Bhagavad Gita 18.38
विषयेन्द्रियसंयोगाद्यत्तदग्रेऽमृतोपमम् । परिणामे विषमिव तत्सुखं राजसं स्मृतम् ॥
viṣayendriya-saṃyogād yat tad agre 'mṛtopamam / pariṇāme viṣam iva tat sukhaṃ rājasaṃ smṛtam
Translation
That which arises from the contact of senses with objects, nectar-like at first, poison-like in its outcome, is held to be the happiness of the passionate kind.
Reflection
Which of your repeating pleasures shows the back-loaded cost when you stop looking away?
Read this verse in its chapter: Chapter Eighteen
Rajasika sukha. The inverse arc. Vishaya-indriya-samyoga, sense in contact with object, the standard mechanism of pleasure. Sweet at the start, agre amritopamam. Bitter at the finish, parimane visham iva. This is the famous trap, the same pleasure-loop dressed up in a thousand outfits, food, sex, intoxicant, validation, scroll, accumulation. Each delivers the front-loaded sweetness and the back-loaded cost. The Gita is not moralizing about pleasure as such; it is naming the temporal asymmetry that consumers refuse to look at. Most of an unexamined life is paying back the debts of yesterday's rajasika sukha while taking out more today. The exit is the first verse, not abstinence, but a different source of joy.