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Chapter
14: The
Material World as the Great Forest of Enjoyment
(1) The wise [S'ukadeva] said: 'Those who
take the body for the real self, being different with the mode of
goodness and such, consider matters from the wrong perspective.
Basing
themselves on the
six gateways of their senses and their mind, they alternatively
operating favorably, unfavorably or with a mixed approach, have to deal
with
a never ending process of transmigration through different series of
physical frames they time and again have to forsake and pick up
again. In relation to Vishnu, the Transcendental Personality who is the
Lord, the bound soul who
acting under the
control of mâyâ, the illusory of matter, moves
on the difficult path of the hard to cross forest of material
existence, is engaged like a merchant who wants to make money with
things desired by the people. He who engages his body for the sake of
the profit experiences the material world in which he landed as a
cemetery [a dead-end street for his self-realization] where he meets
with a lot of resistance for as long as he doesn't succeed to progress
in
following the example of the
bumblebees, the ones devoted to the lotus feet of the Lord and His
representatives, who put an end to the trouble of reaching His jewel
[His glory]. 
(2)
In that forest he
guaranteed is faced with the six senses and the mind whom one because
of their activities may call his plunderers. They steal away from the
wanton soul, who as someone lacking in self-control is walking the
wrong path, every little bit of hard-won wealth which is so perfect for
performing sacrifices. The acquired wealth that one at home for the
purpose of gratifying one's senses cherishes in one's determination to
see, touch, hear, taste and smell, leads, so say the sages, only to a
better life in the hereafter when one directly uses it for the
religious [varnâs'rama]
practice
according
to
the
principles
which
is
characterized
by
the
worship
of
the
Supreme
Personality. (3) In
this respect the members of his family, beginning with those whom one
calls his wife and children, are tigers and jackals in their actions; they
seize, despite
of his resistance against it, the
wealth he miserly doesn't
want to share,
just like a lamb that [by
predators] by force from the midst of the herd is seized before
the
eyes of the herdsman. (4) Just as in a field that is plowed every year the seeds of the
bushes, grasses and creepers that didn't burn are kept and come
up again with the plants sown like in any garden, so too in the field of
activities of one's family life karmic [fruitive] activities do not
disappear. Therefore this world is called the storehouse of desires. (5) Lost in that life, sometimes on this
material path of existence wandering in the spheres of wealth, he [the
follower of falsehood] is disturbed by low-class characters, who are
like gadflies and mosquitos, and by thieves [who are like] rats,
locusts and birds of prey. Because of a lusty mind being ignorant in
his fruitive motives, he looks at this human world in which one never
reaches one's goal, with a wrong vision: he sees castles in the air. (6) There [in that
human world] he who sometimes is engaged in chasing a fata morgana in
his eagerness to drink and eat and to have sex and such, as a consequence is a libertine
addicted to his senses. (7) Sometimes when he looks for gold,
he, obsessed by that
particular type of yellowish rubbish that is also an unlimited source
of wickedness, is just like someone who [in the dark] going for a fire
follows a phosphorescent fathom light. (8) A
person is thus in this material forest
at times fully engaged in running hither and thither for the sake of
the various
items of a dwelling place, water and wealth that are deemed necessary
for subsistence. (9) Sometimes
also, in the dark of night driven by a momentary whirlwind of passion,
he copulates with an alluring woman. In total neglect of the
rules [a higher vision] he
then, blinded by the strength of that passion, notwithstanding the
divinities [of the sun and moon], loses all notion in being overcome by
a mind
full of lust. (10) Occasionally
for
an
instant
he
wakes
up
to
the
meaninglessness
of
the
bodily
conception
of
his
self
that
destroys
his
remembrance
and because of which he runs
after sense objects like after the water of a mirage. (11) At times there is, exactly like it is with the typical
penetrating, repeated sounds of owls and crickets, the agitation caused
directly or
indirectly by
enemies and state officials, who by their
punitive actions trouble the ear and heart. (12) When the
conditioned soul has exhausted [the merit of] his good deeds in his
previous life and at that time [in need of financial support]
approaches the wealthy ones with their
dead souls, he
himself is then just as dead within, because they are like the
kâraskara, kâkatunda and more of such [fruitless] trees.
