Shloka 18
Karmic Aspirations, Demigod Worship, and the Supreme Duty of Bhakti
Hari-kathā as Life’s True Gain
तरव: किं न जीवन्ति भस्त्रा: किं न श्वसन्त्युत । न खादन्ति न मेहन्ति किं ग्रामे पशवोऽपरे ॥ १८ ॥
taravaḥ kiṁ na jīvanti bhastrāḥ kiṁ na śvasanty uta na khādanti na mehanti kiṁ grāme paśavo ’pare
သစ်ပင်တွေ မရှင်သန်ဘူးလား။ သံပန်းသမားရဲ့ လေဖိအားပုံးက မရှူရှိုက်ဘူးလား။ ရွာထဲက တိရစ္ဆာန်တွေ မစားဘူးလား၊ မျိုးရည်မထုတ်ဘူးလား။
The materialistic man of the modern age will argue that life, or part of it, is never meant for discussion of theosophical or theological arguments. Life is meant for the maximum duration of existence for eating, drinking, sexual intercourse, making merry and enjoying life. The modern man wants to live forever by the advancement of material science, and there are many foolish theories for prolonging life to the maximum duration. But the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam affirms that life is not meant for so-called economic development or advancement of materialistic science for the hedonistic philosophy of eating, mating, drinking and merrymaking. Life is solely meant for tapasya, for purifying existence so that one may enter into eternal life just after the end of the human form of life.
FAQs
This verse teaches that mere biological functions—living, breathing, eating, and bodily maintenance—are not the true goal of human life, since trees, bellows, and animals also do these; human life is meant for spiritual inquiry and bhakti.
Parīkṣit had only seven days to prepare for death, so Śukadeva stresses urgency: human life should not be wasted in animal-like habits but dedicated to hearing and remembering the Lord through Bhāgavatam.
Reduce life to essentials, and redirect saved time toward sādhana—daily hearing/reading Bhāgavatam, chanting the holy name, and serving devotees—so life gains a purpose beyond consumption and routine.