Text 10
utkramantam sthitam vapi
bhunjanam va gunanvitam
vimudha nanupasyanti
pasyanti jnana-caksusah
Translation
The foolish cannot understand how a living entity can quit his body, nor can they understand what sort of body he enjoys under the spell of the modes of nature. But one whose eyes are trained in knowledge can see all this.
Commentary by Srila Prabhupada
The word jnana-caksusah is very significant. Without knowledge, one cannot understand how a living entity leaves his present body, nor what form of body he is going to take in the next life, nor even why he is living in a particular type of body. This requires a great amount of knowledge understood from Bhagavad-gita and similar literatures heard from a bona fide spiritual master. One who is trained to perceive all these things is fortunate.
Every living entity is quitting his body under certain circumstances, he is living under certain circumstances, and he is enjoying under certain circumstances under the spell of material nature. As a result, he is suffering different kinds of happiness and distress, under the illusion of sense enjoyment. Persons who are everlastingly fooled by lust and desire lose all power to understand their change of body and their stay in a particular body. They cannot comprehend it. Those who have developed spiritual knowledge, however, can see that the spirit is different from the body and is changing its body and enjoying in different ways. A person in such knowledge can understand how the conditioned living entity is suffering in this material existence. Therefore those who are highly developed in Krishna consciousness try their best to give this knowledge to the people in general, for their conditional life is very much troublesome. They should come out of it and be Krishna conscious and liberate themselves to transfer to the spiritual world.
Commentary by Sri Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakur
Do we not realize at all when we go from the body, reside in the body and enjoy pleasures while in the body? Persons with no intelligence (vimudha) do not recognize when the jiva is leaving the body, residing in the body or enjoying the present sense objects with the senses (gunavitam). But men of discrimination (jnana caksusa) observe this.