They are
just like fouled wells never capable of making one happy. (13) Occasionally
associating with insincere people of a limited understanding, it is as
if he's diving in a shallow river [so that he breaks his neck]; seeking
the company of atheists will make him very unhappy in both respects
[spiritual and physical]. (14) When
he fails in [acquiring] the
wealth of others, he next gives trouble to his father and son by
'honoring' them as being either a father or son.
(15) Burned
by
the
flames
of
grief
getting
most
disappointed, he sometimes
experiences his life at home as a forest fire that brings no good but
only more and more sadness. (16) Sometimes,
the wealth he holds dear is plundered
by
a
carnivorous
government
that
grew
corrupt
over time, so that he, bereft of all his good
life, remains like a corpse with the life air expired. (17) Then again thinking that his father,
grandfather and others who deceased a long time ago, are there again
for real [as an incarnation], he experiences the type of happiness one
feels in dreams. (18) At other times he as a householder
with a mind in hot pursuit of material matters wants to climb the
mountain of precepts for [religious sacrifices for the sake of]
fruitive activities and then [being frustrated by
all the demands] laments like he has entered a field full of
thorns and sharp stones. (19) Occasionally
[fasting
religiously
but]
unable
to
bear
the
fire
of
hunger
and
thirst,
he
runs
out
of
patience
and
gets
angry
with his family members. (20) He repeatedly being devoured by the python
of sleep
is, in the grip of ignorance finding himself in deep darkness, like a
corpse which, left behind in the forest, lying there doesn't know a
thing any more [see also B.G. 6: 16 & 14: 8]. (21) So now and
then with his teeth of honor broken by [the envy of] his serpent-like
enemies, he
suffers from insomnia and then falls into the blind well of illusion
with a consciousness gradually deteriorating because of a disturbed heart [a debilitating
rumination]. (22) And then it happens that,
searching for the sweet [honey] drops of desire of another man's woman
or riches, he appropriates them so that he severely is chastised by
the government or the relatives involved and thus ends up in an
incomparably hellish life. (23) This
now is the reason why the Vedic authority states that the fruitive
activity [the karma]
of a
living entity constitutes the cause of this life and a next one in the ocean of matter. (24) If he
manages to stay away from the chastising, a trader such ['Devadatta']
takes his money away
and another friend of Vishnu so ['Vishnumitra']
on his turn takes it from him again, and thus the riches [as a part of the Lord His opulence]
move from one hand to the other.
(25) It
also happens that one because of various natural causes like heat and
cold, because of other living
beings and because of
the operation of one's own body and mind [resp. adhidaivika,
adhibhautika,
adhyâtmika kles'as, see also 2.10:
8] is
unable to
counter the conditions of life, so that one is severely troubled by
remaining anxieties and depressions. (26) Sometimes, when trading with one another,
there is about whatever little bit of money or farthing appropriated,
however
insignificant, a rise of enmity because of dishonesty.
(27) On the path of material existence one meets with these forms of misfortune associated with happiness and unhappiness, attachment, hate, fear, false prestige, illusion, madness, lamentation, bewilderment, greed, envy, enmity, insult, hunger, thirst, tribulations, disease, birth, old age, death, and so on. (28) Somewhere, under the influence of the illusory energy, mâyâ, one is, being firmly embraced by the creepers of the arms of a female companion, deeply embarrassed by finding oneself at a loss void of all intelligence and wisdom. In the wish to please her and find her a suitable place to live, one's heart gets engrossed in the concern and one's consciousness is seized by the talks and nice looks offered by the sons and daughters under the loving care of one's wife. Having lost the command over oneself one is then thrown into the endless darkness of a life in ignorance.
