Prahlāda Instructs the Sons of Demons: Begin Bhakti from Childhood; Household Attachment as Bondage; Nārāyaṇa as the All-Pervading Supersoul
कथं प्रियाया अनुकम्पिताया: सङ्गं रहस्यं रुचिरांश्च मन्त्रान् । सुहृत्सु तत्स्नेहसित: शिशूनां कलाक्षराणामनुरक्तचित्त: ॥ ११ ॥ पुत्रान्स्मरंस्ता दुहितृर्हृदय्या भ्रातृन् स्वसृर्वा पितरौ च दीनौ । गृहान् मनोज्ञोरुपरिच्छदांश्च वृत्तीश्च कुल्या: पशुभृत्यवर्गान् ॥ १२ ॥ त्यजेत कोशस्कृदिवेहमान: कर्माणि लोभादवितृप्तकाम: । औपस्थ्यजैह्वं बहुमन्यमान: कथं विरज्येत दुरन्तमोह: ॥ १३ ॥
kathaṁ priyāyā anukampitāyāḥ saṅgaṁ rahasyaṁ rucirāṁś ca mantrān suhṛtsu tat-sneha-sitaḥ śiśūnāṁ kalākṣarāṇām anurakta-cittaḥ
လောဘကြောင့် မပြည့်မစုံသော ဆန္ဒများရှိသည့် အိမ်ထောင်ရှင်သည် ပိုးချည်ကောင်ကဲ့သို့ ကံအိမ်အုံကို ယက်ကာ ထိုအုံထဲတွင်ပင် ပိတ်မိနေသည်။ လိင်အင်္ဂါနှင့် လျှာ—ဤအာရုံနှစ်ခု၏ အရသာကို အလွန်တန်ဖိုးထားလျက်၊ ထိုမဆုံးနိုင်သော မောဟမှ မည်သို့ ဝိရာဂ ဖြစ်နိုင်မည်နည်း။
In household affairs the first attraction is the beautiful and pleasing wife, who increases household attraction more and more. One enjoys his wife with two prominent sense organs, namely the tongue and the genitals. The wife speaks very sweetly. This is certainly an attraction. Then she prepares very palatable foods to satisfy the tongue, and when the tongue is satisfied one gains strength in the other sense organs, especially the genitals. Thus the wife gives pleasure in sexual intercourse. Household life means sex life ( yan maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukhaṁ hi tuccham ). This is encouraged by the tongue. Then there are children. A baby gives pleasure by speaking sweet words in broken language, and when the sons and daughters are grown up one becomes involved in their education and marriage. Then there are one’s own father and mother to be taken care of, and one also becomes concerned with the social atmosphere and with pleasing his brothers and sisters. A man becomes increasingly entangled in household affairs, so much so that leaving them becomes almost impossible. Thus the household becomes gṛham andha-kūpam, a dark well into which the man has fallen. For such a man to get out is extremely difficult unless he is helped by a strong person, the spiritual master, who helps the fallen person with the strong rope of spiritual instructions. A fallen person should take advantage of this rope, and then the spiritual master, or the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, will take him out of the dark well.
Prahlāda explains that affectionate family association—sweet words, intimacy, and children’s charming speech—powerfully binds the mind, making detachment difficult without higher spiritual taste.
He was instructing fellow sons of demons that worldly affection can trap consciousness, so one should take shelter of bhakti early rather than be carried away by māyā.
Honor family duties, but consciously prioritize sādhana—hearing, chanting, and remembrance—so affection does not eclipse devotion and spiritual purpose.