Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 5, Verse 22: Krishna to Arjuna — Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Whatever pleasures arise from contact with sense-objects are, without exception, sources of sorrow (duhkha-yoni, womb of pain) -- because they are produced by nescience (avidya). They are not merely painful in their consequences; they are bounded by a beginning (vishaya-indriya-samyoga, conjunction of object and sense) and an end (tad-viyoga, separation from it), and so are impermanent at every intervening moment (madhyakshanabhavitva). The wise man (budha, one who has discerned the highest reality) takes no delight in them, just as only the utterly dull -- like animals (pashu-prabhritinam) -- are seen to revel in sense-objects.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Pleasures born of sense-contact (vishaya-indriya-sparsha-ja) are experienced as causing sorrow in their aftermath (duhkhodarka) and last only a short while (alpa-kala-vartin). One who truly understands their real nature (tad-yathatmya-vid, knower of their as-it-is-ness) does not rest in them -- not because objects are ontologically evil, but because they cannot sustain the jiva's proper mode of bliss, which belongs to Bhagavan's service (kainkarya). Ramanuja's emphasis falls on correct relational knowing rather than bare renunciation.

• Madhvadvaita

  The verse censures sensory enjoyment (kama-bhoga) specifically in the context of sannyasa -- renunciation as the precondition for the jiva's independent, unmediated worship of Hari. Madhva's gloss is terse and instrumental: he blames kama-bhoga for the sake of establishing sannyasa (sannyasartham kamabhogam nindayati), not to develop an impermanence theory. Kama-bhoga is an obstacle to the jiva's eternally distinct devotional stance toward the supreme Lord, not a metaphysical illusion.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  The verse resolves an apparent paradox: if even pleasant objects must be renounced, what makes brahma-ananda a valid purushartha? Vallabha answers that prakritendriya-janya pleasures (those born of natural sense-organs) are both beginning-bound and end-bound (adyantavat), hence duhkha-yoni and therefore anartha, not purushartha. By contrast brahma-ananda -- bliss received through Krsna's prasada -- is their direct opposite (tad-viparitatvat) and thus established as the only real purushartha. The yogin-budha turns toward brahma-ananda affirmatively, not by negation alone.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Shridhara Svami answers the implied objection -- why is moksha a worthwhile goal if pleasant objects must also be relinquished? -- by pointing to a fact observable here and now: pleasures born of sense-contact are already infected with rivalry, jealousy, and similar afflictions (spardha-suya-adi-vyaptatvat) even in the present moment (vartamanakale'pi), making them causes of sorrow right now, not merely in future consequence. They also have a beginning in sense-object conjunction and an end in separation; therefore the viveki (the discriminating one) does not delight in them.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana Sarasvati marshals Patanjali's three-fold analysis (parinama-tapa-samskara-duhkhaih guna-vrtti-virodhat) to show that sense-pleasure is suffering in three temporal registers: parinama-duhkha (desire ripens into frustration), tapa-duhkha (the dvesa that guards pleasure breeds its own anguish), and samskara-duhkha (the residue of pleasure regenerates craving across lifetimes). Even structurally, pleasures are tri-guna composites: what appears as sattva-joy contains unmanifest rajas and tamas. The budha, like an eye-cup (akshi-patra) that feels even a gossamer thread as pain, discerns this triple-stranded sorrow where the undiscriminating (mudha) feels only pleasure.