Chapter 31: Lord Kapila's Instructions on the Wanderings of the Living Entities
(1) The Supreme Lord said: 'Because of its karma the living entity, guided by the Lord, enters through the particle of semen of a man the womb of a woman in order to dwell there for obtaining a body.
(2) On the first night the sperm and ovum mix, at the fifth night there is a bubble and in about ten days it is thereafter like a plum, lump of flesh or an egg.
(3) Within a month a head appears and within two months limbs like arms and feet form. The nails, [the beginnings of] hair, bones, skin, reproductive organs and the apertures appear within three months.
(4) In about four months the seven ingredients separate [body-fluids and other elements], in five months feelings like hunger and thirst occur and in six months the fetus starts to move to the right in the amnion [males to the right, females to the left so one says].
(5) From the nutrition and fluid obtained from the mother the body of the fetus grows as it stays in that impossible hollow where[about] stool and urine form a breeding ground for germs.
(6) All the time aching for food, it is, being so tender, affected by infestations ['worms'] and thus has to suffer all over its body a great deal while residing there, moment after moment lapsing into unconsciousness.
(7) Because of the excessive bitterness, heat, pungency, saltiness, dryness, the sourness etc. of the food taken by the mother, it is affected in every limb and thus feels pain.
(8) Enclosed by the amnion in that place surrounded by the intestines it lies with a bent neck and back arched with its head in its belly.
(9) Like a bird in a cage that has no freedom of movement, it still remembers - when it is lucky - what has happened in all its past hundreds of births. Remembering such a long history, it will sigh, for what peace of mind can it achieve then?
(10) From the seventh month on it is endowed with consciousness, but at the same time it is pushed down by the pressure of the womb where it cannot stay, just like the worm stemming from the same belly.(11) The fearful living entity bound to its seven constituents [nails, skin, fat, flesh, blood, bone, marrow], then, with folded hands and faltering words prays, appealing to the Lord who placed him in that womb. (12) The human soul says: 'May He protect me who protects the entire universe and who, with assuming His different forms, walks the earth with His lotus feet. Let me take shelter of this refuge that will take my fears away, of Him who decided that I deserved this untrue condition.
(13) I, the pure soul covered by the grossness of matter which consists of the elements, the senses and the mind, have fallen into this delusional state [mâyâ] because of my being bound to activities. Let me offer my obeisances so that I may hold on to the completely pure Changeless One of unlimited knowledge who resides in the heart of the repentant one.
(14) Separated as I am by the covering of this material body that was formed from the five elements and relies on senses, material preferences [gunas], interests and identification, I offer my obeisances to You, the Supreme Person transcendental to material nature and its living entities, to You, whose glories are not obscured by such a material body.
(15) By the deluding quality of Your outer appearance this body, that by the modes of nature and its karma is bound to wander on the path of repeated birth and death, has to suffer considerably with a repeatedly spoilt memory. May this soul arrive at the realization of his true nature, how else would one find Your divine mercy?
(16) What else but Your divinity, that as a partial aspect [the Paramâtmâ] dwells in both the animate and the inanimate, would give us the knowledge of the threefold of Time, of past, present and future? In order to be freed from the threefold misery [as caused by oneself, nature and others] we, as individual souls engaged on the path of fruitive activities, have to surrender to that divinity.
(17) Endowed with a body within the abdomen of another body, having fallen into a pool of blood, stool and urine and strongly scorched by gastric fire, this [individual soul with its] body, desiring to leave that place, is counting its months for when it, miserable as it is, will be released, oh Lord.
(18) You granted me, [not even] ten months old, oh Lord, [the light of] Your incomparable, supreme mercy. What else can I do but to pray in return with folded hands out of gratitude for that incomparable and unique grace of You who are the refuge of the fallen souls?
(19) This living being can, from its bondage to the seven layers of matter [3.29: 40-45], only understand what is agreeable and disagreeable. But by You endowed with another body of self-control within myself, I am really able to recognize inside of me You, the original person constituting the inner guidance, who resides both within my heart and outside of me.
(20) Oh Almighty One, even though I, who has to live with all the miseries outside of this abdomen, rather not depart from here to land in that pitfall, I, [just as everyone else] who enters this world, at once will be captured by Your mâyâ and be entangled in the false identification [of the ego] that is fundamental to the eternal cycle of birth and death.
