Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.3.18
श्रीप्रबुद्ध उवाच
कर्माण्यारभमाणानां दु:खहत्यै सुखाय च ।
पश्येत् पाकविपर्यासं मिथुनीचारिणां नृणाम् ॥ १८ ॥
śrī-prabuddha uvāca
[shree-prabuddha uvaacha]
karmāṇy ārabhamāṇānāṁ
[karmaany aarabhamaanaanaam]
duḥkha-hatyai sukhāya ca
[duhkha-hatyai sukhaaya cha]
paśyet pāka-viparyāsaṁ
[pashyet paaka-viparyaasam]
mithunī-cāriṇāṁ nṛṇām
[mithunee-chaarinaam nrinaam]
Word-for-word
śrī-prabuddhaḥ uvāca
—
Śrī Prabuddha said
karmāṇi
—
fruitive activities
ārabhamāṇānām
—
making endeavors in
duḥkha-hatyai
—
for the elimination of distress
sukhāya ca
—
and for gaining happiness
paśyet
—
one should see
pāka
—
of the result
viparyāsam
—
contrary outcome
mithunī-cāriṇām
—
who are coupled as men and women
nṛṇām
—
of such persons.
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
śrī-prabuddha uvāca
śrī-prabuddhaḥ uvāca
Śrī Prabuddha said
karmāṇy ārabhamāṇānāṁ
karmāṇi
fruitive activities
ārabhamāṇānām
making endeavors in
duḥkha-hatyai sukhāya ca
duḥkha-hatyai
for the elimination of distress
sukhāya ca
and for gaining happiness
paśyet pāka-viparyāsaṁ
paśyet
one should see
pāka
of the result
viparyāsam
contrary outcome
mithunī-cāriṇāṁ nṛṇām
mithunī-cāriṇām
who are coupled as men and women
nṛṇām
of such persons.
Śrī Prabuddha said: Accepting the roles of male and female in human society, the conditioned souls unite in sexual relationships. Thus they constantly make material endeavors to eliminate their unhappiness and unlimitedly increase their pleasure. But one should see that they inevitably achieve exactly the opposite result. In other words, their happiness inevitably vanishes, and as they grow older their material discomfort increases.
Purport
Without the mercy of a pure devotee it is exceedingly difficult to free oneself from the bodily concept of life, which is the illusory basis of sexual attraction.
— A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda
Gauḍīya Ācāryas
Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura
Gauḍīya
Translation
Prabuddha said: One should see that the activities of those who endeavor for destruction of sorrow and creation of happiness by sex life achieve the opposite results.
Karmīs do not cross māyā at all. One should see this with discrimination. This is explained in three verses. Pāka-viparyāsam means “opposite results.”
Related lectures
Personal Guidance
Sexual union promises to kill suffering and multiply pleasure, but its ripening (pāka-viparyāsa) delivers the opposite — see this clearly today.
Practical Applications
- Notice one moment today when you reached for sense pleasure to escape unhappiness, and trace honestly where that strategy has actually led you over years.
- Refuse the inner script that says 'more intensity will finally satisfy me' — name it as the male-female-role conditioning the verse exposes.
- Speak with someone older about how their pleasures have aged, and let their pāka-viparyāsa become a teaching you absorb before repeating it.
Reflection Questions
- Where in my life am I still running the duḥkha-hatyai sukhāya equation — chasing a pleasure I have already watched ripen into its opposite?
- What would it mean to stop identifying as the male or female role I am playing, and instead serve Kṛṣṇa as the soul I actually am?
For Each Age Group
youth
- Watch how the dating-app and social-media script promises that the next match or the next post will finally make you feel enough — and track over a semester whether it actually does.
- Notice the peer-group pressure to perform a male or female role, and ask once a week what you would do if you were not trying to be desirable.
- Talk with a senior practitioner about a pleasure they pursued at your age, and let their honest account of how it ripened save you a decade of repetition.
householder
- Examine one marital or family habit you started for happiness that has quietly become a source of fatigue, and discuss it openly with your spouse in the light of this verse.
- When raising children, refuse to train them only in duḥkha-hatyai sukhāya strategies — make space in family life for sādhana that points them beyond the bodily concept.
- Audit your career endeavors: which are truly serving your family's dharma, and which are chasing a sukha that you have already watched ripen into its opposite?
senior
- Look back honestly at the pleasures you pursued in your householder years and name out loud, to a younger practitioner, where pāka-viparyāsa actually showed up.
- Use the loosening of bodily capacities not as loss but as evidence the verse was telling the truth, and let that evidence deepen your taking shelter of a pure devotee.
- Mentor at least one younger person not by warning them off pleasure abstractly, but by sharing the specific ripenings you have lived through.
Common Pitfalls
- Hearing this verse as a blanket condemnation of marriage rather than as a diagnosis of the bodily concept that fuels sexual attraction.
- Using the teaching to suppress desire by force of will, without taking shelter of a pure devotee whose mercy alone uproots the bodily concept.
- Reading pāka-viparyāsa as mere pessimism about aging, missing that it is meant to redirect endeavor from sense gratification toward bhakti.
Discussion Prompts
- Share a specific pleasure you pursued for years and watched ripen into its opposite — what did you learn that no philosophy lecture could teach you?
- Where do you disagree with the verse's claim that material endeavors for happiness 'inevitably' achieve the opposite result? Defend your position honestly.
- Prabhupāda says the bodily concept is the illusory basis of sexual attraction. What in your daily life still reinforces that bodily concept, even in a sādhaka's routine?
Role Play
One student plays a thirty-year-old convinced that the next relationship, the next promotion, or the next move will finally end their unhappiness. The other plays a fellow practitioner who has watched a few of these cycles already and wants to gently introduce the idea of pāka-viparyāsa — without preaching, without condescension, and without pretending to be free of the same pattern themselves.
Objections & Responses
- This is just life-denying pessimism. Plenty of householders are genuinely happy — why pathologize ordinary human love and pleasure?
The verse is not denying that pleasure arises; it is pointing to its ripening. Gauḍīyas honor the gṛhastha āśrama and Kṛṣṇa Himself enjoyed family life. The teaching is that endeavors aimed at eliminating duḥkha and maximizing sukha through the body deliver the opposite over time — which any honest person past midlife can verify. Real happiness is not denied, only relocated: from the body to the soul's relationship with Kṛṣṇa. - Modern psychology says repressing sexuality causes more harm than expressing it. Isn't this verse advocating exactly that kind of repression?
Prabhupāda's purport is precise: the issue is not the urge but the bodily concept that produces it. Force-based repression fails because it leaves the bodily concept intact. The Gauḍīya remedy is the mercy of a pure devotee, regulated sādhana, and a higher taste — paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate. That is the opposite of repression: it is replacement of a lower pleasure by a real one.
My note
Source: vedabase.io