(29) It so happens that because of the cakra of the
Controller, the
Supreme Lord Vishnu His disc of Time, the influence of which
stretches from the
first expansion of atoms to the duration of the complete life of
Brahmâ, one has to suffer the symptoms of its rotating, with
which
in due course, swiftly before one's eyes, without a blink, all lives of
the entities, from Brahmâ to the simplest blade of grass, are
spent. Directly of Him, the Controller whose personal weapon is the
disc of Time, one is afraid at heart. Not caring about the Supreme
Lord, the Original Person of Sacrifice, one accepts as worshipable that
what
misses any foundation, preoccupied as one is
with one's self-made gods who are
like
buzzards,
vultures,
herons
and
crows and
who are denied by the scriptures of
our civilization. (30) When one as a conditioned soul by the
atheists -
who themselves are cheated - is cheated even more, one takes to the
school
of the brahmins. But with them [as neurotic, difficult people] not
finding
satisfaction in the good character of engaging with the sacred thread
according to principle and scripture, nor in the trusted culture of
dutiful worship of the Supreme Lord and Original
Person of Sacrifice, one turns to the association of karmis
[karma motivated people or s'udras] who are
not purified in behaving according to the Vedic injunctions. And with
them one, in a materialistic sex life maintaining the family, finds
oneself in
the company of those who think they descended from monkeys [instead of spiritual masters].
(31) In that condition to one's own judgment
without a trace of doubt enjoying [like the monkeys] with a serious
lack of knowledge and insight, one forgets how short
life is when one, staring into each other's dejected faces, hankers for
gratification and material results. (32) Sometimes, exactly
like
the
monkeys in their trees, delighted
in
one's
home
in
which
one always
strives for a greater comfort, one spends one's time caring about and
having fun with the wife and
children. (33)
One is as a conditioned soul confined to the sensual path and thus
abides, out of fear for the elephant of death, by a darkness as deep as
that of
a mountain cave. (34-35) In relation to the objects of one's senses one is sometimes [as said] with one's
inability to counteract the
insurmountable miseries of the heat and cold of nature,
other living beings and one's
own existence, caught in sadness because of [the enmity that
rose about] whatever little bit
of wealth one in mutual
transactions happened to acquire by cheating. (36) Now and then running out of
money and bereft of accommodations for sleeping, sitting and eating one
must endure the derision and
such
of the people that rose as a
consequence of what one by a lack of success in one's desire
decided to acquire in a
dishonest way. (37) Even
though one, because of
financially determined relations, more and more relates in enmity, one
nevertheless engages in marriages which, based on this desire [to
advance materially], consequently end in divorces. (38) On
this
path
through
the
ocean
of
matter
one
is
plagued
by the different miseries
of a material existence, to which anyone himself - or anybody else for
that matter - now and then thinks that he has won and then again thinks
that he has lost. Thereto one experiences in giving up [deceased]
relatives and welcoming newborn babies in
ones
bondage at times a lot of
sorrow, illusion and fear to which one loudly cries while one at other
times is so happy that one starts to sing. Up to the
present day save
for the saintly souls no one of this entire world of self-interested
human beings has ever returned to the one [place of God] where this
material
course started and of which the defenders of the peace declare that it
is also the end station. (39) Materially motivated human beings do not
follow
the instructions of yoga nor do they attain this [supreme abode] which
is easily attained by the wise who naturally living and abiding by
peace are in control
of their mind and senses. (40) Even
when one is the saintliest of kings, victorious
in all
fields and expert in performing all the sacrifices, one is but an
earthly human being who has to lay down his life,
has to give up the fight, has to meet his demise because of the
self-created enmity with others and has to stop considering things in
terms of 'mine' [compare 1.2:
13]. (41) Taking shelter of the creeper of karma
[engaging in remedial actions] one somehow or other may be freed from
the misfortune of one's hellish position [of being entangled in the
material world], but whatever
the higher world one thus is promoted to, one again treads that way the worldly path of
self-interested activities.
(42) There is not a single king able to follow even in his mind the path that we celebrated here as the way of the great soul Jada Bharata, the son of the great saintly king Rishabhadeva, any more than a fly can follow Garuda, the carrier of Vishnu. (43) It was he who gave up the difficult to forsake wealth of a family, friends and well-wishers and the royal realm. Fond of Uttamas'loka, the Lord praised in the verses, he, only in his prime years, renounced all that occupied his heart like it was stool. (44) To those whose minds are attracted by the loving service unto the killer of Madhu [Krishna] performed by the greatest souls, everything that is so difficult to give up, the world, the children, relatives, riches and a wife, all that is desirable of the goddess of fortune and the best of the demigods their glances of mercy, is of no significance; and that befitted him as a king. (45) 'The Enjoyer of all sacrifices, the Propounder of the Religion, He who teaches by the regulative principles [the vidhi see 1.17: 24], the yoga in person, the teacher of analysis [sânkhya, see Kapila: 3.25], the Controller of the Creation, Nârâyana the shelter of all living beings, unto Lord Hari I offer my obeisances!', was what he prayed aloud with a smile, even when he resided in the body of a deer. (46) He who listens to or describes to others this, by the great devotees highly appreciated, all auspicious narration about the wise king Bharata, so pure in his qualities and actions, will live long, be fortunate, be well thought of, reach the higher worlds or find the path of liberation. Glorifying the character of the devotee and the Lord will bring someone all blessings possible, leaving nothing left to desire from others.'
