Video Information: 15.04.2022, IIT-Delhi, Delhi
Context:
~Why is pleasure important?
~Is pleasure necessary for happiness?
~Can I live without pleasure?
~Is pleasure good or bad?
~ What is the difference between pleasure and happiness?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Context:
~Why is pleasure important?
~Is pleasure necessary for happiness?
~Can I live without pleasure?
~Is pleasure good or bad?
~ What is the difference between pleasure and happiness?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Pranam Acharyaji. My question is, is pleasure a necessity for humans? Do we as human beings
00:18need pleasure for survival to be sane?
00:25The question is, is pleasure a necessity? Do we human beings actually require pleasure
00:33for survival? What is pleasure, first of all? See, we all, we all operate at a certain level
00:48of the mind. Call it the level of consciousness, right? You can take that as our current potential
01:02level. This is where we stand. And our potentiality is huge, tremendous. So you stand here and
01:18your potentiality is huge. Now what will happen when you connect these two points of differing
01:29potentials? What happens when you connect two points having potential difference? There
01:42is a flow. It could be the flow of water or the flow of electrons. Let's say electrons,
01:48current. This flow is called pleasure. This flow is called pleasure. Something is happening.
01:55Something is happening. I was at this level. I have been connected to something at this
02:01level and so there is a flow and I am hopeful. I am liking the experience. Something is happening.
02:09Are you getting it? Now this is the right kind of pleasure. The pleasure of ascension,
02:17the pleasure of rising up, the pleasure of flying high. Unfortunately for us human beings,
02:25another kind of pleasure is possible. You connect this level of your potential to a place that has
02:34only this level. Still what you would experience is a flow. Are you getting it? Still there is a
02:45potential difference. If you are connected to something lower than your existing state of
02:51consciousness, even then you will have a flow. This flow again is pleasure. This is the kind
02:57of pleasure that sinks you. For example, the pleasure that you get in doing something utterly
03:06lowly. Is there not pleasure in random debauched mischief? That is when 240 volts is getting
03:23connected to 100 volts and you experience the flow and that flow titillates. Well something
03:33is happening. Something great is happening. The flow of energy in the downward direction.
03:36Unfortunately most of the pleasure that we experience is the flow in the downward direction.
03:48Pleasure is greatly important. We all definitely need pleasure but we need pleasure of the upward
03:58kind. Instead the market serves us pleasures of the downward kind. So much so that the word
04:07pleasure has become synonymous with fall. You would hardly find anyone rising in pleasure.
04:15If you want to see somebody falling, go and watch his moments of pleasure. Those will be
04:24the moments in which he will be falling in life. That's the sad situation we have come to. But
04:31that's not necessary. In fact without pleasure you cannot rise. That is the important of pleasure.
04:38And that kind of pleasure that takes you higher, there is a special name for it. It's called joy.
04:46It's not ordinary pleasure, not ordinary happiness. It's called joy. It takes you
04:53higher. But it's a very demanding and very extracting, very expensive pleasure. The lowly
05:03kinds of pleasures are cheap. You can get them very easily. Go get drunk. Go fall in a brothel.
05:14And those lowly pleasures will be very easily available to you. Go binge and then fall asleep,
05:23knowing fully well that you have assignments to submit. There is pleasure, right? There is
05:29pleasure in overeating and then falling asleep. Is there not pleasure in that? Most of our
05:36pleasures degrade us. But equally, Vedanta tells you that without pleasure you cannot live. It's
05:46just that you have to choose the higher kind of pleasure. You have to choose pleasure that
05:53takes you upwards. And mind you, if you think you are doing the right thing in life and it is
06:00not giving you that high pleasure, then that thing cannot be right for you. One characteristic of the
06:10right thing is that it is immensely pleasurable. However, this is not an exclusive characteristic.
06:16Even wrong things are greatly pleasurable. And you have to be discreet. Pleasure comes
06:25from both directions. You look at a great work of art, there is joy. You start wandering on
06:36the road and randomly abusing everybody or chasing monkeys. There is some pleasure in that.
06:42There is a lot of pleasure in that because that's what most people are doing. With great
06:52application and discipline, you learn how to play the guitar or the sitar. There is joy in that.
07:01But that's an expensive joy, we said. You get angry and you pick up the guitar and put it
07:11five times, bang it on the floor and it breaks. And for one minute, there is great pleasure.
