Text 22]
Prayers by the Demigods
149
region of hellish life because of his cruelty. It is said that a cruel person like a butcher is advised not to live and not to die. While living, a cruel person creates a hellish condition for his next birth, and therefore he should not live; but he is also advised not to die, because after death he must go to the darkest region of hell. Thus in either circumstance he is condemned. Kaṁsa, therefore, having good sense about the science of the soul's transmigration, deliberately refrained from killing Devakī.
In this verse the words  gantā tamo 'ndhaṁ tanu-mānino dhruvam  are very important and require extensive understanding. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, in his  Vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī-ṭīkā , says:  tatra tanu-māninaḥ pāpina iti dehātma-buddhyaiva pāpābhiniveśo bhavati . One who lives in the bodily concept, thinking, "I am this body," involves himself, by the very nature of this conception, in a life of sinful activities. Anyone living in such a conception is to be considered a candidate for hell.
adānta-gobhir viśatāṁ tamisraṁ punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (Bhāg. 7.5.30)
One who is in a bodily concept of life has no control over sense gratification. Such a person can do anything sinful to eat, drink, be merry and enjoy a life of sense gratification, not knowing of the soul's transmigration from one body to another. Such a person does whatever he likes, whatever he imagines, and therefore, being subject to the laws of nature, he suffers miserably again and again in different material bodies.
yāvat kriyās tāvad idaṁ mano vai karmātmakaṁ yena śarīra-bandhaḥ (Bhāg. 5.5.5)
In the bodily concept of life, a person is  karmānubandha , or conditioned by  karma , and as long as the mind is absorbed in  karma , one must accept a material body.  Śarīra-bandha , bondage to the material body, is a source of misery ( kleśa-da ).
na sādhu manye yata ātmano 'yam asann api kleśada āsa dehaḥ