Bhagavad Gita 2.14
Spoken by Krishna · Verse 14 of 72
मात्रास्पर्शास्तु कौन्तेय शीतोष्णसुखदुःखदाः। आगमापायिनोऽनित्यास्तांस्तितिक्षस्व भारत॥
mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ / āgamāpāyino 'nityās tāṃs titikṣasva bhārata
Heat and cold, pleasure and pain — they come and go. Learn to endure them without being swept away.
Word by word (6)
- mātrā-sparśāḥ
- — contacts of senses with objects / sense impressions · 'Mātrā-sparśa' — touches of sense-matter. The senses (mātrā) make contact (sparśa) with the material world. Every experience — hot, cold, pleasure, pain — arises from this contact.
- śīta-uṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ
- — giving cold and heat, pleasure and pain
- āgama-apāyinaḥ
- — coming and going / transient · Both words in one compound: āgama (coming) + apāyin (going away). Everything that comes also goes. The structure of experience itself is impermanent.
- anityāḥ
- — impermanent / not lasting
- tān titikṣasva
- — endure them / bear them patiently · 'Titikṣā' — patient endurance, forbearance. One of the classic virtues in Vedantic practice. Not suppression, not avoidance, but the capacity to remain steady while experience moves through.
- bhārata
- — O Bharata — Arjuna (descendant of Bharata)
'O Kaunteya, the contacts of the senses with their objects — which give rise to cold and heat, pleasure and pain — they come and they go. They are impermanent. Learn to endure them, O Bharata.'
A modern analogy
Weather changes. Moods shift. The pleasure of a good meal doesn't last. The pain of a bad day passes. The Stoic Marcus Aurelius wrote: 'This too shall pass.' The Gita's teaching of titikṣā (patient endurance) is not suppression of feeling — it is the capacity to remain steady while experience moves through, like a tree bending in the wind without uprooting.
Take with you
- Every pleasant experience has the structure 'āgama-apāyin' — it comes and goes. So does every unpleasant one.
- Titikṣā (endurance/forbearance) is the practice being recommended — not detachment from experience but steadiness within it.
- The word 'titikṣasva' is an imperative: endure them. This is a practice, not just an insight.
Public-domain translations (4) compare all →
The sense contacts, O son of Kunti, which cause cold and heat, pleasure and pain, have a beginning and an end; they are impermanent. Endure them bravely, O Arjuna. [4]
The contact of the senses with their objects, O son of Kunti, which causes cold and heat, pleasure and pain, have a beginning and an end, and are impermanent; endure them, O Arjuna. [6]
Contacts of flesh, my lord, give heat and cold, And pleasure-pain. These float and do not last: Bear with them, Bharata. [7]
But the contacts of the senses, O son of Kunti, which produce cold and heat, pleasure and pain, are transient, coming and going. Bear them patiently, O descendant of Bharata. [9]
This verse speaks to
Where this thread continues
The person unmoved by pleasure and pain is fit for liberation — equanimity is not coldness but freedom.
Not elated at pleasant, not disturbed at unpleasant — steady, undeluded, the brahma-vit rests in Brahman.
The self-conquered yogi finds the Supreme Self equally present through cold, heat, joy, pain, honour and dishonour.
Treat pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat as equal — then engage. No sin follows from this.
Intellect, wisdom, patience, truth, calm, restraint, joy, pain, birth, death, fear, fearlessness — all arise from Me.
Equal to enemy and friend, honor and dishonor, cold and heat, pleasure and pain — free from all attachment!
Verse 14 of 72 · back to Chapter 2