Text 49]
The History of the Life of Ajāmila
67
manifested in a dream;  eva —certainly;  hi —indeed;  na veda —does not know;  pūrvam —the past body;  aparam —the next body;  naṣṭa —lost;  janma-smṛtiḥ —the remembrance of birth;  tathā —similarly.
TRANSLATION
As a sleeping person acts according to the body manifested in his dreams and accepts it to be himself, so one identifies with his present body, which he acquired because of his past religious or irreligious actions, and is unable to know his past or future lives.
PURPORT
A man engages in sinful activities because he does not know what he did in his past life to get his present materially conditioned body, which is subjected to the threefold miseries. As stated by Rṣabhadeva in  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam  (5.5.4),  nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma : a human being who is mad after sense gratification does not hesitate to act sinfully.  Yad indriya-prītaya āpṛṇoti : he performs sinful actions simply for sense gratification.  Na sādhu manye : this is not good.  Yata ātmano'yam asann api kleśada āsa dehaḥ : because of such sinful actions, one receives another body in which to suffer as he is suffering in his present body because of his past sinful activities.
It should be understood that a person who does not have Vedic knowledge always acts in ignorance of what he has done in the past, what he is doing at the present and how he will suffer in the future. He is completely in darkness. Therefore the Vedic injunction is,  tamasi mā : “Don’t remain in darkness.”  Jyotir gama : “Try to go to the light.” The light or illumination is Vedic knowledge, which one can understand when he is elevated to the mode of goodness or when he transcends the mode of goodness by engaging in devotional service to the spiritual master and the Supreme Lord. This is described in the  Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad  (6.23):
yasya deve parā bhaktir 
    yathā deve tathā gurau 
    tasyaite kathitā hy arthāḥ 
    prakāśante mahātmanaḥ