Shloka 3
Kapila on Liberation: Detachment, Devotional Discipline, and the Soul’s Aloofness from the Guṇas
तेन संसारपदवीमवशोऽभ्येत्यनिर्वृत: । प्रासङ्गिकै: कर्मदोषै: सदसन्मिश्रयोनिषु ॥ ३ ॥
tena saṁsāra-padavīm avaśo ’bhyety anirvṛtaḥ prāsaṅgikaiḥ karma-doṣaiḥ sad-asan-miśra-yoniṣu
Thus the conditioned soul, helpless and without peace, enters the path of samsara and, because of karmic faults born of association with the modes, transmigrates into higher and lower species—wombs mixed with virtue and vice.
Here the word karma-doṣaiḥ means “by faulty actions.” This refers to any activity, good or bad, performed in this material world — they are all contaminated, faulty actions because of material association. The foolish conditioned soul may think that he is offering charity by opening hospitals for material benefit or by opening an educational institution for material education, but he does not know that all such work is also faulty because it will not give him relief from the process of transmigration from one body to another. It is clearly stated here, sad-asan-miśra-yoniṣu. This means that one may take birth in a very high family or he may take his birth in higher planets, among the demigods, for his so-called pious activities in the material world. But this work is also faulty because it does not give liberation. To take birth in a nice place or a high family does not mean that one avoids undergoing the material tribulations, the pangs of birth, death, old age and disease. A conditioned soul under the spell of material nature cannot understand that any action he performs for sense gratification is faulty and that only his activities in devotional service to the Lord can give him release from the reaction of faulty activities. Because he does not cease such faulty activities, he has to change to different bodies, some high and some low. That is called saṁsāra-padavīm, which means this material world, from which there is no release. One who desires material liberation has to turn his activities to devotional service. There is no alternative.
FAQs
This verse explains that the jīva, becoming helpless and unsatisfied, enters saṁsāra due to the defects of karma, resulting in births among mixed modes (goodness and ignorance).
Kapila is teaching Devahuti the mechanism of bondage—how fruitive action and its faults keep the soul cycling through species—so she can seek true liberation through spiritual realization and devotion.
Act with spiritual purpose rather than selfish results—cultivate sāttvika habits, avoid degrading association, and dedicate work to the Lord (bhakti), which weakens the pull of karma that drives repeated dissatisfaction and rebirth.