kecid vikalpa-vasanā āhur ātmānam ātmanaḥ daivam anye 'pare karma svabhāvam apare prabhum
Synonyms
kecit—some of them; vikalpa-vasanāḥ—those who cover all kinds of duality; āhuḥ—declare; ātmānam—ownself; ātmanaḥ—of the self; daivam—superhuman; anye—others; apare—somebody else; karma—activity; svabhāvam—material nature; apare—many other; prabhum—authority.
Translation
Some of the philosophers who decline all sorts of duality, declare that one is ownself responsible for one's personal happiness and distress. Others say superhuman power is responsible while somebody else say activity is responsible and the gross materialist says nature is the cause ultimately.
Purport
As referred to above philosophers like Jaimini and his followers establish that fruitive activity is the root cause of all distress and happiness and even there is any superior authority as some superhuman powerful God or gods, He or they are also under the influence of fruitive activity because they reward result according to one's action : and action is not independent because action is performed by some performer : therefore the performer himself is the cause of his own happiness or distress. In the Bhagwat Geeta also this is confirmed (B.G. 6/5) that by one's mind freed from material affection one can deliver himself from the sufferings of material pangs and one may not entangle oneself in the matter by material affection of the mind. As such one's own mind is the friend or enemy in the matter of one's material happiness and distress.
Atheist like materialist-Samkhya concludes material nature as the cause of all causes. According to them combination of material elements is the cause of material happiness and distress and disintegration of matter is the cause of freedom from all material pangs. Goutam and Kanad find out the atomic combination as the cause of everything and impersonalist like Astavarkra finds out the spiritual effulgence of Brahman is the cause of all causes. But in the Bhagwat Geeta the Lord Himself declares that He is the back ground source of impersonal Brahman also, and therefore He, the Personality of Godhead, is the ultimate cause of all causes. This is confirmed in the Brahma Samhita also that Lord Krishna is the ultimate cause of all causes.