(Prabhupada's lecture - Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 2.1.4 – Delhi, November 7, 1973)
Ato gṛha-kṣetra-sutāpta-vittair janasya moho 'yam [SB 5.5.8]. Moha means illusion. What is that illusion? "I am this body, and I belong to this material world. This is my society. This is my country. This is my wife. This my children." This is illusion. Why illusion? Because these are false things. Nobody is your wife, nobody is your children. They have simply assembled together by the waves of time. Just like we have seen in the waves of the river, so many straws assembled together. And again, on the waves, they are separated. One straw goes this way, another straw goes... Finished. You see?
So this is position. We, by our karma-phala, by the action, reaction of our karma, we artificially assemble here in a family, in a society, in a country, in a community, in a nation, like that. And after few years, by the waves of time, everything is separated. You go somewhere, you go, you go somewhere, you go somewhere, this way... Therefore here it is said that dehāpatya-kalatra, those who are blind to understand the self, those who are not realized, self-realized, such person, apaśyatām ātma-tattvam [SB 2.1.2], those who are... Because human being, human life is meant for understanding ātma-tattva. Athāto brahma jijñāsā. This life is meant for understanding "What I am." But they have lost their all intelligence. They are thinking like cats and dogs: "I am this body," "I am American," "I am Indian," "I am brāhmaṇa," "I am śūdra." And they are busy with that business. Just like cats and dogs, they are busy: "I am dog," "I am cat," "I am tiger," "I am bull," "I am this," "I am that," so human society has also become like cats and dogs, the same conception, bodily conception of life. Because apaśyatām ātma-tattvam [SB 2.1.2]. They..., he has no knowledge of self.