(2)
In that forest he
guaranteed is faced with the six senses and the mind whom one because
of their activities may call his plunderers. They steal away from the
wanton soul, who as someone lacking in self-control is walking the
wrong path, every little bit of hard-won wealth which is so perfect for
performing sacrifices. The acquired wealth that one at home for the
purpose of gratifying one's senses cherishes in one's determination to
see, touch, hear, taste and smell, leads, so say the sages, only to a
better life in the hereafter when one directly uses it for the
religious [varnâs'rama]
practice
according
to
the
principles
which
is
characterized
by
the
worship
of
the
Supreme
Personality. (3) In
this respect the members of his family, beginning with those whom one
calls his wife and children, are tigers and jackals in their actions; they
seize, despite
of his resistance against it, the
wealth he miserly doesn't
want to share,
just like a lamb that [by
predators] by force from the midst of the herd is seized before
the
eyes of the herdsman. (4) Just as in a field that is plowed every year the seeds of the
bushes, grasses and creepers that didn't burn are kept and come
up again with the plants sown like in any garden, so too in the field of
activities of one's family life karmic [fruitive] activities do not
disappear. Therefore this world is called the storehouse of desires. (5) Lost in that life, sometimes on this
material path of existence wandering in the spheres of wealth, he [the
follower of falsehood] is disturbed by low-class characters, who are
like gadflies and mosquitos, and by thieves [who are like] rats,
locusts and birds of prey. Because of a lusty mind being ignorant in
his fruitive motives, he looks at this human world in which one never
reaches one's goal, with a wrong vision: he sees castles in the air. (6) There [in that
human world] he who sometimes is engaged in chasing a fata morgana in
his eagerness to drink and eat and to have sex and such, as a consequence is a libertine
addicted to his senses. (7) Sometimes when he looks for gold,
he, obsessed by that
particular type of yellowish rubbish that is also an unlimited source
of wickedness, is just like someone who [in the dark] going for a fire
follows a phosphorescent fathom light. (8) A
person is thus in this material forest
at times fully engaged in running hither and thither for the sake of
the various
items of a dwelling place, water and wealth that are deemed necessary
for subsistence. (9) Sometimes
also, in the dark of night driven by a momentary whirlwind of passion,
he copulates with an alluring woman. In total neglect of the
rules [a higher vision] he
then, blinded by the strength of that passion, notwithstanding the
divinities [of the sun and moon], loses all notion in being overcome by
a mind
full of lust. (10) Occasionally
for
an
instant
he
wakes
up
to
the
meaninglessness
of
the
bodily
conception
of
his
self
that
destroys
his
remembrance
and because of which he runs
after sense objects like after the water of a mirage. (11) At times there is, exactly like it is with the typical
penetrating, repeated sounds of owls and crickets, the agitation caused
directly or
indirectly by
enemies and state officials, who by their
punitive actions trouble the ear and heart. (12) When the
conditioned soul has exhausted [the merit of] his good deeds in his
previous life and at that time [in need of financial support]
approaches the wealthy ones with their
dead souls, he
himself is then just as dead within, because they are like the
kâraskara, kâkatunda and more of such [fruitless] trees.
They are
just like fouled wells never capable of making one happy. (13) Occasionally
associating with insincere people of a limited understanding, it is as
if he's diving in a shallow river [so that he breaks his neck]; seeking
the company of atheists will make him very unhappy in both respects
[spiritual and physical]. (14) When
he fails in [acquiring] the
wealth of others, he next gives trouble to his father and son by
'honoring' them as being either a father or son.
