928
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 4, Ch. 22]
joyment is the cause of our falldown in this material world, and thus we suffer the threefold miseries and continuous birth, death, old age and disease. However, if we turn our desires toward the transcendental loving service of the Lord, our desires become purified. We cannot kill desires. We have to purify them of different designations. If we constantly think of being a member of a particular nation, society or family and continuously think about them, we become very strongly entangled in the conditioned life of birth and death. But if our desires are applied to the service of the Lord, they become purified, and thus we become immediately freed from material contamination.
TEXT 31
अश्यत्यनुस्मृतिश्चित्तं ज्ञानभ्रंशः स्मृतिक्षये । तद्रोधं कवयः प्राहुरात्मापहवमात्मनः ॥३१॥
bhraśyaty anusmṛtiś cittam jñāna-bhramśaḥ smṛti-kṣaye tad-rodham kavayaḥ prāhur ātmāpahnavam ātmanaḥ
bhraśyati—becomes destroyed; anusmṛtiḥ—constantly thinking; cittam—consciousness; jñāna-bhramśaḥ—bereft of real knowledge; smṛti-kṣaye—by destruction of remembrance; tat-rodham—choking that process; kavayaḥ—great learned scholars; prāhuḥ—have opined; ātma—of the soul; apahnavam—destruction; ātmanaḥ—of the soul.
TRANSLATION
When one deviates from his original consciousness, he loses the capacity to remember his previous position or recognize his present one. When remembrance is lost, all knowledge that is acquired is based on a false foundation. When this occurs, learned scholars consider that the soul is lost.
PURPORT
The living entity or the soul is ever existing and eternal. It cannot be lost, but learned scholars say that it is lost when actual knowledge is not working. That is the difference between animals and human beings. According to less intelligent philosophers, animals have no soul. But factually animals have souls. Due to the animals' gross ignorance, however, it appears that they have lost their souls. Without the soul, a body cannot move. That is the difference between a living body and a dead body. When the soul is out of the body, the body is called dead. The soul is said to be lost when