya), having desires for those objects of attraction, they take on lower births (ku sarira bhrtah), and wander in the material world (uru bhaye). They are thus killers of themselves. Aramam asya pasyanti na tam pasyanti na kascana They do not see the world of the Lord, not at all. They see the place of the Lord’s enjoyment as the world of pots and cloth. Brhad aranyaka 4.3.15 Satapath Brahmana 14.7.1.15 Na tam vidatha ya ima jajananyat yusmakam antaram babhuva Niharena pravta jalpyas casu trpa uktha sasas caranti O those engaged in argument, you do not know him. You do not know that the Lord created all this. Being different from the beings he created, he has entered you (he is close to you who propound theories of atoms). Being completely covered by ignorance, satisfying your life airs (asu trpah), you wander here and there, engaging in karma. Rg Veda 10.82.7 Asurya nama te loka adhena tamasavrtah Tams te pretyabhigacchanti ye ke cantmahano janah The killer of the soul, whoever he may be, must enter into the planets known as the worlds of the faithless, full of darkness and ignorance Isopanisad 3

Purport (Jiva Goswami)

Hearing from the śrutis the excellence of pure rati for the Lord, some other śrutis, their followers, praise the Lord by stating the opposite condition to strengthen their statement. The temporary body acts which is dependent on ātmā (anupatham) is something like the soul (kulāyam) by being related to you, Paramātmā. This means that it seems to be the object of rati with that form. When the body dies, it is no longer attractive. It is like the self because by ahaṅkāra one thinks of the body as the self. The body is a friend because it offers enjoyment of objects. It is dear because it is the object of affection. Because of the presence of ātmā, there is a combination of ātmā and body. It becomes the object of pleasure because of appearing like the ātmā by having a relationship with ātmā. Because you are present as Paramātmā within the body, you have forms which are facing the jīvas (unmukhe), and because of being self-revealing, you by your nature give benefit (hite) to those who recognize you and you inspire the jīva to seek out those forms. You are not insentient like the body. It is astonishing that people do not have attraction for you as much as to their body. How unfortunate! It is not so astonishing. The cause presents itself spontaneously. By serving things related to the body (asat) they kill themselves. It is reasonable that they are not attracted to you. In hopes for things related to the body they wander about in great fear, taking degraded bodies. Śruti supports this conclusion. Others also support this such as asūryā nāma te lokāḥ: the killer of the soul, whoever he may be, must enter into the planets of darkness. (Īśopaniṣad)

Purport (Sanatana Goswami)

The final goal is rati for the Lord’s lotus feet. This verse indicates that rati. This human body (idam) is temporary (kulāyam). Made of earth, it merges with the air (when burned). Or whatever is visible (idam) moves like the ātmā. The body, mistaken for the ātmā, becomes dear like a friend or lover. Or the body is friends with the ātmā, having a relationship by birth and benefiting it. The lover is dearer than even sons or dear, because she carries out one’s desires. But actually the body is not dear. It is only an appearance (vat). Though (tathā) you face the jīva or face the jiva in an inconceivable way because of your natural mercy, and give the jīva benefit (hite) as an unconditional friend, and though you show affection or are the object of affection (priye) as Paramātmā (ātmani), since its aṁśas are very dear, or though you inspire the jīva to good action and act as guru (ātmani), people do not take pleasure in you. Rati for the Lord is a means and a goal. This is because they injure the atmā by worshipping temporary things. Or kulāyam means that which is destroyed in a low way, becoming ashes. If that body follows the path of bhakti (tvad anupatham) it becomes dear like a friend. Moreover, you turn towards this devotee, benefit him and show affection for him. Those who injure ātmā do not enjoy with you by hearing and chanting etc.