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चिन्तामपरिमेयां च प्रलयान्तामुपाश्रिताः।कामोपभोगपरमा एतावदिति निश्िचताः।।16.11।।

chintām aparimeyāṁ cha pralayāntām upāśhritāḥ kāmopabhoga-paramā etāvad iti niśhchitāḥ

Sanskrit Chant Recitation
Chapter 16, Verse 11
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Scripture Translation Room

Sanskrit to English Translation

Translator:
Giving themselves over to immeasurable cares that end only with death, regarding the gratification of lust as their highest aim, and feeling sure that that is all.

A Reading - Rantideb

Why: beset with immeasurable anxiety, ending only in death, holding the gratification of desires as their highest goal, convinced this is all there is, describing the actual emotional cost, chronic anxiety, underlying this pattern rather than the ease or satisfaction it might appear to promise.

In life: a life organized purely around gratifying desire tends to produce more chronic anxiety, not less, since desire satisfied simply generates the next desire requiring gratification, an endless, exhausting cycle.

Teaching: notice whether a pattern of pursuing gratification in your own life is actually producing the promised ease or satisfaction, or instead producing exactly the chronic anxiety this verse describes, that honest check is worth running periodically.

chintāmanxieties
aparimeyāmendless
chaand
pralaya-antāmuntil death
upāśhritāḥtaking refuge
kāma-upabhogagratification of desires
paramāḥthe purpose of life
etāvatstill
itithus
niśhchitāḥwith complete assurance

Deep Classical Commentary (Bhashya)

Author:
16.11 चिन्ताम् cares? अपरिमेयाम् immeasurable? च and? प्रलयान्तम् ending only with death? उपाश्रिताः refuged in? कामोपभोगपरमाः regarding gratification of lust as their highest aim? एतावत् that is all? इति thus? निश्चिताः feeling sure.Commentary They are beset with immense cares? worries and anxieties and their minds are engrossed in aciring and preserving the countless sensual objects. They have got the strong conviction that the sensual enjoyment is the highest end of a man. They are steeped in enjoying the objects of the senses. They firmly believe that that is everything. They believe that sensual enjoyment is the supreme source of happiness and there is no such thing as eternal bliss of the soul or transcendental bliss of the Self. They have no belief in the happiness in another world (or plane) or in the perennial bliss which is independent of sensual objects? which is beyond the reach of the senses. They have a dull and gross intellect? and so they cannot grasp the subtle higher truth. Sensual enjoyment is the greatest object of attainment for them.