07:17Playing tennis, you play a great shot and then kiss your racket. There is joy. You play an awful
07:27shot and then hit the turf with your racket ten times and smash the racket itself. There too,
07:36you have some pleasure. Have you not seen players doing that? As if the racket has played the shot.
07:42So they want to explode the racket. And there are players who play wonderfully well and they
07:52put the racket on their forehead. Playing a great shot requires discipline. It is expensive. It
08:02requires you to control your animalistic instincts because your instincts are telling you,
08:07what is the need for further practice? Coach, let me go home. I want to sleep. Coach, my legs are
08:15on fire and my shoulder is hurting and there is this tennis elbow to boot. Let me please go. That's
08:24the lower kind of pleasure. You avoid work. You shirk your responsibilities. There is the lower
08:32kind of pleasure. The higher kind of pleasure we all need. We cannot live without pleasure. I agree
08:39with the questioner. But I repeat, please, please ask yourself the pleasure that you are having in
08:47life. Are they taking you higher or are they making you more of animals? Now, what's wrong
08:54with being an animal, sir? That's not your nature. You will suffer. You are not an animal. Why are
09:04you trying to be an animal? Why are you doing things that animals do? The kinds of pleasures
09:13most of us are into. Marijuana, weed. Do these turn you conscious? No, but they are pleasurable.
09:23They are pleasurable because there is something happening. There is something happening so you
09:28feel probably the right thing is happening. At least I am no more in my current state because
09:33the current state is of suffering. So some displacement has happened. Some movement is
09:38happening and you hope that the right moment is happening. No, the right moment is not happening.
09:42Most of the times the default movement is the wrong one. The right movement you have to be
09:50very careful about. It's a sensitive delicate thing. It has to be crafted. It has to be
09:57engineered with all your intelligence and devotion. The wrong thing is like free fall
10:04in gravity. It just happens. What does it take to take an airplane up 35,000 feet? It takes
10:15generations of engineering to put the plane up there. What does it take for the plane to
10:22crash? Nothing. One drunk pilot and the plane is gone. It's always easier to fall and there
10:33must be some pleasure in letting the plane drop, right? I'm sleeping. I can't help it. I'm sleeping.
10:47Go for the right kind of pleasures. Spirituality is about having great pleasures. The kind of
10:55pleasures that normal people cannot even think of. Do not think that the spiritual person leads a
11:02boring or dull or dead life. No, the really spiritual person is drunk on pleasure. You cannot
11:14imagine his state of inner euphoria. He is ecstatic on something that is totally unavailable to the
11:25commons. Are you getting it? So kindly don't be so serious. Even I am not. It's just that
11:38one happens to appear serious. Are you getting it? Joy is for the real human being, for the real
11:51adult. Cheap pleasures are for kids. Go for the highest joys in life. That's what makes life
12:05worth living. Go for tough attainments and by tough attainments I do not mean things that you
12:14get by competing with a million other people. They are not tough attainments. If a million people
12:22want the same thing that you do, then you are just one of them. Are you not? Please see that.
12:30The toughest attainment is about wanting something that no one else wants. But that's not what our
12:41education and society has taught us. We have been told, a million people wrote the JEE and you are
12:47in the top one percentile, therefore you are special. Well, special we probably are. But
12:56think of it. Please think of it. How special are we if we have all the common desires? The one who
13:09did not get selected desired to get selected. The one who got selected desired to get selected.
13:15The desire is just the same. So where is the difference? Can you desire something that transcends
13:24commonness? Can you question the common desire itself and ask it, why am I obliged to fulfill
13:33you? You rascal, you petty desire, why should I invest my time, my life, my energy in fulfilling
13:42you? Did your desires take your permission to arise? Please go into the process of desire.
13:53Do desires come with your consent, your permission? No. Desires just arise. And once they arise,
14:00you are a slave to them. Normal human tendency. Once the desire arises, we become a slave to them.
14:08It's just that we say, oh, these are my desires. How are these your desires when you never desired
14:15them? Do we desire our desires? No, they just come. And where do they come from? They come
14:22from influences. They come from conditioning. And they arise from the bodily configuration.
14:27And once they arise, we act as if we own them. We say, oh, this is my desire. And then we run
14:34after those desires. And thousand others are running after the same desires. And if we succeed
14:39in the competition, we say we are special. No, we are not. Can you question desire itself? And
14:48when you question desire itself, then you learn the right desire. And the right desire is very,
14:54very rare. And that's where joy is. That's where the highest pleasure is.
15:11Am I connecting? Are we together?