Srimad Bhagavatam — Shashtha Skandha, Shloka 57
Citraketu’s Detachment, Nārada’s Mantra, and the Darśana of Anantadeva
यदेतद्विस्मृतं पुंसो मद्भावं भिन्नमात्मन: । तत: संसार एतस्य देहाद्देहो मृतेर्मृति: ॥ ५७ ॥
yad etad vismṛtaṁ puṁso mad-bhāvaṁ bhinnam ātmanaḥ tataḥ saṁsāra etasya dehād deho mṛter mṛtiḥ
When a living entity, thinking himself different from Me, forgets his spiritual identity of qualitative oneness with Me in eternity, knowledge and bliss, his material, conditional life begins. In other words, instead of identifying his interest with Mine, he becomes interested in his bodily expansions like his wife, children and material possessions. In this way, by the influence of his actions, one body comes from another, and after one death, another death takes place.
Generally the Māyāvādī philosophers or persons influenced by Māyāvādī philosophers think themselves as good as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This is the cause of their conditional life. As stated by the Vaiṣṇava poet Jagadānanda Paṇḍita in his Prema-vivarta:
FAQs
This verse explains that repeated birth and death (saṁsāra) begins when one forgets the Lord’s nature and imagines the self to be separate from Him.
Citraketu was grieving and bound by bodily identification; the Lord instructs him that separation from the Lord in consciousness leads to transmigration, while remembrance and devotion free one from it.
Practice steady remembrance of the Lord (nāma-japa, hearing Bhāgavatam, devotional service) and reduce bodily-based identity; this shifts consciousness from fear and loss toward spiritual clarity.