Study a Verse

• One engaged in material life suffers in the present and has only a very bleak future to look forward to in the continuing cycle of birth and death.
• Thus, how can human beings who have seen these things and know them very well continue to enjoy life like dogs, asses and goats?
• How can an educated human being commit himself to such a condemned way of life, wherein the result is practically the same as that of the animals?

The purport's own sentences, chosen from the purport as its central points. Read the full purport on Vedabase to see them in place.

Uncertainty → Clarity. The coming separation makes the instruction personally urgent.

Chapters 10–20 of Canto 11: Kṛṣṇa's teachings on self, yoga and wisdom. An editorial reading of the story's mood, not the text itself. See the emotional arc

Chapter 13: The Haṁsa-avatāra Answers the Questions of the Sons of Brahmā

From the chapter summary, the lines nearest this verse:

In this chapter, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa explains to Uddhava how human beings, overwhelmed by sense gratification, become bound by the three modes of nature, and how to renounce these modes. The Lord then describes how He appeared in His form of Haṁsa before Brahmā and the four sages headed by Sanaka and revealed to them various confidential truths.