Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 6.5.41

nānubhūya na jānāti

pumān viṣaya-tīkṣṇatām

nirvidyate svayaḿ tasmān

na tathā bhinna-dhīḥ paraiḥ

SYNONYMS

na — not; anubhūya — experiencing; na — not; jānāti — knows; pumān — a person; viṣaya-tīkṣṇatām — the sharpness of material enjoyment; nirvidyate — becomes aloof; svayam — himself; tasmāt — from that; na tathā — not like that; bhinna-dhīḥ — whose intelligence is changed; paraiḥ — by others.

TRANSLATION

Material enjoyment is indeed the cause of all unhappiness, but one cannot give it up unless one has personally experienced how much suffering it is. Therefore one should be allowed to remain in so-called material enjoyment while simultaneously advancing in knowledge to experience the misery of this false material happiness. Then, without help from others, one will find material enjoyment detestful. Those whose minds are changed by others do not become as renounced as those who have personal experience.

PURPORT

It is said that unless a woman becomes pregnant, she cannot understand the trouble of giving birth to a child. Bandhyā ki bujhibe prasava-vedanā. The word bandhyā means a sterile woman. Such a woman cannot give birth to a child. How, then, can she perceive the pain of delivery? According to the philosophy of Prajāpati Dakṣa, a woman should first become pregnant and then experience the pain of childbirth. Then, if she is intelligent, she will not want to be pregnant again. Actually. however. this is not a fact. Sex enjoyment is so strong that a woman becomes pregnant and suffers at the time of childbirth. but she becomes pregnant again, despite her experience. According to Dakṣa's philosophy. one should become implicated in material enjoyment so that after experiencing the distress of such enjoyment. one will automatically renounce. Material nature, however. is so strong that although a man suffers at every step, he will not cease his attempts to enjoy (tṛpyanti neha kṛpaṇa-bahu-duḥkha-bhājaḥ). Under the circumstances, unless one gets the association of a devotee like Nārada Muni or his servant in the disciplic succession, one's dormant spirit of renunciation cannot be awakened. It is not a fact that because material enjoyment involves so many painful conditions one will automatically become detached. One needs the blessings of a devotee like Nārada Muni. Then one can renounce his attachment for the material world. The young boys and girls of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement have given up the spirit of material enjoyment not because of practice but by the mercy of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and His servants.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness