66 Srimad-Bhagavatam [Canto 9, Ch. 19

such tapasya, or austerity. By the austerity of voluntarily stopping sex
life at home and going to the forest to engage in spiritual activities in the
association of devotees, one achieves the actual purpose of human life.

TEXT 12
qe FM: TA are: Aaaleaa: |
area artisan areata ara 112 211

tathaham krpanah subhru
bhavatyah prema-yantritah

Gtmanam nabhijanami
mohitas tava mayaya

tatha—exactly like the he-goat; aham—I; krpanah—a miser with no
sense of the importance of life; su-bhru—O my wife, with beautiful
eyebrows; bhavatyah—in your company; prema-yantritah—as if tied in
love, although it is actually lust; dtmaénam—self-realization (what I am
and what my duty is); na abhijandmi—I could not realize even until
now; mohitah—being bewildered; tava—your; mayayad—by the
materially attractive feature.

TRANSLATION

O my dear wife with beautiful eyebrows, I am exactly like that
he-goat, for I am so poor in intelligence that I am captivated by
your beauty and have forgotten the real task of self-realization.

PURPORT

If one remains a victim of the so-called beauty of his wife, his family
life is nothing but a dark well. Hitvatma-patam grham andha-kipam.
Existence in such a dark well is certainly suicidal. If one wants relief
from the miserable condition of material life, one must voluntarily give
up his lusty relationship with his wife; otherwise there is no question of
self-realization. Unless one is extremely advanced in spiritual conscious-
ness, household life is nothing but a dark well in which one commits
