Text 44
kiṁ kiṁ na vismarantīha
māyā-mohita-cetasaḥ
yan-mohitaṁ jagat sarvam
abhīkṣṇaṁ vismṛtātmakam
kim kim — what indeed; na vismaranti — persons do not forget; iha — in this world; māyā-mohita — bewildered by illusion; cetasaḥ — whose minds; yat — by which; mohitam — bewildered; jagat — the world; sarvam — entire; abhīkṣṇam — constantly; vismṛta-ātmakam — making one forget even one’s own self.
What indeed is not forgotten by those whose minds are bewildered by the Lord’s illusory potency? By that power of Māyā, this entire universe remains in perpetual bewilderment, and in this atmosphere of forgetfulness no one can understand his own identity.
It is clearly stated here that the entire universe is bewildered. Thus even great demigods like Indra and Brahmā are not exempt from the principle of forgetfulness. Since Lord Kṛṣṇa exercised His internal illusory potency over His cowherd boyfriends and calves, it is not at all astonishing that for one year they could not remember their position. Indeed, by the Lord’s external illusory potency the conditioned souls forget their existence not only for one year but for many billions and billions of years as they transmigrate throughout the kingdom of ignorance called the material world.