Study a Verse

• Materialists are certainly very much attracted by sexual intercourse.
• However, one should understand his real position and cultivate knowledge by which to get free from bodily entanglement.
• Like an unfortunate person who acts madly, haunted by ghosts, a materialist haunted by the ghost of lust forgets his real business so that he can enjoy so-called happiness in the bodily concept of life.

Śrīla Prabhupāda's own sentences, chosen from the purport as its central points. Read the full purport on Vedabase to see them in place.

Insatiable desire → Renunciation. Exhausted enjoyment generates insight.

Chapters 18–19 of Canto 9: Yayāti's craving and liberation. An editorial reading of the story's mood, not the text itself. See the emotional arc

Chapter 19: King Yayāti Achieves Liberation

From the chapter summary, the lines nearest this verse:

He became attracted to this she-goat and somehow or other delivered her from the well, and thus they were united. One day thereafter, when the she-goat saw the he-goat enjoying sex with another she-goat, she became angry, abandoned the he-goat, and returned to her brāhmaṇa owner, to whom she described her husband’s behavior.