ARE SENSE PLEASURE DEATH TRAPS?

 

ARE  SENSE PLEASURE  DEATH  TRAPS?

 

Life’s questions are answered only when there is an all inclusive understanding of life.

The question ‘ARE  SENSE PLEASURE  DEATH  TRAPS?’ worded in a bit of dramatic language. It is cud from the scriptural heritage, where religious books from the East and the West have portions warning mankind in this matter of, pursuit of pleasure. The pursuit of pleasure is built into every one of us and we know what it does to us, how dangerous it is and all of us to less or more extent control the urges in ourselves to enjoy through various sense organs.  We can see that on one hand there is a certain amount of controlling and on the other, a whole lot of religious teaching which advises us to keep our pleasure urges under check. We shall try to see that control is not all there, is to this issue of handling pleasure, while control thus has a place. Ultimately this problem of everyone seeking pleasure, feeling fulfilled at times, feeling miserable at other times and all that, this problem of relationship with sense pleasure in life is truly solved only through a whole understanding.

Not just control, not just indulgence, but a mature understanding of what this pleasure seeking is all about, brings about a transformation, where we shall in a natural way find a balance between the two extremes of denial and indulgence.

Why do we first of all use the word like ‘death trap’–—‘Are sense pleasures a death trap?’ All the religious traditions have portrayed a picture like that for understandable reasons.  Everyone knows how the forbidden apple that Adam ate, may be Eve also ate, started a series of complications. And you know how in Islam or practically every religion of the world there is the admonition, advice on having to fast, having to restrain oneself, having to perform various austerities to such an extent that religion is many times equated with the denial of pleasures, control of sense pleasure and so on. In the Indian spiritual tradition too, in the Vedanta also it is quite a bit said about how sense pleasures could be detrimental to one, could bind us.

I would quote a verse from celebrated work of Adi Shankara’s Vivekachudamani: it says there are five animals if you look around in the nature, animals which are caught, when meet with their death is because of one attachment they have in case of each.  Kuranga maatanga patanga mina brngaah

DEER trapped by a hunter by playing some music.  Deer listening to the music stands still and the hunter shoots it down.

ELEPHANT male and female in their excitement, come in contact with each other and forget everything, that is when many a times hunter traps, shoots or catches them. So elephants being quite enslaved to the sense of touch are trapped.

BUTTERFLY some form of moth are very much attracted to a burning flame and they go towards the beautiful form of the flame and just die in the fire.

FISH-es are caught by a tasty bait that fisherman drops into the water. They too have some intelligence but they cannot resist, they take a chance and eat a piece of meat or a worm and there is a bait—a hook and the fish is caught.

 

And lastly BEE is drawn to flowers by fragrance and many a time a bee goes deep into the flower first attracted by fragrance and then goes deep to get the nectar in the flower.  And there are some flowers in the nature which close after a while and the bee is caught inside.

Adi Shankara combines poetry and an observation of nature to give a message to a spiritual development of everyone of us and says, ‘Look. Deer, elephant, moth, fish, and bee each of them have one attachment only but they meet their end. Narah pancha bhirancita kim? You and I, human being in a sense described as the crown of creation have multiple attractions; we have a weakness for the form, for taste, for smell, musical sound, more so for praise. We have attachments on the planes of all the five sense organs—seeing, touching, smelling, hearing and tasting. You do not like to miss any. So Shankara said, we are in a precarious condition indeed. We don’t know how but our sense organs—eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin have their urges. Raising an alarm look how risky is our position. One is enough to bring us to death and we have five of them in us.

In the same way to quote once more from that Vivekachudamani Sri Shankara says, sense organs are sometimes more dangerous than even a bowl of poison. And he argues that a bowl of poison takes your life if you go pick it up and drink the poison, whereas sense objects even by looking at them, they can lead to your death. Not that you immediately drop dead, but we see something beautiful and the mind says, ‘I want to eat it, I want to drink it, I want to wear it, I want to enjoy it. He says the eyes, ears, tongue and skin—five sense organs which Bhagavad Geeta continuously refers to as indriyaani are constantly demanding something or the other.

