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By Ravindra Svarupa Dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe pleasures that arise from contact between the senses and their objects are in truth the sources of all suffering.\u201d So Krishna says in Bhagavad-gita (5.22).<\/p>\n Why is that? The next line of the text offers an answer:<\/p>\n ady-antavantah kaunteya na teshu ramate budhah <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cSuch pleasures possess a beginning and an end, Kauteya. A wise person takes no delight in them.\u201d<\/p>\n Having a beginning (adi<\/em>) and end (anta<\/em>) qualifies all pleasures in the material world. For that reason, one who is actually wise (budha<\/em>) seeks no enjoyment from them.<\/p>\n It is a fact that in this temporal world we hold not title to, we have no actual possession of, anything we enjoy. Our lease here on happiness is fragile and fleeting.<\/p>\n Here Time reigns over all:<\/p>\n Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, \n So the Bard<\/a> sings.<\/p>\n The wise know well that this world is itself a disaster area. Yet ah! why should they know their fate? \u2014Thomas Grey (1742)<\/a><\/p>\n So we seek happiness after the way of fools.<\/p>\n We bring our senses in contact with their objects and relish and rejoice in the pleasure arising thereby. Yet sooner or later that contact is broken off, and our pleasure ends. It cannot be otherwise.<\/p>\n Now let me offer a self-survey, conducted by one\u2019s self of one\u2019s self:<\/p>\n Q.<\/strong> \u201cWhen your pleasure came to an end how did you feel?\u201d<\/p>\n A. <\/strong>\u201cI felt let down, miserable, depressed.\u201d \u201cI felt aggrieved, bereaved, bereft.\u201d<\/p>\n Q.<\/strong> \u201cAnd why is that?\u201d<\/p>\n A.<\/strong> \u201cDuh<\/em>! Obviously, I didn\u2019t want my pleasure to end. I wanted it just to keep on going.\u201d<\/p>\n Q. <\/strong>\u201cAnd how long did you want it to keep on going?\u201d<\/p>\n A.<\/strong> \u201cHow long can I have? Forever?\u201d<\/p>\n A little introspection uncovers our true desire: We seek happiness that does not end, we seek eternal pleasure. If we explore this desire we will find that it is stubborn and implacable.<\/p>\n So this is what we are doing, this is our absurd condition: We desire happiness that does not end, yet we seek it, obsessively, in a world where everything ends.<\/p>\n We are forced to conclude, then, that no satisfaction of our desires is to be found in the material world. Q.E.D.<\/a><\/p>\n The crude and cruddy anthem of a generation<\/a> is nothing more than a lingering howl of disappointment at this intractable fact.<\/p>\n We want our pleasure to keep on going forever. That is the nature of pleasure itself.<\/p>\n Alle Lust will Ewigkeit<\/em>\u2014\u201cAll joy wants eternity\u201d\u2014wrote<\/a> Friedrich Nietzsche: Will tiefe, tiefe Ewigkeit<\/em>\u2014\u201cWants deep, deep eternity.\u201d\n[pathology<\/strong>: patho<\/strong>\u2013 (from Greek pathos<\/em>) suffering + -logy<\/strong> (from Greek logos) study, science.]\n
\nBut sad mortality o\u2019ersways their power,
\nHow with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
\nWhose action is no stronger than a flower?
\nO, how shall summer\u2019s honey breath hold out
\nAgainst the wrackful siege of batt\u2019ring days,
\nWhen rocks impregnable are not so stout,
\nNor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?
\nO, fearful meditation!<\/p>\n
\nWe fools of time are loath to hear this. We are \u201cin denial.\u201d As the Bhagavatam says of us, pashyann api na pashyati<\/em>,\u201d although we have seen, we still don\u2019t see. Our blindness is willful. We make ourselves stupid in order to be happy:<\/p>\n
\nSince sorrow never comes too late,
\nAnd happiness too swiftly flies.
\nThought would destroy their paradise.
\nNo more;\u2014where ignorance is bliss,
\n\u2018Tis folly to be wise.<\/p>\n![\"what-sort-of-man-compressed\"](\"http:\/\/soithappens.files.wordpress.com\/2008\/12\/what-sort-of-man-compressed.jpg?w=500\" "\\"what-sort-of-man-compressed\\"")
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\nEvery fleeting pleasure here bears a kind of remembrance or recollection of eternal happiness, of a paradise lost. Trying to find that paradise here, in the reflection, in the mirage, only takes us further from what we really seek. We secure further dissatisfaction and nothing more.<\/p>\n
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By Ravindra Svarupa Dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n