Prabhupada 0514 - Here, Pleasure Means a Little Absence of Pain
Lecture on BG 2.25 -- London, August 28, 1973
So our actual business is to become brahma-bhūtaḥ. So who can become? That is explained already. Kṛṣṇa has already explained that, what is that verse? Yaṁ hi na vyathayanty ete (BG 2.15). Vyathayanti, does not give pain. Material, material burden, that is always troublesome. Even this body. This is also another burden. We have to carry it. So when one is not disturbed by this bodily pain and pleasure... There is no pleasure, simply pain. Here, pleasure means a little absence of pain. Just like you have got a boil here. What is called? Boil? Phoṛā? So it is always painful. And by some medical application, when the pain is little relieved, you think that "Now it is happiness." But the boil is there. How you can be happy? So here, actually there is no happiness, but we think we have discovered so many counteraction. Just like there is disease. We have discovered medicine. We have discovered medical college. Manufacturing, big, big physician, M.D., a pharmacist(?) But that does not you'll live. No, you'll have to die, sir. So the boil is there. A little application of temporary medicine, it may... Therefore there is no happiness at all in this material world. Therefore Kṛṣṇa said that, "Why you are feeling happy? You have to die, after all, which is not your business. You are eternal, but still you have to accept death." Janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam (BG 13.9). This is your real problem.
But these rascals they do not know. They think death is natural—after death everything is finished. Now so long I am not dying, let me enjoy. Ṛṇaṁ kṛtvā ghṛtaṁ pibet. Enjoyment means... According to our Indian system, their enjoyment is not meat-eating as in the Western countries. Their enjoyment is eating ghee more, become chubby, fatty. That is their enjoyment. So Cārvāka Muni recommended, "Now eat ghee and enjoy life." Kacuri, samosā, all made of ghee preparation. Then "I have no money, sir. Where shall I get ghee?" Ṛṇaṁ kṛtvā. "Beg, borrow, steal, get ghee." Somehow or other, black market, white market, any way. Bring money and ghee, that's all. Ṛṇaṁ kṛtvā ghṛtaṁ pibet. "Eat as much possible ghee." Ṛṇaṁ kṛtvā ghṛtaṁ pibet yāvād jīvet sukham. Jīvet. Sukhaṁ jīvet. "So long you live, live merrily, very nicely." That is the theory of all the European philosophers. Live merrily. But the philosopher at the end becomes paralyzed. His merriness is finished. Who is that philosopher has become paralyzed? So they make all these theories. Not only European philosophers, another philosopher in India, Dr. Radhakrishnan, he is now brain paralyzed.
So they do not understand that there is a controller. We may theorize and so many ways of our happy life. But you cannot be happy, sir, so long you have got this material body. That's a fact. Janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam (BG 13.9). Therefore intelligent persons, they should be... Kṛṣṇa is making everyone intelligent: "You rascal, you are under the bodily concept of life. Your civilization has no value. It is rascal civilization."