Today we have access to a lot of food-drink and other pleasures and in certain societies we enjoy a lot of freedom too. As is the case here. Even in some spiritual teachings apparently freedom is given and we have stories how in the name of experimenting with a free relation, with sense pleasures, many have met with disastrous ends.  With respect to food, I guess in this society now there is a increased concern about obesity—if we eat more, if we eat just tasty food, or if we just satisfy our palate well, pictures are given in certain magazine—some 3000 BC how the man was? A hunter, and then in 200BC a little changes in the Homo Sapiens, in terms of how he looks, then in 1000 BC then in 0001 AD may be, then it improves and the last one 2003 AD is a very bulky person going with a king size cup of Pepsi in hand.  Those illustrations spoke volumes about certain modern trends. The last one is not a super human being as Sri Aurobindo or someone anticipated, rather someone who is unable to control or manage one’s physical size.  So there are some descriptions like this in a lot of religious work where it is said, our desires for sense gratification could mean lot of complications àloss of health, loss of peace of mind, loss of relationship, loss of even right thinking;  one could be so enslaved.

I once met first the mother of a middle aged man who said, ‘will you give some time to my son?’ I asked, ‘what is the matter? O’ Swamiji, please meet my son, if you can give half an hour tomorrow.’ And then I learnt that he has alcoholism as his weakness, is unable to control and for a while if he controls, again after some time he breaks down. Just two weeks ago he had taken his family to some resort and all were watching—no drink at all.  He lied on the last day—he said, ‘this was a wonderful vacation and you see how much control I have, I did not even ask for one peg, not even one drop of it, and you know other day I had a little business in the city, all of you fly back and I shall fly tomorrow by same flight.’  He sent all others back and he remained in the resort and as soon as the family went he drank and drank and fell down in the bathroom of the resort. He hurt his nose so badly and in fact this was two weeks ago and next day when this son met me, who also is a successful, very rich industrialist, businessman and what not, he even then had bandage on him and the wound was healing slowly.  Coated, booted, suited modern middle aged gentleman who could quote from the book, I spent about an hour with him which was quite pleasurable, as he was educated. I talked on Shankara, he could very appropriately discuss, when I talked on western philosophy he could discuss that too. You touch any subject he had ready information.  And after all that I couldn’t believe that he had any such problem, but when it hit, it hits and he is just helpless and hapless.

For someone else it might be food, for someone else it might be music, someone else it might be sex, someone else it might be something else we don’t know.  This society considers alcohol and all as less respectable and doesn’t make much of an issue of potato-chips. But philosophically the weakness for the palate whether it is drink or chips, is pretty much the same.

Swami Chinmayanandaji often said, ‘you may drink but let not the drink, drink you.’  ‘you may smoke but let not smoke, smoke you out.’

You may enjoy the sense objects but let not the sense object govern you, let the sense object not be your master.  It is often said that the difference between a wise man and an ignorant man is just that in the case of wise man he controls the mind and in the case of ignorant man, the mind controls the person.

So how exactly do we see that we are above the mind? How do we see that our eyes, nose, ears, tongue and skin do not enslave us. They are our obedient servants or friendly tools—how to come to terms?  How to be at peace, with all these sense organs?  Scott Peck the author of the ‘Road less traveled’ says, ‘in a study 10,000-s of successful people around the world, conducted over a whole decade or more he found, the common denominator of a large number of truly successful people who not only did well in their profession but maintained a good balanced life, happy home, happy professional life, there was this ability – not ‘to deny gratification’ but ability ‘to delay gratification’. You see the difference  DENYING AND DELAYING. Denying is for Himalayan ascetics, though we never know how many in the Himalaya are actually successful. Actually it’s not so easy, you go to Himalayas and wear some robes and live in a hut. You think the hut and the robes and cold climate that makes you a great ascetic, you think next morning mother Ganga comes and gives you the gift of self control. Everybody imagines by joining some ashram by being in a spiritual center, may be in the Himalayas or right here in USA and California is known for all sorts of ashrams. Sometimes they say, when someone sees some type of spirituality, they say he must have come from California because this state is known for a great form of open mindedness. A place called Ohai near Santa Barbara in California someone said, this Ohai within some 50 miles radius has 5000 spiritual organizations. Ohai alone has such large number of spiritual organization. And you may imagine, well enough is enough and I am going to join this ashram and then in peace, in great self control—may be on the third day you raise your hand and bless the whole world.  ‘I have achieved it and thou shall also achieve. Just come and surrender me.’  One may have all wild fancies but believe me the place and some books and some symbols and some dress and some shaving of the head or growing of long hair and even some special dance, meditative dance, none of these can help you to meet with the pleasure urge in you.

