Ävá¹›taá¹ jñÄnam etena
jñÄnino nitya-vairiṇÄ
kÄma-rÅ«peṇa kaunteya
duá¹£pÅ«reṇÄnalena ca
Ävá¹›tam - covered; jñÄnam - pure consciousness; etena - by this; jñÄninaḥ - of the knower; nitya-vairiá¹‡Ä - by the eternal enemy; kÄma-rÅ«peṇa - in the form of lust; kaunteya - O son of KuntÄ«; duá¹£pÅ«reṇa - never to be satisfied; analena - by the fire; ca - also.
It is said in the Manu-smá¹›ti that lust cannot be satisï¬ed by any amount of sense enjoyment, just as ï¬re is never extinguished by a constant supply of fuel. In the material world, the center of all activities is sex, and thus this material world is called maithunya-ÄgÄra, or the shackles of sex life. In the ordinary prison house, criminals are kept within bars; similarly, the criminals who are disobedient to the laws of the Lord are shackled by sex life. Advancement of material civilization on the basis of sense gratiï¬cation means increasing the duration of the material existence of a living entity. Therefore, this lust is the symbol of ignorance by which the living entity is kept within the material world. While one enjoys sense gratiï¬cation, it may be that there is some feeling of happiness, but actually that so-called feeling of happiness is the ultimate enemy of the sense enjoyer.