Verse 22

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In plain words

Pleasures born of contact are indeed wombs of suffering; they have a beginning and an end, son of Kunti. The wise do not delight in them.

Word for word

For the enjoyments that are born of contact, they are only wombs of sorrow, having a beginning and an end, O son of Kuntī; the wise one does not delight in them.

The commentators

Bhagavadgītābhāṣyam

इतश्च निवर्तयेत् —

ये हि यस्मात् संस्पर्शजाः विषयेन्द्रियसंस्पर्शेभ्यो जाताः भोगा भुक्तयः दुःखयोनय एव ते, अविद्याकृतत्वात् । दृश्यन्ते हि आध्यात्मिकादीनि दुःखानि तन्निमित्तान्येव । यथा इहलोके तथा परलोकेऽपि इति गम्यते एवशब्दात् । न संसारे सुखस्य गन्धमात्रमपि अस्ति इति बुद्ध्वा विषयमृगतृष्णिकाया इन्द्रियाणि निवर्तयेत् । न केवलं दुःखयोनय एव, आद्यन्तवन्तश्च, आदिः विषयेन्द्रियसंयोगो भोगानाम् अन्तश्च तद्वियोग एव ; अतः आद्यन्तवन्तः अनित्याः, मध्यक्षणभावित्वात् इत्यर्थः । कौन्तेय, न तेषु भोगेषु रमते बुधः विवेकी अवगतपरमार्थतत्त्वः ; अत्यन्तमूढानामेव हि विषयेषु रतिः दृश्यते, यथा पशुप्रभृतीनाम् ॥ २२ ॥

In plain words

And here is a further reason to turn back from it —

Whatever pleasures are born from contact — from a sense-organ meeting a sense-object — are, in truth, only sources of suffering, because ignorance is what produces them in the first place. You can see this: even the different kinds of suffering people know are caused by that same contact. And this holds not just here but in the next world too — that's what the word 'indeed' in the verse is pointing to. Once you truly understand that not even a trace of real happiness exists anywhere in this cycle of birth and death, you draw the senses back from what is really just a mirage. And it isn't only that these pleasures cause suffering — they also have a beginning and an end: they begin the moment sense meets object and end the moment that contact breaks, so, having a start and a finish, they're impermanent, lasting only for the flicker of a moment in between. That's the meaning. So, son of Kuntī, the wise person — someone discerning, who has truly grasped ultimate reality — takes no delight in such pleasures. Delight in sense-objects belongs only to the utterly deluded, the way it belongs to animals and the like.

Close to the Sanskrit

And from this too he should turn (it) back —

Those [enjoyments] which are born of contact — born from the contact of sense-object and sense-organ — [i.e.] 'enjoyments,' experiences, 'are sources of suffering indeed,' because they are caused by ignorance. For it is seen that the physical and the other [two] kinds of suffering are caused by exactly that. That, just as in this world, so also in the next world, is understood from the word 'indeed' [in the verse]. Having understood that even the faintest trace of happiness does not exist in this transmigratory existence, one should withdraw the senses from the mirage of sense-objects. Not merely are they sources of suffering alone, they also 'have a beginning and an end': the 'beginning' is the conjunction of sense-object and sense-organ, and the 'end' is exactly the separation from that; therefore, having a beginning and an end, they are impermanent, since they exist only in the intervening moment. That is the meaning. 'O son of Kuntī, the wise one,' [i.e.] the discerning one who has understood the truth of the highest reality, 'does not delight in those enjoyments'; for delight in sense-objects is seen only among the utterly deluded, just as among animals and the like.