The pleasure of the Buddha is divine - Bhagavad Gita ch5:22

Buddha is not just the prince Gautama Siddhartha, who lived around 2600 years ago. Buddha is a Sanskrit term coming from the word buddhi which means intelligence. The prince became the famous Buddha after renouncing the pleasures of the world and meditating until he attained awakening or enlightenment.

Anyone can become a Buddha. You simply need to use your buddhi, your intelligence. If you investigate and analyze the world in which we live, you will observe that it is a place where people are driven by their desire for pleasure. All living entities are pleasure seeking.

However, most of us have to encounter suffering, and any pleasure that does exist in this world is fleeting. That was the intelligent insight that led the prince Gautama to practice meditation and attain enlightenment.

Anyone who uses their intelligence can reach the same conclusion and follow the prince to become a Buddha. It's more like a title than a single person.

Curiously this pleasure we are seeking is not to be found in anything material. True pleasure is that which fulfills the soul. It is divine and eternal, not mundane and temporary. And it is free from suffering.

That's why the Sanskrit word for the name of God - Rama - means "the reservoir of all pleasure", stemming from the Sanskrit word for pleasure, which is ramate. Thus the intelligent - the Buddha - find their pleasure in the divine - Rama. This is the teaching in multiple Sanskrit texts from the ancient wisdom.

Furthermore, they abstain from indulging in any mundane pleasure because they know that it is more like a source of misery than a source of pleasure. It has a beginning and an end, whereas the self is eternal and finds no complete satisfaction in the pleasures of the senses.

In the material world we are driven to satisfy the tongue, belly and genitals but the Buddha, one who observes the world for what it is, has renounced the pursuit of these pleasures. In fact they avoid them because they know that satisfying them leads to attachment to this world of suffering.

There may be pleasures in this world, but living in this world also means that we have to endure the pains that accompany it. The wise have concluded that there is more pain than pleasure in the overall equation of life on earth, and therefore they renounce it altogether, starting with the main traps - the pleasures of the senses.

As long as we are attached to the pleasures of the senses, the eternal living soul is obliged to return to this place of repeated birth and death lifetime after lifetime. No pleasure in this material world will outweigh the pleasure of being in our eternal constitutional position beyond this planet.

When in the prime of our life here, for a few years, we may enjoy the pleasures of a healthy body and mind, but before that we have to suffer the pain of birth, where both the mother and the baby suffer. Then we have to endure years of ignorance through our infancy and childhood.

And again in old age we have to endure sickness and infirmity, along with losing our mind and memory. In old age the body is no longer able to enjoy the pleasures of the tongue, belly and genitals. We mostly suffer, perhaps for years, in a painful condition. And then we die. All of this, when added up, will show that our lifetime in the human body is made of more pain than pleasure.

And that is an obvious and totally logical conclusion achieved by anyone who analyzes their life with intelligence, like a Buddha. Sadly in adulthood we are so busy chasing enjoyment that we forget the pains of birth, infancy and childhood. And we certainly are oblivious to the suffering awaiting us in old age or the horror of our approaching death.

The intelligent however, learn from the experiences of others and see the suffering of the old ahead of them in the queue waiting to meet their death. They observe the ways of the world at large and all of life, and they conclude that this planet is more a place of suffering than a place of pleasure.

Even if our suffering is minimized by good material circumstances, the majority of people on the planet are less fortunate than us and forced to endure more suffering as a result. You may feel fine, but there are millions of people and creatures all around us on the planet trapped in a lifetime of pain and suffering.

This leads them to the obvious conclusion that pursuit of the pleasures of this world and body are actually traps that will tie us to it and the suffering it brings. And they long to have a body once more that does not feel any pain, that does not get old or terminate. They long for their eternal original perfect body made of pure spirit, pure consciousness, full of eternal knowledge and bliss.

The rest of us remain trapped by the fleeting allures of our senses, like fools, like dogs, hogs, camels and asses.

Bhagavad Gita ch5:22

ये हि संस्पर्शजा भोगा दु:खयोनय एव ते ।
आद्यन्तवन्त: कौन्तेय न तेषु रमते बुध: ॥ २२ ॥

ye hi saṁsparśa-jā bhogā
duḥkha-yonaya eva te
ādy-antavantaḥ kaunteya
na teṣu ramate budhaḥ

SYNONYMS
ye—those; hi—certainly; saṁsparśajāḥ—by contact with the material senses; bhogāḥ—enjoyment; duḥkha—distress; yonayaḥ—sources of; eva—certainly; te—they are; ādi—in the beginning; antavantaḥ—subject to; kaunteya—O son of Kuntī; na—never; teṣu—in those; ramate—take delight; budhaḥ—the intelligent.

TRANSLATION
An intelligent person does not take part in the sources of misery, which are due to contact with the material senses. O son of Kuntī, such pleasures have a beginning and an end, and so the wise man does not delight in them.

PURPORT
Material sense pleasures are due to the contact of the material senses, which are all temporary because the body itself is temporary. A liberated soul is not interested in anything which is temporary. Knowing well the joys of transcendental pleasures, how can a liberated soul agree to enjoy false pleasure? In the Padma Purāṇa it is said:
ramante yogino 'nante satyānanda-cid-ātmani
iti rāma-padenāsau paraṁ brahmābhidhīyate
"The mystics derive unlimited transcendental pleasures from the Absolute Truth, and therefore the Supreme Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead, is also known as Rāma."
In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam also it is said:
nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛ-loke
kaṣṭān kāmān arhate viḍ-bhajāṁ ye
tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena sattvaṁ
śuddhyed yasmād brahma-saukhyaṁ tv anantam.
"My dear sons, there is no reason to labor very hard for sense pleasure while in this human form of life; such pleasures are available to the stool-eaters [hogs]. Rather, you should undergo penances in this life by which your existence will be purified, and, as a result, you will be able to enjoy unlimited transcendental bliss." (Bhāg. 5.5.1)
Therefore, those who are true yogīs or learned transcendentalists are not attracted by sense pleasures, which are the causes of continuous material existence. The more one is addicted to material pleasures, the more he is entrapped by material miseries.

Reference: Bhagavad Gita As It Is, translation and commentary by Swami A C Bhaktivedanta, original Macmillan 1972 edition.

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