सन्तप्तो ह्यवसन्नाङ्गो गतबुद्धिर्विचेतनः।
निषसादातुरो दीनो निःश्वस्याशीतमायतम्॥
santapto hy avasannāṅgo gata-buddhir vicetanaḥ
niṣasādāturo dīno niḥśvasyāśītam āyatam
santaptaḥ hi = He was in a state of complete pain; avasanna-aṅgaḥ = His body was emaciated; gata-buddhiḥ = He became senseless; vicetanaḥ = and inert; niṣasāda = He [then] sat down; āturaḥ = in affliction; dīnaḥ = and distress; niḥśvasya = while drawing breaths; aśītam = hot; āyatam = and deep.
He was in a state of complete pain. His body was emaciated. He became senseless and inert. He [then] sat down while drawing hot and deep breaths in affliction and distress.
1 We strongly urge our readers to go through Prabhupāda’s The Nectar of Devotion as well as his annotated translation of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam to have a better understanding of this.
NOTE. The Lord, in His dramatic enactment of the results of attachment to woman, exhibits how a conditioned soul in the material conception of life thinks, feels, wills and acts.
By Lord Kṛṣṇa’s will, Arjuna in the Bhagavad-gītā also displayed the result of holding on to the material conception of life when he hesitated to carry out his kṣatriya duty of fighting in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Indeed, he stated:
vepathuś ca śarīre me romaharṣaś ca jāyate
gāṇḍīvaṁ sraṁsate hastāt tvak caiva paridahyate
“My whole body is trembling, my hair is standing on end, my bow Gāṇḍīva is slipping from my hand, and my skin is burning.” (Bhagavad-gītā 1.29)
There is a way to become free from the cataclysms caused by the material conception of life and that is bhakti-yoga as well defined in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Indeed, bhakti-yoga is more than just the means to become liberated from the delusions of material life—it is the ultimate goal of all existence and it is transcendental to even mokṣa or liberation.1