SB 11.23.48 · Srimad-Bhagavatam

Devanagari

तं दुर्जयं शत्रुमसह्यवेग- मरुन्तुदं तन्न विजित्य केचित् । कुर्वन्त्यसद्विग्रहमत्र मर्त्यै- र्मित्राण्युदासीनरिपून् विमूढा: ॥ ४८ ॥

Verse text

tam durjayaṁ śatrum asahya-vegam arun-tudaṁ tan na vijitya kecit kurvanty asad-vigraham atra martyair mitrāṇy udāsīna-ripūn vimūḍhāḥ

Synonyms

tam — that ; durjayam — difficult to conquer ; śatrum — enemy ; asahya — intolerable ; vegam — whose urges ; arum — tudam — capable of tormenting the heart ; tat — therefore ; na vijitya — failing to conquer over ; kecit — some people ; kurvanti — they create ; asat — useless ; vigraham — quarrel ; atra — in this world ; martyaiḥ — with mortal living beings ; mitrāṇi — friends ; udāsīna — indifferent persons ; ripūn — and rivals ; vimūḍhāḥ — completely bewildered .

Translation

Failing to conquer this irrepressible enemy, the mind, whose urges are intolerable and who torments the heart, many people are completely bewildered and create useless quarrel with others. Thus they conclude that other people are either their friends, their enemies or parties indifferent to them.

Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

Failing to conquer this irrepressible enemy, the mind, whose urges are intolerable and which torments the heart, fools create useless quarrel with others. Thus they conclude that some people are their friends and others are their enemies or indifferent to them. Not conquering the mind, which gives pain to the heart, fools suddenly quarrel with others. They see others as friendly or inimical.

Purport

Falsely identifying oneself as the material body, and accepting bodily expansions such as children and grandchildren to be one’s eternal property, one completely forgets that every living being is qualitatively one with God. There is no essential difference between one individual being and another, since all are eternal expansions of the Supreme Lord. The mind absorbed in false ego creates the material body, and by identification with the body, the conditioned soul is overwhelmed by false pride and ignorance, as described here.