Text 51
prakṛter evam ātmānam
avivicyābudhaḥ pumān
tattvena sparśa-sammūḍhaḥ
saṁsāraṁ pratipadyate
prakṛteḥ — from material nature; evam — in this way; ātmānam — the self; avivicya — failing to distinguish; abudhaḥ — the unintelligent; pumān — person; tattvena — because of thinking (material things) to be real; sparśa — by material contact; sammūḍhaḥ — completely bewildered; saṁsāram — the cycle of material existence; pratipadyate — attains.
An unintelligent man, failing to distinguish himself from material nature, thinks nature to be real. By contact with it he becomes completely bewildered and enters into the cycle of material existence.
A similar verse is found in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (1.7.5):
yayā sammohito jīva
ātmānaṁ tri-guṇātmakam
paro ’pi manute ’narthaṁ
tat-kṛtaṁ cābhipadyate
“Due to this external energy, the living entity, although transcendental to the three modes of material nature, thinks of himself as a material product and thus undergoes the reactions of material miseries.”