Gita 05.22 – The so-called pleasure is the source of trouble

5.22 Yehi samsparshja abhoga dukkha yonaya evate adhyantavantah kaunteya rteshu ramate budhah here Krishna is speaking a verse that is very often quoted as describing the nature of material pleasure and in the context of the Bhagavad Gita this section is talking about the soul who is liberated or is well situated in the path of liberation and how such a person behaves so what does this verse say yehi samsparshja abhoga samsparshja samsparshja is touch samsparshja is proper touch bhoga so there is pleasure that comes from that the pleasure that comes from the contact of the senses with the sense objects yehi so the tongue comes in contact with delicious food the hands come in touch with soft objects and like that there is a contact of senses and sense objects and the pleasure that comes from that samsparshja abhoga dukkha yonaya evate dukkha yonaya from that comes dukkha Krishna says yonaya evate from them misery will be born evate certainly and adhyantavantah kaunteya adhyantavantah they have a beginning and they have an end oh Kaunteya, Arjuna and therefore na teshu ramate budhah the wise budhah do not delight in them na teshu ramate the wise don't delight in these pleasures because they know that they are the wounds of misery they have beginning and end so in one sense Krishna in this verse is expanding what he told in 5.21 5.21 is describing how one can experience unlimited happiness sukhamakshayam ashnute and the first step in that is bhayasparsheshvasaktatma the first step is don't be captivated by outer pleasures become indifferent to outer pleasures there are such wonderful pleasures outside how can I become indifferent to them so Krishna tells over here the process for becoming indifferent to such pleasures and he says the process is to do this that recognize the nature of such pleasures yehi samsparshya jabhoga those pleasures which come by the contact of senses and sense objects they are dukkha yonaya evate dukkha yonaya they are the wounds of misery now when when a child is there in the womb when a woman is expecting in the early stages there is no it is not seen later on the baby womb or whatever the word used to describe it that becomes visible initially nothing may be visible now even if nothing is visible still the infant is there the child is there the child is growing and the child will eventually appear will be born so like that initially when we engage in sense pleasure at that time so no dukkha may be seen but it is the womb and from the womb the misery will come and whereas in human pregnancy sometimes some people what is there in the womb people can stop it from coming out by abortion stop the embryo but no abortion is possible in this case when there is indulgence there will be consequence there will be misery which will come dukkha yonaya evate certainly that will come that is definitely the source of misery now somebody may say what is the source of misery I don't see anything Krishna says immediately first thing he says adhyantavantah kaunteya there is a beginning and there is an end and actually if you think about sensory pleasure it is accompanied by misery before its beginning and after its end how before its beginning we may say ok after its end may be some karmic consequences there but even if you don't go into the concept of karmic consequence before the beginning how is there misery because what happens is there is agitation there is there is craving and the craving torments it pinches us I want it get it get it I want it I want it the desire pierces us from within just like sometimes when the horses are made when somebody wants when the rider the jockey or the charioteer wants to make the horses run fast then there are spurs one is sometimes there are whiplashes which are used to whip the horse so that the horse runs fast other time there are spurs you know there are some objects which are which have some sharp points to them of course these are used more often with elephant there are elephant goads which are sharp objects but basically spurs the word spur on means to make to move faster that means actually it comes from the usage of something called spur an object with sharp pointed things which makes the person run which makes the animal run so like that the desires often spur us on forces they goad us come on enjoy enjoy enjoy so before the indulgence quite often there is anxiety there is agitation there is there is there is the pain the torment of the unfulfilled desire is there so before there is misery and then there is pleasure and then and usually when we stop sense gratification it is not because the desire is satisfied but because the capacity is exhausted and actually the indulgence usually ends up increasing the desire and that's why we end up dissatisfied so let me explain this initially there is some desire to enjoy say a person wants to eat some delicious the desire is making the person restless and say the person orders gulab jamuns now if we are going to go for a feast maybe there will be one gulab jamun two gulab jamun if there are thousand people then in a feast there will be one or two gulab jamun for everyone but suppose we go for a special program where everybody can eat as many gulab jamuns as they want so in the first case when it's exhausted I want a second helping no sorry there is no second helping there is only one gulab jamun and we feel disappointed then what happens the desire is not fulfilled but even if suppose a person can eat as much as the person wants then it's available unlimited still after after some time a person made five, six, seven ten gulab jamuns fifteen how much can a person eat and then it's enough I can't eat anymore then what happens quite often when we stop because we want that pleasure pleasure, pleasure and the pleasure goes away and then again there is disappointment with respect to sex when people when people engage in sex and after that they stop it's not because the desire is satisfied but because the body's capacity is exhausted often whatever indulgence they do that actually causes the desire to grow more but then the capacity is exhausted and that's why immediately after the enjoyment also there can be misery at many times because there is frustration now there can be misery because of multiple reasons first of all is we desire to enjoy but the enjoyment turns out to be an anticlimax that means that we desire a gulab jamun and there is a gulab jamun but when we eat it we find out that it's so poorly cooked the sugar is not there it is burnt a little burnt here and it is it doesn't taste at all good so the anticlimax causes frustration and even if suppose we assume the gulab jamun is cooked very nicely and we eat it and enjoy it but then when it gets ended the supply gets exhausted then we feel disappointed or when our body's capacity to enjoy gets exhausted and then we can't enjoy anymore then also we feel a little disappointed and beyond that usually speaking when we enjoy at the bodily level then that has consequences sometimes if we eat as much as the mind wants us to eat and soon after that the body body falls sick because the mind's desire to enjoy is is often far greater than the body's capacity to enjoy and that's why there are so many people who suffer from obesity and similarly there are so many practically all forms of self gratification are associated with miseries with diseases and disorders that occur when one engages in those forms of self gratification unrestrictedly disproportionately so sexually transmitted diseases have many may have several causes but one of them is people want to try out with multiple partners and then they don't know where they'll get infected by some disease or something like that so there is dukkh yonai vate and ultimately there is of course when people do wrong activities immoral sinful activities there is karmic consequences also but essentially what we call as bhoga it is quite often just a temporary removal of a self-inflicted misery it's just a temporary removal of a self-inflicted misery why? because when we start entertaining worldly desire material desire then from the moment the material desire enters into our consciousness we become agitated I want it I want it when will I get it I want it when will I get it come on go get it there is like the spur there are something pinching us punching us go get it and that is miserable and then when we get the enjoyment then that that thing which is goading us on that stops and that relief from a self-inflicted misery we call as pleasure but then when that pleasure also gets exhausted then again we are left with nothing so it has a beginning and an end and knowing that we are eternal the wise person think Buddha the wise person what they think Nateshwaramate I will not delight in this I will seek the eternal I will not settle for the temporary I will not settle for the temporary that ends in misery I will seek the eternal so knowing this by knowing the nature of material pleasure as a source of misery as being temporary the wise person can follow by a the wise person can become indifferent to outer pleasures knowing that I will not delight in them thank you.