SB 7.6.8

Srimad-Bhagavatam - Seventh Canto - Chapter 6: Prahlāda Instructs His Demoniac Schoolmates

SB 7.6.7 - SB 7.6.9

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

TEXT 8

durāpūreṇa kāmena

mohena ca balīyasā

śeṣaṁ gṛheṣu saktasya

pramattasyāpayāti hi

SYNONYMS

durāpūreṇa — which is never fulfilled; kāmena — by a strong aspiration to enjoy the material world; mohena — by bewilderment; ca — also; balīyasā — which is strong and formidable; śeṣam — the remaining years of life; gṛheṣu — to family life; saktasya — of one who is too attached; pramattasya — mad; apayāti — wastefully pass; hi — indeed.

TRANSLATION

One whose mind and senses are uncontrolled becomes increasingly attached to family life because of insatiable lusty desires and very strong illusion. In such a madman's life, the remaining years are also wasted because even during those years he cannot engage himself in devotional service.

PURPORT

This is the account of one hundred years of life. Although in this age a lifetime of one hundred years is generally not possible, even if one has one hundred years, the calculation is that fifty years are wasted in sleeping, twenty years in childhood and boyhood, and twenty years in invalidity (jarā-vyādhi). This leaves only a few more years, but because of too much attachment to household life, those years are also spent with no purpose, without God consciousness. Therefore, one should be trained to be a perfect brahmacārī in the beginning of life. Then, being perfect in sense control, one will follow the regulative principles even if he becomes a householder. From household life one is ordered to accept vānaprastha life and go to the forest and then accept sannyāsa. That is the perfection of life. From the very beginning of life, those who are ajitendriya, who cannot control their senses, are educated only for sense gratification, as we have seen in the Western countries. Thus the entire duration of a life of even one hundred years is wasted and misused, and at the time of death one transmigrates to another body, which may not be human. At the end of one hundred years, one who has not acted as a human being in a life of tapasya (austerity and penance) must certainly be embodied again in a body like those of cats, dogs and hogs. Therefore this life of lusty desires and sense gratification is extremely risky.

SB 7.6.7 - SB 7.6.9