(15) Burned
by
the
flames
of
grief
getting
most
disappointed, he sometimes
experiences his life at home as a forest fire that brings no good but
only more and more sadness. (16) Sometimes,
the wealth he holds dear is plundered
by
a
carnivorous
government
that
grew
corrupt
over time, so that he, bereft of all his good
life, remains like a corpse with the life air expired. (17) Then again thinking that his father,
grandfather and others who deceased a long time ago, are there again
for real [as an incarnation], he experiences the type of happiness one
feels in dreams. (18) At other times he as a householder
with a mind in hot pursuit of material matters wants to climb the
mountain of precepts for [religious sacrifices for the sake of]
fruitive activities and then [being frustrated by
all the demands] laments like he has entered a field full of
thorns and sharp stones. (19) Occasionally
[fasting
religiously
but]
unable
to
bear
the
fire
of
hunger
and
thirst,
he
runs
out
of
patience
and
gets
angry
with his family members. (20) He repeatedly being devoured by the python
of sleep
is, in the grip of ignorance finding himself in deep darkness, like a
corpse which, left behind in the forest, lying there doesn't know a
thing any more [see also B.G. 6: 16 & 14: 8]. (21) So now and
then with his teeth of honor broken by [the envy of] his serpent-like
enemies, he
suffers from insomnia and then falls into the blind well of illusion
with a consciousness gradually deteriorating because of a disturbed heart [a debilitating
rumination]. (22) And then it happens that,
searching for the sweet [honey] drops of desire of another man's woman
or riches, he appropriates them so that he severely is chastised by
the government or the relatives involved and thus ends up in an
incomparably hellish life. (23) This
now is the reason why the Vedic authority states that the fruitive
activity [the karma]
of a
living entity constitutes the cause of this life and a next one in the ocean of matter. (24) If he
manages to stay away from the chastising, a trader such ['Devadatta']
takes his money away
and another friend of Vishnu so ['Vishnumitra']
on his turn takes it from him again, and thus the riches [as a part of the Lord His opulence]
move from one hand to the other.
(25) It
also happens that one because of various natural causes like heat and
cold, because of other living
beings and because of
the operation of one's own body and mind [resp. adhidaivika,
adhibhautika,
adhyâtmika kles'as, see also 2.10:
8] is
unable to
counter the conditions of life, so that one is severely troubled by
remaining anxieties and depressions. (26) Sometimes, when trading with one another,
there is about whatever little bit of money or farthing appropriated,
however
insignificant, a rise of enmity because of dishonesty. (27) On the path of material existence one meets with these forms of misfortune associated with happiness and unhappiness, attachment, hate, fear, false prestige, illusion, madness, lamentation, bewilderment, greed, envy, enmity, insult, hunger, thirst, tribulations, disease, birth, old age, death, and so on. (28) Somewhere, under the influence of the illusory energy, mâyâ, one is, being firmly embraced by the creepers of the arms of a female companion, deeply embarrassed by finding oneself at a loss void of all intelligence and wisdom. In the wish to please her and find her a suitable place to live, one's heart gets engrossed in the concern and one's consciousness is seized by the talks and nice looks offered by the sons and daughters under the loving care of one's wife. Having lost the command over oneself one is then thrown into the endless darkness of a life in ignorance.
(29) It so happens that because of the cakra of the
Controller, the
Supreme Lord Vishnu His disc of Time, the influence of which
stretches from the
first expansion of atoms to the duration of the complete life of
Brahmâ, one has to suffer the symptoms of its rotating, with
which
in due course, swiftly before one's eyes, without a blink, all lives of
the entities, from Brahmâ to the simplest blade of grass, are
spent. Directly of Him, the Controller whose personal weapon is the
disc of Time, one is afraid at heart. Not caring about the Supreme
Lord, the Original Person of Sacrifice, one accepts as worshipable that
what
misses any foundation, preoccupied as one is
with one's self-made gods who are
like
buzzards,
vultures,
herons
and
crows and
who are denied by the scriptures of
our civilization. (30) When one as a conditioned soul by the
atheists -
who themselves are cheated - is cheated even more, one takes to the
school
of the brahmins. But with them [as neurotic, difficult people] not
finding
satisfaction in the good character of engaging with the sacred thread
according to principle and scripture, nor in the trusted culture of
dutiful worship of the Supreme Lord and Original
Person of Sacrifice, one turns to the association of karmis
[karma motivated people or s'udras] who are
not purified in behaving according to the Vedic injunctions. And with
them one, in a materialistic sex life maintaining the family, finds
oneself in
the company of those who think they descended from monkeys [instead of spiritual masters].