 

In a mature way whereby war ends, peace comes about.  Coming to peace with one’s own senses and the mind is a very intricate affair.  All the books talk about it, but hardly anyone truly arrives at that peace.

In the Bhagavad Geeta Sri Krishna says, the desire in us to enjoy, to gratify ourselves, to feel good in some way, operates on several levels and the first level is on the plane of the senses.

And He says, if we have reasonable relationship with the sense organs then the avenues open for the sensible relationship with the emotional mind and the intellectual layers within us also.

So that could scare us even more. If you think that sense organs are the only challenges, you are mistaken, that is only a beginning.

Sri Krishna says, anyone who wishes to have inner perfection, should begin with better management of sense organs.

Scott Peck advices—but have an ability to delay gratification.

I wish to eat something, I wish to watch some TV program and my mind says, there is this assignment or home work I will do it after this program is over and I am going to watch only for half an hour and that half an hour becomes one and half hour.  With respect to pleasure like TV program we are able to stay awake up to 1 am or so. Somebody—youngster, one day honestly said to me, ‘Swamiji, how is sometimes that we don’t have simple energy to press that red button on remote control, I tried but the thumb doesn’t go down. The program is very interesting, a little more, a little more.  There is energy to change position but this one finger has no energy at all?’

In good old days lot of wise people advised youngsters and summarized a whole lot of moral teaching in an expression: ‘duty before pleasure’ it is just the sequencing—I persuade myself that I do my duty first and then I go for pleasure—it can make a sea of a difference to quality of my life and going by Scott Peck’s statistical studies, we are most likely to do well in whole lot of our endeavors.  DUTY BEFORE PLEASURE and this is delaying gratification. If we word it in a bit different way, Duty alone and not pleasure in my life, that would be denial. Delaying and denying are different.  So delaying is putting something of value (service work) first or even the rest that my body needs, something that is of greater value is put first and pleasure is put afterwards. It could be a milestone, it could be a quite a great achievement.

Eknath Easwaran evolved an eight point program for daily spirituality. Even Barbra Streisand (Hollywood actress) found some of his book very helpful in leading a peaceful life. In a TV interview Barbara Walters asked her questions: Ms. Streisand said, ‘one of the books that helped me is Eknath Easwaran’s from Nilgiri Press, where he includes training the senses—we train our eyes, we train our ears, we train our tongue, nose and skin. These five are our constant companion. You know what does not help us to transform us when we go to Himalayas? These five accompany us. That’s the whole problem. You could leave behind those friends who get on your nerves or those other who make difficult for you to lead a spiritual life, but we cannot leave behind our sense organs. And there too there are many pleasures available wherever we go, you have same challenges. So training the senses is how Easwaran puts it. No wonder in all spiritual programs there is some amount of advice on simplicity, some amount of advice on reducing the pleasure oriented activities. Live in a simple way and learn something, learn some chanting, learn some meditation, some concentration exercise etc.

So delaying gratification and then you have training the senses, a gentle self persuasion. By the way among many things he says Easwaran advises that learn to stop before you are full, with respect to our meals.  Generally we stop after a few more bites once we are full.  Eating food can be an example of any kind of indulgence in the pleasure. We tend to eat and we eat more because it is tasty, weakness of the palate. Easwaran says, ‘stop one morsel before you are full’ this is with compulsive speaker to stop before time, it is very difficult. So whether it is eating or speaking or number of activities, we tend to go a bit beyond the right quantity.

