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ŚB 5.11.9

Devanagari

एकादशासन्मनसो हि वृत्तय
आकूतय: पञ्च धियोऽभिमान: ।
मात्राणि कर्माणि पुरं च तासां
वदन्ति हैकादश वीर भूमी: ॥ ९ ॥

Text

ekādaśāsan manaso hi vṛttaya
ākūtayaḥ pañca dhiyo ’bhimānaḥ
mātrāṇi karmāṇi puraṁ ca tāsāṁ
vadanti haikādaśa vīra bhūmīḥ

Synonyms

ekādaśa — eleven; āsan — there are; manasaḥ — of the mind; hi — certainly; vṛttayaḥ — activities; ākūtayaḥ — senses of action; pañca — five; dhiyaḥ — senses for gathering knowledge; abhimānaḥ — the false ego; mātrāṇi — different sense objects; karmāṇi — different material activities; puram ca — and the body, society, nation, family or place of nativity; tāsām — of those functions; vadanti — they say; ha — oh; ekādaśa — eleven; vīra — O hero; bhūmīḥ — fields of activity.

Translation

There are five working senses and five knowledge-acquiring senses. There is also the false ego. In this way, there are eleven items for the mind’s functions. O hero, the objects of the senses [such as sound and touch], the organic activities [such as evacuation] and the different types of bodies, society, friendship and personality are considered by learned scholars the fields of activity for the functions of the mind.

Purport

The mind is the controller of the five knowledge-acquiring senses and the five working senses. Each sense has its particular field of activity. In all cases, the mind is the controller or owner. By the false ego one thinks oneself the body and thinks in terms of “my body, my house, my family, my society, my nation” and so on. These false identifications are due to the expansions of the false ego. Thus one thinks that he is this or that. Thus the living entity becomes entangled in material existence.