(31) In that condition to one's own judgment
without a trace of doubt enjoying [like the monkeys] with a serious
lack of knowledge and insight, one forgets how short
life is when one, staring into each other's dejected faces, hankers for
gratification and material results. (32) Sometimes, exactly
like
the
monkeys in their trees, delighted
in
one's
home
in
which
one always
strives for a greater comfort, one spends one's time caring about and
having fun with the wife and
children. (33)
One is as a conditioned soul confined to the sensual path and thus
abides, out of fear for the elephant of death, by a darkness as deep as
that of
a mountain cave. (34-35) In relation to the objects of one's senses one is sometimes [as said] with one's
inability to counteract the
insurmountable miseries of the heat and cold of nature,
other living beings and one's
own existence, caught in sadness because of [the enmity that
rose about] whatever little bit
of wealth one in mutual
transactions happened to acquire by cheating. (36) Now and then running out of
money and bereft of accommodations for sleeping, sitting and eating one
must endure the derision and
such
of the people that rose as a
consequence of what one by a lack of success in one's desire
decided to acquire in a
dishonest way. (37) Even
though one, because of
financially determined relations, more and more relates in enmity, one
nevertheless engages in marriages which, based on this desire [to
advance materially], consequently end in divorces. (38) On
this
path
through
the
ocean
of
matter
one
is
plagued
by the different miseries
of a material existence, to which anyone himself - or anybody else for
that matter - now and then thinks that he has won and then again thinks
that he has lost. Thereto one experiences in giving up [deceased]
relatives and welcoming newborn babies in
ones
bondage at times a lot of
sorrow, illusion and fear to which one loudly cries while one at other
times is so happy that one starts to sing. Up to the
present day save
for the saintly souls no one of this entire world of self-interested
human beings has ever returned to the one [place of God] where this
material
course started and of which the defenders of the peace declare that it
is also the end station. (39) Materially motivated human beings do not
follow
the instructions of yoga nor do they attain this [supreme abode] which
is easily attained by the wise who naturally living and abiding by
peace are in control
of their mind and senses. (40) Even
when one is the saintliest of kings, victorious
in all
fields and expert in performing all the sacrifices, one is but an
earthly human being who has to lay down his life,
has to give up the fight, has to meet his demise because of the
self-created enmity with others and has to stop considering things in
terms of 'mine' [compare 1.2:
13]. (41) Taking shelter of the creeper of karma
[engaging in remedial actions] one somehow or other may be freed from
the misfortune of one's hellish position [of being entangled in the
material world], but whatever
the higher world one thus is promoted to, one again treads that way the worldly path of
self-interested activities. (42) There is not a single king able to follow even in his mind the path that we celebrated here as the way of the great soul Jada Bharata, the son of the great saintly king Rishabhadeva, any more than a fly can follow Garuda, the carrier of Vishnu. (43) It was he who gave up the difficult to forsake wealth of a family, friends and well-wishers and the royal realm. Fond of Uttamas'loka, the Lord praised in the verses, he, only in his prime years, renounced all that occupied his heart like it was stool. (44) To those whose minds are attracted by the loving service unto the killer of Madhu [Krishna] performed by the greatest souls, everything that is so difficult to give up, the world, the children, relatives, riches and a wife, all that is desirable of the goddess of fortune and the best of the demigods their glances of mercy, is of no significance; and that befitted him as a king. (45) 'The Enjoyer of all sacrifices, the Propounder of the Religion, He who teaches by the regulative principles [the vidhi see 1.17: 24], the yoga in person, the teacher of analysis [sânkhya, see Kapila: 3.25], the Controller of the Creation, Nârâyana the shelter of all living beings, unto Lord Hari I offer my obeisances!', was what he prayed aloud with a smile, even when he resided in the body of a deer. (46) He who listens to or describes to others this, by the great devotees highly appreciated, all auspicious narration about the wise king Bharata, so pure in his qualities and actions, will live long, be fortunate, be well thought of, reach the higher worlds or find the path of liberation. Glorifying the character of the devotee and the Lord will bring someone all blessings possible, leaving nothing left to desire from others.'
