Devanagari
धनं च धर्मैकफलं यतो वै
ज्ञानं सविज्ञानमनुप्रशान्ति ।
गृहेषु युञ्जन्ति कलेवरस्य
मृत्युं न पश्यन्ति दुरन्तवीर्यम् ॥ १२ ॥
Verse text
dhanaṁ ca dharmaika-phalaṁ yato vai
jṣānaṁ sa-vijṣānam anupraśānti
gṛheṣu yuṣjanti kalevarasya
mṛtyuṁ na paśyanti duranta-vīryam
Synonyms
dhanam
—
wealth
;
ca
—
also
;
dharma
—
eka — phalam — whose only proper fruit is religiosity
;
yataḥ
—
from which (religious life)
;
vai
—
indeed
;
jṣānam
—
knowledge
;
sa
—
vijṣānam — along with direct realization
;
anupraśānti
—
and subsequent liberation from suffering
;
gṛheṣu
—
in their homes
;
yuṣjanti
—
they utilize
;
kalevarasya
—
of their material body
;
mṛtyum
—
the death
;
na paśyanti
—
they cannot see
;
duranta
—
insurmountable
;
vīryam
—
the power of which .
Translation
The only proper fruit of acquired wealth is religiosity, on the basis of which one can acquire a philosophical understanding of life that eventually matures into direct perception of the Absolute Truth and thus liberation from all suffering. Materialistic persons, however, utilize their wealth simply for the advancement of their family situation. They fail to see that insurmountable death will soon destroy the frail material body.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
The outstanding purpose of wealth is dharma, from which arises knowledge and realization, after which one attains liberation. However, they employ wealth for maintaining their bodies and do not see insurmountable death of the body.
They are unintelligence because they use wealth for material pleasure. Dharma is wealth’s outstanding result. From dharma arises spiritual knowledge along with realization, from which liberation arises later. However, they use wealth for maintaining their bodies and other purposes in their houses.
Purport
Those things that come under the control of the proprietor are called
dhanam,
or wealth. When a foolish person becomes addicted to spending all of his hard-earned money to increase the prestige of his material body and family, he is no longer able to see how death is steadily approaching his own body as well as the temporary bodies of his family and friends.
Mṛtyuḥ sarva-haraś cāham:
the Supreme Lord appears as all-powerful death, which destroys all material situations. Actually, even in family life one should use one’s wealth for spiritual advancement of oneself and one’s family. In the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement there are many religious householders who live a simple, peaceful life and use their wealth for arranging Kṛṣṇa conscious activities at home and for helping the renounced
brahmacārīs
and
sannyāsīs
who are actively preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness in public places. Such householders, even those who are not able to dedicate one hundred percent of their energy to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, gradually acquire a very solid understanding of the spiritual principles of life and eventually become transcendentalists firmly fixed at the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa. Thus they free themselves from all of the anxieties of conditional life, namely birth, old age, disease and death.
Life without Kṛṣṇa consciousness is actually poverty, but the poverty-stricken materialist, whose intelligence is limited, cannot perceive that real wealth is the expansion of consciousness up to the highest level of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, love of Godhead. Such persons raise their children to be just like animals, having as their only goal false prestige and material sense gratification. Such materialistic householders fear that excessive interest in spiritual life may damage the ambition of their children to acquire false material prestige. Actually, death will smash all of the endeavors and plans of such spiritually impoverished materialists. If family life and wealth are used for Kṛṣṇa consciousness, one will learn to discriminate between the eternal and the noneternal, between spirit and matter, between bliss and anxiety, and thus the living entity will become liberated and go beyond mere theoretical knowledge to acquire the highest perfectional benediction of eternal Kṛṣṇa conscious life. Limited sensory knowledge,
pratyakṣa-jṣāna,
is useless without theoretical spiritual knowledge,
parokṣa-jṣāna,
which gradually matures, with careful cultivation, into direct realized knowledge of the soul,
aparokṣa-jṣāna.
The word
anupraśānti
in this verse indicates that by spiritual knowledge (
vijṣānam
) one achieves the most sublime state of eternal peace and bliss, far beyond the dreams of the materialistic conditioned soul.