Pleasure is the Doorway to Pain
BENGALURU: The human structure is a most amazing and complex structure carrying within it several dimensions and layers of faculties that tend to play a role in human choice making. Looking inward, the human being carries four faculties: memory, identity, intelligence and the mind. Each of these faculties has three layers – the deepest layer is the primordial layer, the intermediate layer is the natural pure layer and the outermost layer is the artificial man made layer.
Of the four faculties memory and identity assume different colours depending on the layer we access. The intelligence is the inner discretionary faculty that lends a steadiness to one’s bearing and the mind is the wavering nature that is dualistic in character and is connected to the outward senses. Thus the mind is the first interface between what the senses perceive on the outside and what we understand on the inside.
When the mind is wedded to the senses, it is drawn by sensory experiences. Pleasurable sensory experiences give a temporary high; but when the experience recedes, it naturally leads to a mental low. These highs and lows are a characteristic property of the mind – part of its nature of duality. In going through these highs and lows, a momentum is generated and lost alternately.
The loss makes our mind look for the same sensory input in search of an experience of the same high again. These cycles of highs and lows lead one to repetitive and addictive behaviours leading the human being through a downward spiral of failing control over one’s own actions and indeed towards a gradual detriment of one’s physical and mental health. Therefore it is a strange but true fact that sensory pleasure is the doorway to pain. Its attraction draws the mind away from inner stability into the wayward world of sensory experience and under the guise of the fruit from the garden of eden serves what eventually proves to be poisonous.
When the mind is wedded to intelligence, one considers all the options available without a strong bias towards pleasure. This consideration of all options available without any prejudice is the hallmark of the discretionary capability of the intelligence faculty. Therefore while an outward mind leads one towards pleasure, an inward mind leads one towards intelligent action.
So should we never have pleasure in our lives? Should we never enjoy life? Obviously the human being is always searching for happiness. I define pleasure therefore as being a certain elevation of mood connected invariably to something that pampers one or more senses – through sight, smell, fragrance, taste or touch. This pleasure is different from happiness. The gratification arising from pleasure is not a deep sense of gratification that frees us from desire; it is an artificial gratification that returns us to the same desire again and again. In fact this is the test to know whether what you are experiencing is pleasure or happiness.
If after a positive experience, you never experience a desire to go through the same thing again, then what you derived from such an experience can be called happiness. If after a seemingly enjoyable experience, you feel a repeated desire for the same thing, then the experience you went through is not happiness but ‘pleasure’.
Pleasure has to be sought after and found in the outer world of the senses, while happiness is always available as an inner state. Pleasure is the doorway to pain while happiness is the doorway to freedom. It is a strange and intriguing fact that it seems that human beings are equipped to seek both outwardly pleasure and inner happiness.
A man bound by his senses seek the former, while the intelligent man seeks the latter. The choice is entirely in our hands and true education is what enables us to make the wise choice.