CHENNAI: The human structure is the most amazing and complex structure, carrying within it several dimensions and layers of faculties that tend to play a role in choice making. Looking inward, we have four faculties such as memory, identity, intelligence and 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. Intelligence is the inner discretionary faculty that lends steadiness to one’s bearing and mind, which represents wavering nature , This is dualistic in character and is connected to the outward senses. Thus, mind is the first interface between what the senses perceive on the outside and what we understand from inside.
When 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, which is part of its nature of duality. While 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 losing control over one’s actions and leads towards a gradual detriment of one’s physical and mental health. Therefore, it is a 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, it 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 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.
Pleasure can be defined as an elevation of mood connected invariably to something that pampers one or more senses – 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 human beings are equipped to seek both outwardly pleasure and inner happiness. A man bound by his senses seeks the former.
The choice is entirely in our hands and true education is what enables us to make the wise choice.