‘Moderation is the best policy’ goes the saying. Sri Krishna has said in the VI chapter of Bhagavad Geeta

yuktaahaaravihaarasya  yuktaceshtasya  karmasu  |

yuktasvapnaavabodhasya  yogo bhavati  duhkhahaa   ||……17

Only she will be able to achieve yoga, a spiritual excellence who is moderate in food, in speech, in sleep, in all activities of her daily life. Moderation is the key to spiritual attainment, to true inner growth says Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Geeta, touching on pleasure He points out in His own way—to give an example in the II chapter he says, those of us who are unable to manage the pleasure drive in us get driven away, get carried away, just like a boat with a sail up gets carried away by unfavourable winds. There is this celebrated verse:

-indriyaanaam hi  carataam  yanmano’nuvidheeyate  |

-tadasya harati prajnaam  vaayurnaavamivaambhasi  ||….2.67

On the surface of the sea there is this boat with sail up and there are very strong unfavorable winds. The boat is driven to the direction where we do not wish to go. So is the case with us when we have these weaknesses on the plane of sense organs, when the mind follows those sense organs, the mind does not follow the inner voice which has something better to say. The mind does not follow the value based within us. The mind rather goes by what the sense organs prompt. In that case one is carried away in a wrong direction, says Sri Krishna. And in sharp contrast in that very portion in the II chapter of Bhagavad Geeta, He describes somebody of wonderful, enviable, admirable self control through the example of Tortoise which withdraws its limbs at the slightest hint of the danger, which has a hard shell and soft body & limbs. When there is some danger in the forest as it is moving, let’s say if the elephant is coming by and there is a chance of elephant putting its foot upon this tortoise, he withdraws the whole body under the strong shell and he survives. Elephant goes its way and after a while slowly the limbs comes out and the tortoise gets going. So Sri Krishna talks about it:

yadaa  samharte caayam  koormo’ngaaneeva  sarvashah  |

-indriyaanindriyaarthebhyastasya  prajnaa  pratishthitaa    ||….2.58

Like that a spiritually mature person has no difficulty in withdrawing the sense organs at the right time and letting them out at the right time. She is not a slave to the senses. Senses are under her mature control says Sri Krishna. To quote a couple of instances, there are in fact numerous instances on this topic in Bhagavad  Geeta. Two more examples I shall be citing.

1.      In the V chapter He says, one of the things that you and I should realize with respect to this pleasure is ‘no pleasure, however wonderful it is, is ever lasting’ all of them begins and they end. He makes a philosophical remarks in Verse 22

-ye hi samsparshajaa  bhogaa  duhkhayonaya  eva  te   |

-aadyantavantah  kaunteya  na teshu  ramate  budhah  ||….5.22

Adi beginning antah an end. ‘Even this will pass away’ greatest pleasures passes away.  Like night following day and day following night. In life whether we like it or not pleasure come to an end, the pain begins. There are other things also like boredom and stress etc. all of them come and go.

All these emotions, joy & sorrow, excitement & depression; so many of mental states they comeand go.  They are passing show.  11.4.11

Do we recognize this?  Do we recognize this change in nature?  Do we recognize that not only pleasure come and go but also we who seek pleasure come and go, we change, some years ago you would have sought very intensely one kind of pleasure, after a while we sought another kind. Today we might be seeking a third kind, we require new taste, we acquire new interest, new hobbies, riding one wave, we look at the whole world as just this object I get I am done. But another time we say I am not interested in that particular position, pleasure, power etc. so I would like to at this point remark and slowly I shall take you to the deeper realm of whole matter.  Not just the object but the seeker of the object is also a variable. The object has beginning and end. The seeker, the me who wants a particular pleasure also has a beginning and an end or to put in more understandable terms, the seeker also undergoes changes. The subject and the object—I am the subject desiring something—potato-chips. The desirer and the desired; here are two. My palate, my tongue and then eyes, ears, nose etc. they are on the side of the subject. The subject has many layers. Who is seeking potato-chips? I. Who am I? I am tongue and I am my mind, I am my intellect and I am so many things.  So I am a composite entity. And this composite entity having many layers of personality, having many conditionings, constantly changing, there is the rise of desire, an urge to seek pleasure.

