1336 Srimad-Bhagavatam [Canto 3, Ch. 31

upasarpati—she captures; deva-ma@ya—the external energy of the Lord;

mithya—false; matih—identification; yat—which maya; anu—according to;

samsrti—of continual birth and death; cakram—cycle; etat—this.
TRANSLATION

Therefore, my Lord, although I am living in a terrible condition, still I
do not wish to depart from my mother’s abdomen to fall again into the
blind well of materialistic life. Your external energy, called deva-maya, at
once captures the newly born child, and immediately false identification,
which is the beginning of the cycle of continual birth and death, begins.

PURPORT

As long as the child is within the womb of his mother, he is in a very
precarious and horrible condition of life, but the benefit is that he revives
pure consciousness of his relationship with the Supreme Lord and prays
for deliverance. But once he is outside the abdomen, when a child is born,
maya or the illusory energy is so strong that he is immediately overpowered
into considering his body to be his self. Maya means illusion, or that which
is actually not. In the material world, everyone is identifying with his
body. This false egoistic consciousness of “‘] am this body” at once
develops after the child comes out of the womb. The mother and other
relatives are awaiting the child, and as soon as he is born, the mother feeds
him, and everyone takes care of him. The living entity soon forgets his po-
sition and becomes entangled in bodily relationships. The entire material
existence is entanglement in this bodily conception of life. Real knowledge
means to develop the consciousness of ‘I am not this body. I am spirit
soul, an eternal part and parcel of the Supreme Lord.” Real knowledge
entails renunciation, or nonacceptance of this body as the self.

By the influence of maya, the external energy, one forgets everything
just after birth. Therefore the child is praying that he prefers to remain
within the womb rather than come out. It is said that Sukadeva Gosvami,
on this consideration, remained for sixteen years within the womb of his
mother; he did not want to be entangled in false bodily identification.
After cultivating such knowledge within the womb of his mother, he came
out at the end of sixteen years and immediately left home so that he
might not be captured by the influence of maya. The influence of maya is
also explained in Bhagavad-gitd as insurmountable. But insurmountable
maya can be overcome simply by Krsna consciousness. That is also
