Srimad Bhagavatam — Saptama Skandha, Shloka 7
Prahlāda Instructs the Sons of Demons: Begin Bhakti from Childhood; Household Attachment as Bondage; Nārāyaṇa as the All-Pervading Supersoul
मुग्धस्य बाल्ये कैशोरे क्रीडतो याति विंशति: । जरया ग्रस्तदेहस्य यात्यकल्पस्य विंशति: ॥ ७ ॥
mugdhasya bālye kaiśore krīḍato yāti viṁśatiḥ jarayā grasta-dehasya yāty akalpasya viṁśatiḥ
In the tender age of childhood, when everyone is bewildered, one passes ten years. Similarly, in boyhood, engaged in sporting and playing, one passes another ten years. In this way, twenty years are wasted. Similarly, in old age, when one is an invalid, unable to perform even material activities, one passes another twenty years wastefully.
Without Kṛṣṇa consciousness, one wastes twenty years in childhood and boyhood and another twenty years in old age, when one cannot perform any material activities and is full of anxiety about what is to be done by his sons and grandsons and how one’s estate should be protected. Half of these years are spent in sleep. Furthermore, one wastes another thirty years sleeping at night during the rest of his life. Thus seventy out of one hundred years are wasted by a person who does not know the aim of life and how to utilize this human form.
FAQs
This verse says that an ignorant person loses twenty years in playful childhood and youth, and another twenty years in helpless old age, showing how quickly life is consumed without spiritual focus.
He was urging his schoolmates to begin bhakti immediately, because much of life is naturally taken away by immaturity and later by bodily decline.
Start daily sādhana early—hearing, chanting, and disciplined living—so spiritual progress is made before distractions of youth and limitations of old age reduce one’s capacity.