BHAGAVAD-GITA 9:12

BHAGAVAD-GITA 9:12

moghasa mogha-karmano
mogha-jnana vicetasah
raksasim asurim caiva
prakrtim mohinim sritah

WORD FOR WORD

mogha-asah--baffled in their hopes; mogha-karmanah--baffled in
fruitive activities; mogha-jnanah--baffled in knowledge;
vicetasah--bewildered; raksasim--demonic; asurim--atheistic; ca--and;
eva--certainly; prakrtim--nature; mohinim--bewildering; sritah--taking
shelter of.

TRANSLATION

Those who are thus bewildered are attracted by demonic and atheistic
views. In that deluded condition, their hopes for liberation, their
fruitive activities, and their culture of knowledge are all defeated.

PURPORT

There are many devotees who assume themselves to be in Krsna
consciousness and devotional service but at heart do not accept the
Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna, as the Absolute Truth. For
them, the fruit of devotional service--going back to Godhead--will
never be tasted. Similarly, those who are engaged in fruitive pious
activities and who are ultimately hoping to be liberated from this
material entanglement will never be successful either, because they
deride the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna. In other words,
persons who mock Krsna are to be understood to be demonic or
atheistic. As described in the Seventh Chapter of Bhagavad-gita, such
demonic miscreants never surrender to Krsna. Therefore their mental
speculations to arrive at the Absolute Truth bring them to the false
conclusion that the ordinary living entity and Krsna are one and the
same. With such a false conviction, they think that the body of any
human being is now simply covered by material nature and that as soon
as one is liberated from this material body there is no difference
between God and himself. This attempt to become one with Krsna will be
baffled because of delusion. Such atheistic and demoniac cultivation
of spiritual knowledge is always futile. That is the indication of
this verse. For such persons, cultivation of the knowledge in the
Vedic literature, like the Vedanta-sutra and the Upanisads. is always
baffled.

It is a great offense, therefore, to consider Krsna, the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, to be an ordinary man. Those who do so are
certainly deluded because they cannot understand the eternal form of
Krsna. The Brhad-visnu-smrti clearly states:

yo vetti bhautikam deham
krsnasya paramatmanah
sa sarvasmad bahis-karyah
srauta-smarta-vidhanatah
mukham tasyavalokyapi
sa-celam snanam acaret

"One who considers the body of Krsna to be material should be driven out
from all rituals and activities of the sruti and the smrti. And if one
by chance sees his face, one should at once take bath in the Ganges to
rid himself of infection. People jeer at Krsna because they are
envious of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Their destiny is
certainly to take birth after birth in the species of atheistic and
demoniac life. Perpetually, their real knowledge will remain under
delusion, and gradually they will regress to the darkest region of
creation."

Copyright 1983 The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International. Used with
permission.