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Shloka 3

Karma-vāda Critiqued, Varṇāśrama Reframed, and the Soul’s Distinction from the Body

सुप्तस्य विषयालोको ध्यायतो वा मनोरथ: । नानात्मकत्वाद् विफलस्तथा भेदात्मधीर्गुणै: ॥ ३ ॥

suptasya viṣayāloko dhyāyato vā manorathaḥ nānātmakatvād viphalas tathā bhedātma-dhīr guṇaiḥ

အိပ်နေသူသည် အိပ်မက်ထဲတွင် အာရုံခံပျော်ရွှင်မှုအရာဝတ္ထုများစွာကို မြင်သကဲ့သို့၊ သမ္မတိပြုသူ၏ စိတ်ကူးအိမ်မက်များလည်း အမျိုးမျိုးဖြစ်၍ နောက်ဆုံးတွင် အကျိုးမရှိ; ထိုနည်းတူ မိမိ၏ ဝိညာဉ်ရေးအတ္တကို မသိသေး၍ အိပ်ပျော်နေသော ဇီဝသည် ဂုဏ်များကြောင့် ကွဲပြားမှုအမြင်ဖြင့် အာရုံခံအရာများစွာကို မြင်သည်—အရာအားလုံးသည် ဘုရား၏ မာယာ-శక్తi က ဖန်တီးသော ယာယီအရာများသာ။ အာရုံခံများ၏ တွန်းအားကြောင့် ထိုအရာများကို သမ္မတိပြုလျှင် ဉာဏ်ကို အလဟဿ သုံးစွဲခြင်းသာ ဖြစ်သည်။

suptasyaof the sleeping (person)
suptasya:
Sambandha (सम्बन्ध/Genitive relation)
TypeAdjective
Rootsupta (कृदन्त; √svap (धातु))
FormPuṁliṅga (masc.), Ṣaṣṭhī vibhakti (6th/genitive), Ekavacana; kta-participle used adjectivally = 'of one who is asleep'
viṣaya-ālokaḥthe perception/appearance of objects
viṣaya-ālokaḥ:
Karta (कर्ता/Subject)
TypeNoun
Rootviṣaya (प्रातिपदिक) + āloka (प्रातिपदिक)
FormPuṁliṅga, Prathamā vibhakti (1st/nominative), Ekavacana; ṣaṣṭhī-tatpuruṣa: 'viṣayāṇāṁ ālokaḥ'
dhyāyataḥof the one who is contemplating
dhyāyataḥ:
Sambandha (सम्बन्ध/Genitive relation)
TypeAdjective
Rootdhyāyat (कृदन्त; √dhyai (धातु))
FormPuṁliṅga, Ṣaṣṭhī vibhakti, Ekavacana; śatṛ-present participle in genitive = 'of one who is meditating'
or
:
Sambandha (सम्बन्ध/connector)
TypeIndeclinable
Rootvā (अव्यय)
FormVikalpa-avyaya (option/‘or’)
manorathaḥmental projection/fancy
manorathaḥ:
Karta (कर्ता/Subject)
TypeNoun
Rootmanoratha (प्रातिपदिक)
FormPuṁliṅga, Prathamā vibhakti, Ekavacana
nānā-ātmakatvātbecause of being manifold
nānā-ātmakatvāt:
Hetu (हेतु/Cause)
TypeNoun
Rootnānā (अव्यय/प्रातिपदिक) + ātmakatva (प्रातिपदिक)
FormNapुṁsakaliṅga (neut.), Pañcamī vibhakti (5th/ablative), Ekavacana; tatpuruṣa: 'nānā-ātmakatvam' = 'having the nature of multiplicity'
viphalaḥfruitless
viphalaḥ:
Viśeṣaṇa (विशेषण/Predicate qualifier)
TypeAdjective
Rootviphala (प्रातिपदिक)
FormPuṁliṅga, Prathamā vibhakti, Ekavacana; predicate adjective
tathālikewise/so
tathā:
Sambandha (सम्बन्ध/Adverbial)
TypeIndeclinable
Roottathā (अव्यय)
FormAvyaya (adverb)
bheda-ātma-dhīḥthe discriminating/differentiating intellect
bheda-ātma-dhīḥ:
Karta (कर्ता/Subject)
TypeNoun
Rootbheda (प्रातिपदिक) + ātman (प्रातिपदिक) + dhī (प्रातिपदिक)
FormStrīliṅga (fem.), Prathamā vibhakti, Ekavacana; tatpuruṣa: 'bheda-ātmā dhīḥ' = 'intellect whose essence is differentiation'
guṇaiḥby/through the qualities (guṇas)
guṇaiḥ:
Karaṇa (करण/Instrument)
TypeNoun
Rootguṇa (प्रातिपदिक)
FormPuṁliṅga, Tṛtīyā vibhakti (3rd/instrumental), Bahuvacana

Because the fruits of material work are temporary, it ultimately does not matter whether or not one obtains them; the final result is the same. Materialistic activities can never award the highest perfection of life, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The material intelligence, impelled by the senses, strongly desires sense gratification. As stated here ( bhedātma-dhīḥ ), such intelligence actually separates one from one’s real self-interest. Thus the intelligence, absorbed in that which is materially favorable and unfavorable, becomes divided in pursuit of innumerable categories of material advancement. Such divided intelligence is impotent and cannot understand the Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa. The devotees of the Lord, however, have their intelligence fixed on one point — Lord Kṛṣṇa. They meditate upon the Lord’s form, qualities, pastimes and devotees, and thus their intelligence is never separated from the Absolute Truth. As stated in Bhagavad-gītā (2.41) :

K
Krishna
U
Uddhava

FAQs

This verse says that identifying the self as separate due to the influence of the material modes (gunas) is ultimately futile—like dream sense-objects or mere mental fantasies—because it is not grounded in spiritual reality.

Krishna is training Uddhava to see that bondage is largely sustained by mental projection and misidentification with the gunas, so that Uddhava can cultivate spiritual discrimination and move toward liberation and pure devotion.

Treat anxious projections and daydreamed outcomes like dream-images—notice them without building identity on them—and redirect attention to steady spiritual practice (bhakti, remembrance, and discernment beyond the gunas).