This pleasure is very necessary || Acharya Prashant at IIT-Delhi (2022)

Acharya Prashant

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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Transcript

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?

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