Shloka 38
Kapila’s Conclusion: Limits of Karma and Yoga; Supremacy of Bhakti and Qualification to Receive the Teaching
जीवस्य संसृतीर्बह्वीरविद्याकर्मनिर्मिता: । यास्वङ्ग प्रविशन्नात्मा न वेद गतिमात्मन: ॥ ३८ ॥
jīvasya saṁsṛtīr bahvīr avidyā-karma-nirmitāḥ yāsv aṅga praviśann ātmā na veda gatim ātmanaḥ
For the jīva there are many conditions of worldly existence, fashioned by karma performed in avidyā. My dear mother, when the self enters that forgetfulness, it cannot know where its wandering will finally end.
Once one enters into the continuation of material existence, it is very difficult to get out. Therefore the Supreme Personality of Godhead comes Himself or sends His bona fide representative, and He leaves behind scriptures like Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, so that the living entities hovering in the darkness of nescience may take advantage of the instructions, the saintly persons and the spiritual masters and thus be freed. Unless the living entity receives the mercy of the saintly persons, the spiritual master or Kṛṣṇa, it is not possible for him to get out of the darkness of material existence; by his own endeavor it is not possible.
FAQs
This verse says the soul’s many material wanderings are produced by ignorance (avidyā) and by karma; entering those conditions, the jīva forgets his true destination.
Kapila is instructing His mother Devahuti on the mechanism of bondage—how ignorance and action generate repeated births—so she can pursue the path of liberation through spiritual knowledge and devotion.
Notice how ignorance-driven choices create repeated patterns of suffering; reduce karmic entanglement by cultivating spiritual knowledge, ethical living, and bhakti that reorients life toward the soul’s true goal.