"I did good and evil actions for the sake of my dependents, and as s result I am tormented, while they who enjoy the fruits escape.

"If I am released from this womb I will lay myself at Thy feet, and I will take the means by which I may obtain liberation.

"Fallen into a well of foeces and urine, I am burnt by the fire of the belly, and anxious to escape from it. When shall I get out?

"In Him alone, who has given me this experience, and is compassionate to the afflicted, will I seek refuge. Let not this transmigration occur to me again.

"But no, I wish never to come out of the womb, where misery results from my sinful actions.

"Because remaining even here in great misery, bearing the fatigue, resorting to Thy feet I will keep myself aloof from the worlds of change."

24. The Blessed Lord said: He who has thus considered, and has been ten months in the womb, endowed with insight, while praying, suddenly is cast out head downwards into birth, by the winds of delivery.

25. Cast out forcibly, bending down his head, he comes out with anxiety and painfully breathless and with memory destroyed.

26. Having fallen on the ground he moves like a worm in excrement. He is become changed in condition, and cries loudly, deprived of knowledge.

27. If the state of mind which arises in the womb, during illness, on the cremation ground, or upon hearing the Puranas were permanent--who would not be liberated from bondage!

28. When he comes out of the womb, after experiencing his karma, then verily the man is bewildered by the magic of Visnu.

29. Then, when he is touched by that magic, powerless, he is unable to speak. He experiences the miseries of infancy and childhood arising from dependence.

30. He is nourished by people who do not understand his wishes, unable to ward off what is thrust upon him against his desire.

31. Lain upon a bed unclean and befouled by perspiration, he is unable to scratch his limbs, to sit, rise or move.

32. Mosquitoes, gnats, bugs and other flies bite him, skinless and weeping and deprived of understanding, just as insects bite little worms.

33. In this wise having experienced the miseries of infancy and of childhood, he reaches youth and acquires evil tendencies.

34. Then he begins evil brooding, mingling in the company of the wicked; he hates the scriptures and good men, and becomes lustful.

35. Seeing a seductive woman, his senses captivated by her blandishments, infatuated he falls into great darkness, like a moth into a flame.

36. The deer, the elephant, the bird, the bee and the fish: these five are led to destruction by one of the senses; how then shall the infatuated one not be destroyed, when he enjoys the five kinds of objects by five senses.