We, as seekers, try to detach ourselves from the external contacts in order to enjoy the Infinite Bliss which is the nature of the Self. Even an average intelligent man, if he cares to investigate his own experiences with the outer world, will discover, all by himself, that joy-hunting among the finite objects is no profitable preoccupation. The law of diminishing utility works in all our experiences and the very thing that gave a certain unit of joy in the beginning, itself soon becomes a stinking putrefying pit of sorrow. The experiences with the first laddu and the twenty-fifth laddu when you are not hungry, are a practical demonstration of this fundamental truth, that sensuous joys are doomed to pain from the very beginning.

A sense-object can only be as beautiful and joyous as a leprous whore, painted, powdered and dressed up to smile at strangers in the dark alleys of a dilapidated commercial town. Lord Krishna beautifully brings out this idea, when he points out to Arjuna, how sense-objects and their joys, being finite in nature, do not enchant a wise man.

Man, if he is wise, is satisfied only with the Infinite. Finite things can only torture us with hopes of getting a more satisfactory joy, and whip us along the path of sensuousness making us pant in sheer exhaustion, hunting for a complete satisfaction — from ditch to ditch, from gutter to gutter. The chaster, the fuller, the Diviner joy, is gained only

when we come to experience the Self as explained in the previous stanza.

AND THERE IS ALSO A WICKED THING, AN ENEMY ON THE PATH OF BLISS, A MOST DIFFICULT THING TO DEAL WITH, THE SOURCE OF ALL EVIL, VERY DIFFICULT TO WARD OFF. MIGHTY EFFORTS SHOULD BE MADE, SAYS THE LORD, TO REPEL THIS ENEMY:

Hi, since; bhogah, enjoyments; ye samsparsajah, that result from contact with objects, that arise from contact between the objects and the organs; are eva, verily; duhkha-yonayah, sources of sorrow, because they are creations of ignorance. It is certainly a matter of experience that physical and other sorrows are created by that itself. By the use of the word eva (verily), it is understood that, as it happens here in this world, so does it even in the other world. Realizing that there is not the least trace of happiness in the world, one should withdraw the organs from the objects which are comparable to a mirage. Not only are they sources of sorrow, they also adi-antavantah, have a beginning and an end. Adi (beginning) of enjoyments consists in the contact between objects and senses, and their end (anta), indeed, is the loss of that contact. Hence, they have a beginning and an end, they are impermanent, being present in the intervening moment. This is the meaning. (Therefore) O son of Kunti, budhah, the wise one, the discriminating person who has realized the Reality which is the supreme Goal; na ramate, does not delight; tesu, in them, in enjoyments. For delight in objects is seen only in very foolish beings, as for instance in animals etc. This extremely painful evil, which is opposed to the path of Bliss and is the source of getting all miseries, is difficult to resist. Therefore one must make the utmost effort to avoid it. Hence the Lord says:;