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.
Verse 14 introduces the concept of 'mātrā-sparśa' — sense impressions — as the mechanism by which experience arises. All pleasure and pain, heat and cold, arise from the contact (sparśa) of the sense-organs (mātrā) with their objects. This contact is inherently impermanent: it comes and goes. The word 'titikṣā' (patient endurance) is important. It is not the same as suppression (pushing experience away) or indifference (not feeling). It is the capacity to remain stable while experience moves — like a river that receives everything that flows into it without being destabilized. Titikṣā is later listed in the Gita as one of the qualities of the person who has found steadiness.
Karma-Yoga lens
Tilak emphasizes titikṣā as the practical companion to action: the person who acts without attachment must be able to endure both success and failure with equal steadiness. Titikṣā is what makes nishkama karma (desireless action) sustainable — you can keep acting rightly regardless of what comes back, because you have the capacity to endure whatever does come.
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!