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ŚB 11.22.51

Devanagari

प्रकृतेरेवमात्मानमविविच्याबुध: पुमान् ।
तत्त्वेन स्पर्शसम्मूढ: संसारं प्रतिपद्यते ॥ ५१ ॥

Text

prakṛter evam ātmānam
avivicyābudhaḥ pumān
tattvena sparśa-sammūḍhaḥ
saṁsāraṁ pratipadyate

Synonyms

prakṛteḥ — from material nature; evam — in this way; ātmānam — the self; avivicya — failing to distinguish; abudhaḥ — the unintelligent; pumān — person; tattvena — because of thinking (material things) to be real; sparśa — by material contact; sammūḍhaḥ — completely bewildered; saṁsāram — the cycle of material existence; pratipadyate — attains.

Translation

An unintelligent man, failing to distinguish himself from material nature, thinks nature to be real. By contact with it he becomes completely bewildered and enters into the cycle of material existence.

Purport

A similar verse is found in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (1.7.5):

yayā sammohito jīva
ātmānaṁ tri-guṇātmakam
paro ’pi manute ’narthaṁ
tat-kṛtaṁ cābhipadyate

“Due to this external energy, the living entity, although transcendental to the three modes of material nature, thinks of himself as a material product and thus undergoes the reactions of material miseries.”