Shloka 39
Nimi Questions the Yogendras: Māyā, Cosmic Dissolution, Guru-Śaraṇāgati, Bhakti, and Deity Worship
अण्डेषु पेशिषु तरुष्वविनिश्चितेषु प्राणो हि जीवमुपधावति तत्र तत्र । सन्ने यदिन्द्रियगणेऽहमि च प्रसुप्ते कूटस्थ आशयमृते तदनुस्मृतिर्न: ॥ ३९ ॥
aṇḍeṣu peśiṣu taruṣv aviniściteṣu prāṇo hi jīvam upadhāvati tatra tatra sanne yad indriya-gaṇe ’hami ca prasupte kūṭa-stha āśayam ṛte tad-anusmṛtir naḥ
ဥပမာ အဥ္ဏ္ဍဇ (ဥမှ), ဇရာယုဇ (အမြှေးမှ), ဥဒ္ဘိဇ္ဇ (အပင်မျိုးစေ့မှ), ဆွေဒဇ (ချွေးမှ) စသည့် ယောနီမျိုးစုံ၌ ပရာဏာသည် ဇီဝကိုလိုက်၍ အဲဒီအဲဒီ ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာများသို့ သွားလာသည်။ ပရာဏာသည် မပြောင်းလဲ; ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာပြောင်းလဲသော်လည်း မဝိကာရ။ ထိုနည်းတူ အတ္တမန်လည်း နిత్యတစ်ခုတည်း။ ဤအရာကို အတွေ့အကြုံဖြင့် သိနိုင်သည်—အိပ်မက်မရှိသော အနက်နိဒ္ဒရာတွင် အင်္ဒြိယများ၊ စိတ်နှင့် အဟင်္ကာရတို့ အလုပ်မလုပ်ဘဲ လျှော့ကျသွားသော်လည်း နိုးလာသောအခါ ‘ငါ သက်သာစွာ အိပ်ခဲ့သည်’ ဟု မှတ်မိသည်၊ အကြောင်းမှာ မလှုပ်မရှားသော အတ္တမန်သည် အတွင်း၌ တည်ရှိနေသောကြောင့် ဖြစ်သည်။
When a living entity is awake the material senses and mind are constantly active. Similarly, when one is sleeping the false ego recollects one’s waking experiences, and thus one experiences dreams or fragments of dreams while sleeping. But in the state of prasupti, or deep sleep, both the mind and the senses become inactive, and the false ego does not recall previous experiences or desires. The subtle mind and false ego are called liṅga-śarīra, or the subtle material body. This liṅga-śarīra is experienced in the form of temporary material designations such as “I am a rich man,” “I am a strong man,” “I am black,” “I am white,” “I am American,” “I am Chinese.” The sum total of one’s illusory conceptions of oneself is called ahaṅkāra, or false ego. And due to this illusory conception of life the living entity transmigrates from one species of life to another, as clearly explained in Bhagavad-gītā. The spirit soul, however, does not change its constitutional position of eternity, knowledge and bliss, although the soul may temporarily forget this position. To cite an analogous situation, if one dreams at night that he is walking in the forest, such a dream does not change one’s actual position of lying in bed within his apartment. Thus it is stated in this verse, kūṭa-stha āśayam ṛte: despite the transformations of the subtle body, the spirit soul does not change. Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī has given the following example to illustrate this point. Etāvantaṁ kālaṁ sukham aham asvāpsam, na kiñcid avediṣam. One often thinks, “I was sleeping very peacefully, although I was not dreaming or aware of anything.” It can be logically understood that one cannot remember something of which he has had no experience. Therefore, since one remembers peacefully sleeping although there was no mental or sensual experience, such a memory should be understood to be a vague experience of the spirit soul.
FAQs
This verse highlights that even when the senses and ego are dormant (like deep sleep), the unchanging witness remains as the basis of awareness and memory.
To help Uddhava discern the difference between the changing instruments (prāṇa, senses, ego) and the steady Self, strengthening detachment and devotion grounded in true knowledge.
Observe that thoughts, identity-stories, and sensory urges come and go; cultivate steadiness by remembering the inner witness through japa, meditation, and conscious pause before reacting.