CC Antya 6.199
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
TEXT 199
- tathāpi viṣayera svabhāva—kare mahā-andha
- sei karma karāya, yāte haya bhava-bandha
SYNONYMS
tathāpi — still; viṣayera svabhāva — the potency of material enjoyment; kare mahā-andha — makes one completely blind; sei karma karāya — causes one to act in that way; yāte — by which; haya — there is; bhava-bandha — the bondage of birth and death.
TRANSLATION
“Those who are attached to materialistic life and are blind to spiritual life must act in such a way that they are bound to repeated birth and death by the actions and reactions of their activities.
PURPORT
As clearly stated in the Bhagavad-gītā (BG 3.9), yajñārthāt karmaṇo ‘nyatra loko ‘yaṁ karma-bandhanaḥ: if one does not act as a pure devotee, whatever acts he performs will produce reactions of fruitive bondage (karma-bandhanaḥ). Similarly, in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (SB 5.5.4) it is said:
- nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma
- yad indriya-prītaya āpṛṇoti
- na sādhu manye yata ātmano ‘yam
- asann api kleśa-da āsa dehaḥ
“A materialistic person, madly engaged in activities for sense enjoyment, does not know that he is entangling himself in repeated birth and death and that his body, although temporary, is full of miseries.” A viṣayī, a person blindly caught in a web of materialistic life, remains in the cycle of birth and death perpetually. Such a person cannot understand how to execute pure devotional service, and therefore he acts as a karmī, jñānī, yogī or something else, according to his desire, but he does not know that the activities of karma, jñāna and yoga simply bind one to the cycle of birth and death.