(21) Therefore I will, well-disposed to the soul no longer being agitated, again deliver myself quickly from that darkness, by placing the feet of Lord Vishnu in my heart and thus save me from this fate of having to enter so many wombs.'
(22) Kapila said: 'Thus desiring from within the womb, the [almost] ten months old living entity extols the Lord at the time of being pushed downwards by the pressure of labor to take birth. (23) Because of that pressure the child, with its head turned downwards, suddenly, with great difficulty and bereft of all memory, comes out breathless.
(24) Like a worm falling down to earth it, smeared with blood, moves its limbs and cries loudly now it has lost the wisdom in reaching the opposite [material] position.
(25) Being maintained by its folks who do not understand what it wants, it has fallen into circumstances it did not desire and cannot refuse.
(26) Lying down in fouled linen [dirty diapers etc.] the child is pestered by germs [suffering rashes on its body] it cannot scratch away from its limbs, for it is not able to sit, stand or move around.
(27) Flies, mosquitos, bugs and other creatures bite the baby's tender skin. Just like vermin, it is pestered by other vermin. Deprived of wisdom it then cries.
(28) This way undergoing infancy in distress and even in its childhood, out of ignorance, not achieving what it wants, it gets angry and sad.
(29) With a developing physical consciousness, the by lusts motivated person in his anger then develops enmity towards other lusty persons and thus loses sight of the interest of his soul.
(30) The embodied soul, who out of ignorance holds on to non-permanent matters, that way constantly reasons from the reality of his physical existence composed of the five elements and thus foolishly thinks in terms of 'I' and 'mine'.
(31) Engaged in actions in service of his body he, because of his bondage to the dark motives of fruitive labor, is haunted by trouble [consisting of the so-called kles'as] and time and again arrives at yet another birth in the material world.
(32) When he, returning on the materialistic path, again [only] is interested in human association for the sake of the pleasure of his genitals and his stomach, the living entity ends up in darkness as before.
(33) Because of thus being associated he loses his sense of truth, purity, compassion and gravity, his spiritual intelligence, prosperity, modesty and his good name, as also his mercy, the control over his mind and senses and his fortune.
(34) One should not seek association with coarse and immoral fools bereft of self-realization who, like pitiable dogs, dance to the piping of the ladies.
(35) Nothing in the world makes a man as infatuated and dependent as to associate with a man attached to women or with a company of men fond of women.
(37) Except for sage Nârâyana, among all the living entities born from Brahmâ there is not a single man whose intelligence is not distracted by mâyâ in the form of a woman.
(38) Behold the strength of My mâyâ in the shape of a woman, that even makes the conquerors of the world follow her closely by the mere movement of an eyebrow.
(39) He who aspires to reach the culmination of yoga, should never become attached to [young, attractive] women. One says that, to someone who arrived at self-realization in My service, that is the gateway to hell.
(40) The woman, a creation of the Lord, is as an overgrown well [one falls into when one is inattentive], she represents the slowly encroaching mâyâ, the illusory power of the material world, that one must consider the death of one's self.
(41) When he, as the bestower of wealth, progeny and a house, out of attachment to his wife, himself has obtained the female state, she will consider My mâyâ, that assumed the form of a man, as her husband.
(43) Because the person constantly enjoys to engage in profit-minded labor, the individual soul, by the body thus acquired, wanders from one world to the other.
(44) That is how a soul acquires a body, composed of the material elements, the senses and the mind, that befits his nature. When that body finds its end it is called death but when it manifests one speaks of birth.
(45-46) When one cannot perceive the fixed position of an object, that implies that one's sense perception has died, and when one considers one's body as being oneself it implies that one has taken birth [in a material sense]. He who perceives cannot at the same time regard both the object and the perceiving witness himself, just as the eyes cannot see all the different parts of a single object in one view.
(47) One should not be horrified about death, not be afraid of poverty, nor be concerned about any material gain; when one understands the true nature of the living being, one should steadfast and free from attachment move around on this planet.
(48) When one relegates one's body to this world composed of mâyâ, one should, endowed with the right vision, on the basis of reason move around there in detachment, being connected in the science of the [three forms of] yoga.'