When I first went to USA in 1993 someone offered a pizza to me and the cheese in it was not to my taste, but somehow I managed but after some days, second time again I ate some pizza it felt a bit better and after some more times of helping oneself to pizzas I began to like it (people offer enough to enslave us). My point is, in the beginning it was not of my taste, its smell and whole feeling was a bit odd. I am sure you had similar experiences how first time it doesn’t interest you much later on you develop a taste, you begin liking it. It applies to all the pleasures and alas! In couple of situations a certain pleasure enslaves us.

That’s how Swami Chimayananda said, ‘comforts come to us as a guest, linger on to become a host and they enslave us’. He said of comforts but it applies to pleasure to. First the TV is a guest and later on it is the host and we are at its mercy. So this ‘me’ in me changes. Its tastes changes and there is a certain variation. Seeking very strongly sometimes seeking moderately, sometime not seeking. So there is a variable inside.

2.      And to quote Sri Krishna once more in XVIII chapter He talks about pleasure, using the word sukham a certain happiness that is generated in various ways. He says the best form of happiness in life is when one goes about it with an inner austerity, certain inner effort, with some hard ship, the poetic word he uses is visham poison…

-yattadagre  vishamiva  parinaame’mrtopamam  |

-tatsukham  saattvika  proktamaatmabuddhiprasaadajam  ||….18.37

I would put it in this way, if you and I go about a life with a certain alertness, with a certain responsibility, with certain greater amount of observation, the way is not so easy. It’s a bit of uphill task to be always watchful, to always think twice before doing something. As the idiom goes—‘to look before you leap’ to always look before you leap is bit hard, so in an exaggerated word it is called like poison. Very hard.

Just enjoy, just go, that would be easy, line of least resistance. But to be thoughtful, to be a bit alert is generally a bit hard. It’s going against the current. And once more it applies not only to sense pleasure but even emotional habit also and even thinking pattern too. Broadly we are bound, we are constricted when habit governs us. We experience an expansion within when we have some habit, but where there is intelligence over seeing that habit. Sri Krishna is referring to that kind of intelligent living—no one can be free of habits but the issue is—is our habit passed through a bit of a test? Are we bit aware when habitually we are saying something or eating something or doing something, stepping back from something?  If we are aware that makes a difference. If we are blind, if we act like machines, then that’s where the trouble is –the alert living is an uphill task. The mature living has sometimes great amount of discomfort, to go back to the way I put it before—

Those of us who gently see to it that we don’t jeopardize our work, our duty or things of greater importance through undue amount of seeking of pleasure, will have as the shloka says a whole lot of new dimension in our life of certain peace and poise, certain deeper satisfaction.

duty before pleasure—is very many a times has uncomfortable feeling in us.

 

Basically, spirituality is bringing to life a greater happiness; it is a sheer misunderstanding if we think spirituality is to mortify ourselves or deny things to ourselves and then probably get some super natural powers. Somebody did not eat for a long time, did not talk, grow very long hair and at the end of these great austerity, this lady is to read other’s mind is very meaningless. Who wants to read other’s mind, when our own minds are so troublesome.  One mind is such a big problem to handle, if we read other’s mind it will be big trouble.

Walking on water, unnecessary; flying in air, unnecessary; seeing through the wall, unnecessary. X-ray vision and all these are unnecessary things. What we need really is being able to live harmoniously, being able to meet situations of life with greater balance, giving our best. Loving and receiving love. Pleasure is not to be equated with love. Sense pleasure is part of life, could be part of happy life, but it is not equal to love.

