Bhagavad Gita Chapter 5 - Sanyasa Yoga - Sloka 22

The entire content of this mail is from Swami Chidbhavananda's translation of The Bhagavad Gita, published by Ramakrishna Mission.

Bliss of Brahman Different from Sense Pleasure 20-29

1 Gita Sloka every day - Chapter 5 -Sanyasa Yoga - Sloka 22

Rama & Sita admiring the golden deer

Why are sense pleasures shunned by the enlightened? Because -

Ye hi samsparshajah bhogah dukha yonayah evata I

Adi anta vantah kaunteya na teshu ramate budhah II sloka 22

ये हि संस्पर्शजाः भोगाः दुख योनयः एव त ।

आदि अन्त वन्तः कौन्तेय न तेषु रमते बुधः ।। श्लोक २२

The delights that are contact born are verily the wombs of pain; they have, O son of Kunti, a beginning and an end; no wise man rejoices in them.

Misery to which man is so much prone is ever the outcome of the search for sense pleasure. When the senses create contact with their objects, the initial agreeableness presents itself as pleasure. The prolongation of the contact as well as the separation of the senses from their objects transforms itself into misery. Like a flash of lightning the sensation called pleasure appears and disappears, and man pays dearly for it in the form of a pang. The discerning one refrains oneself from this empty game, while the sense-bound one hunts after it.

If people ever sighted a venomous cobra, they used to supplicate, "O deity of deadliness, may you hide away your head from our sight and present  the powerless tail alone to our view"It is good to recoil in this manner from sense objects that drag down the mind. Instead of falling prey to them and then praying for redemption, it is better ever to keep aloof from them. 

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa