Speaker: Śrī Kṛṣṇa
यदग्रे चानुबन्धे च सुखं मोहनमात्मनः ।
निद्रालस्यप्रमादोत्थं तत्तामसमुदाहृतम् ॥३९॥
yad agre cānubandhe ca
sukhaṁ mohanam ātmanaḥ
nidrālasya-pramādotthaṁ
tat tāmasam udāhṛtam
Word for word (synonyms)
- yat
- that which
- agre
- in the beginning
- ca
- also
- anubandhe
- by binding
- ca
- also
- sukham
- happiness
- mohanam
- illusion
- ātmanaḥ
- of the self
- nidrā
- sleeping
- ālasya
- laziness
- pramāda
- illusion
- uttham
- produced of
- tat
- that
- tāmasam
- in the mode of ignorance
- udāhṛtam
- is said to be
Translation
And that happiness which is blind to self-realization, which is delusion from beginning to end and which arises from sleep, laziness and illusion is said to be of the nature of ignorance.
Defined in the Gītā
Happiness
What is real happiness?
O best of the Bhāratas, now please hear from Me about the three kinds of happiness which the conditioned soul enjoys, and by which he sometimes comes to the end of all distress. That which in the beginning may be just like poison but at the end is just like nectar and which awakens one to self-realization is said to be happiness in the mode of goodness.
Purport
One who takes pleasure in laziness and in sleep is certainly in the mode of darkness, and one who has no idea how to act and how not to act is also in the mode of ignorance. For the person in the mode of ignorance, everything is illusion. There is no happiness either in the beginning or the end. For the person in the mode of passion there might be some kind of ephemeral happiness in the beginning and at the end distress, but for the person in the mode of ignorance there is only distress both in the beginning and at the end.
What this verse teaches
Happiness (sukhaṁ) in three modes
Bhagavad-gītā As It Is by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda © The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International.