Love is very hard to describe. It is something subtle. What we actually seek in our life from childhood till our last breath of life is love and that love is very subtle. What is it?  It is a way of looking at others, looking at oneself. Love is when we feel we are one. You may be very educated, I did not go beyond VI grade, in spite of that difference I feel one with you, then there is love. I don’t feel I am better than you, I don’t feel I am less than you and then envy you. Love is the state of mind, way of being, where in spite of lot of differences there is a sense of we are one, we are together and that applies to various relationships and towards that mature handling of pleasures assures great importance.

Unintelligently avoiding pleasures: Now let me touch on deeper dimension.  There is the pleasure and we are asking this question—are pleasures death traps?  Are they big trouble zones?  Are pleasures to be avoided? If we unintelligently avoid pleasures – potato-chips/ ice-creams there will be suppression, certain artificiality about us, there will be a refusal to see our mind as it is, there will be an unintelligent denial, a certain artificiality of wanting to fit into some picture, may be that I read in a book and that’s not going to help and that will make us enslaved, truly enough we become so dependent on the drink, on the food, and even emotional dependence is also a slavery.  A dependence on sense object, food, drink etc. be would coming in the way of seeing life as it is. A pleasure centered life as we may call it cannot bring overall beauty to life.  Being pleasure centered our perception is spoilt. Wherever we go rather than seeing the beauty of nature we go on –Coke, Pepsi, potato-chips etc.  I request you to find out which pleasure drive is primary in you.  Sometimes it could be sleeping also, the comfort of the bed.

 

Don’t be a control freak: Now I already raised the dimension the ‘me’.  Now I shall say by not being a control freak, don’t look at everything to be controlled. Control has a place but don’t be a control freak.  I believe Abraham Maslow has said, ‘somebody who is good at hammer, looks at every problem as a nail’  so that way sometimes you and I become control freaks, look at everything to be controlled. No, control is a certain operation which has some validity. Certainly if things are going out of hand, put the foot down and control. But the more beautiful thing which we can do with our mind, with our senses is to understand, watch, just as in education one can say, ‘do this, do that, don’t ask question’  or help the student to find out for herself, how something is so. To cram information in the head of student is not mature education. To make them memorize a whole lot of things is not true education, we all know it.  A good teacher makes the student find the subject interesting, arouses the interest in the subject.  When the student herself goes in the subject—hey! Very nice ….In the same way can you handle your sense organs—eyes, ears, etc. with more maturity. Neither indulging nor bluntly denying, while adapting the policy of moderation.  As the senses demands àrise in storm, do you have the ability to watch ? And here though we say sense level and mind level and let’s not go into the mind level, let’s see the level of senses alone. Really speaking what complicates this issue of pleasure is the intermixing of mind and body. Here is my pleasure drive and it is not a water tight compartment, it cannot be actually isolated.  My pleasure drive has for one ounce of sense being programmed, the tongue—has pounds and pounds of my mind being programmed. To what extent my desire for potato-chips is in my tongue and to what extend it is in my mind? Is the question that you need to go in.  What makes it more complicated is – let us say to some extent it is my tongue that has been programmed, because all these senses (eyes, ears etc) are programmed devices. In Vedanta we talk of all 31 components and all of them are programmable and we are understanding this program. We don’t want to remove this whole program. When someone comes to repair your computer and he knocks out all programs including operating system and even it stops working, that’s not debugging.

In the same way this denial and control is brutal, is meaningless and ruthless way. One makes oneself dysfunctional—non-functional. It’s not to drive away the ability to distinguish between salt and sweet in the tongue that is desirable. Is it what we want in the name of conquest of the senses? No, in fact it is said that someone who is truly spiritually mature, has a very sharp taste—in fact, Swami Chimayananda would appreciate the well made preparation. He has not made his senses lose the sensitivity or lose their capacity to discern. Rather in true spirituality the senses do discern but they don’t go berserk and that is a delicate affair.

