morality which is always based on pleasure. Pleasure is the guiding factor in
life—my perceptions are guided by it. And if that is so, how can I see the whole
field which pleasure has brought about?
What is the salient factor of pleasure?—That it is always personal: my
pleasure, not yours. I may sacrifice my pleasure in collective work for the greater
pleasure, but it is still pleasure. And pleasure is always personal. How can the
mind see the whole field of existence when life has become a movement of
pleasure?
A: Pleasure gives validity to everything.
K: It is important to see the whole, not merely the particular. As long as the mind
is pursuing pleasure as the ‘me’, the particular exists. So how can I then see this
whole thing?
There must be an understanding of pleasure; I must understand pleasure, not
suppress or deny it or cut it off with the intellect.
A: It cannot be cut off.
K: What religions have taught, and what man has done is to cut off pleasure.
What tortures the saints go through—the burning, the mutilation. That is the
traditional way.
So, I see the central fact that when one thing in life becomes all-important, I
do not see the whole. Then the question arises: Why is there this pursuit of
pleasure? What do the professionals have to say about this?
A: They say that every pleasure leads to pain; to concentrate on pleasure or to
concentrate on pain is the same thing.
K: Why has man pursued pleasure at any cost?
A: Because our biological needs are deeply ingrained.
K: There is nothing wrong with that. We need clean food, a clean floor to sleep
on. What is wrong with that? But see what happens. Today’s biological needs
become tomorrow’s pleasure when you say: I must have all this tomorrow. This
happens when thought takes over. So thinking is the factor that one has to
understand, not pleasure.
A: We have come to see that pleasure is transferred to thought.
K: Now you have got it. So before you do anything about pleasure, understand
thinking.
A: The movement of thought as pleasure has to be understood.