So I would put it this way, I have various urges for pleasure and we are highlighting the plane or sphere of sense organs, agreed; but without a choice we need to recognize that sense organs have a deal with the mind and intellect. For one ounce of craving right located in the sense organs, there are pounds of craving located in the mind. And what makes it more complicated is the mind and in addition has lot of beliefs also. May be religious belief, do-s and don’t-s —-should and should not—all of these come together and make the scenario very noisy. Therefore,  Oscar Wilde once said, ‘the best way to deal with temptation is to yield immediately to it.’  for he noticed a lot of people who look at pleasure as an object and because they are well read and gone to church or temple a lot and they have pushed that they read in the head, they are drawn but they hold back and after a long struggle they yield and eat. So he says, why all that, if you are anyhow going to eat, eat immediately. Some truth at least.  That kind of logic of Oscar Wilde’s witty statement. (this is not the summary of this topic)

So the craving located in the sense organs, the craving located in mind, in my thoughts and in addition in my thoughts there are lot of ‘should’ and ‘should not’ – good & bad and there are even secular conditionings. That it is a wonderful thing to go with a Pepsi in hand in the street. Fashion or may be some social conditioning too. Some way of eating, some way of consuming, some way—like opening of champagne, it does not touch the palate but that sight. So there are whole lot of social conditioning, not just religious, don’t blame one, the church but everything in society. So with all these I meet the pleasure. This is no complexity; this doesn’t require your studying big philosophy.  All that  I am saying is the pleasure urge has behind it, a certain programming of sense organs, certain conditioning of mind, and that conditioning includes the notions of ‘should’ and ‘should not’, desirable & not desirable; fashionable & not fashionable; and all these things.

How many of us are aware, when we are drawn towards a pleasure that so many factors are involved?  Generally all we know is, it is so nice and I want it, I can have it immediately or should I wait?  Generally this is just tip of the ice berg, there is so much more.

 

And what I am talking is not one should analyze and dissect and write five pages on it. It is not an academic exercise.  I am suggesting here, the art of living is not academics. Of course, some may do it—PhD on psychological management but that’s different. I am saying we here are interested in living maturely, learning life and we are interested in riding ourselves of immature notions, immature waves, immature vibrations, immature activities, in the psychological plane or psychological sphere. Therefore, the thrust here is to be aware of all the factors that keep this candidate called pleasure drive in the run—who has put him to run.  My pleasure drive is running for fulfillment, it is seeking, it is up and running, who has fielded this pleasure drive?  To what extent is it biological? To what extent it is psychological? To what extent it is put in us by God? And to what extent a certain pleasure urge, product of social conditioning?  Whatever God has put in us cannot be wrong. Whatever nature has put in us cannot be wrong, but we with our confusion, attach value and introduce some new component. We make this pursuit of pleasure a very complicated affair. And I would say, as we, sought out so many factors in that intelligent seeing, we free the pleasure drive from unnecessary junk components in it—then it is a harmless thing.

The genuine desire for the pleasure in the human personality as God made us, is an utterly harmless thing.  One can be very much at peace with it. But this harmless pleasure drive becomes gigantic by resisting or suppressing. By ‘should-s’ and ‘should not-s’ and by somebody wanted us to not to do it and then we say, ‘if you say it—not to do it, we will do more.’  That’s what we call reactions.  All these psychological components come into picture and pleasure becomes a complicated affair.

In conclusion

• Are sense pleasure death traps?  Sense pleasures as God made them are not at all death traps.
• They are simple, innocent, harmless things, but you and I at a certain given point of time alas! Are already caught in lot of notions, lot of ideas, lot of concepts which are not facts, lot of beliefs and in the medium of these beliefs and concepts and values, which appears as ‘should’ and ‘should not’ etc. the sense pleasures pretty much becomes death traps.  For they confuse us, confound us, they throw us, they totally off balance us, they make judge ourselves as good or bad, virtuous or sinful and they make us judge X & Y as sinful and virtuous, that is right and this is wrong.
• So the complexity of the mind is to be noted.

 

HARIH  OM !