The Text - Section 177
177. PLEASURE -- THE FULL PULSATION OF LIFE
Greetings to all my friends here who are gathered together to obtain nourishment and truth,
in whatever way they need it at the moment. Tonight's lecture deals with the topic of pleasure -- the
meaning and significance of pleasure in the universal scheme, as well as for the individual human
entity.
Religion speaks of the ultimate bliss of being. However, most of the time this is completely
misunderstood. The bliss of being is believed to be a state totally different from the human state of
ultimate pleasure, or from the human potential for it, whether it be realized or not. Therefore bliss
seems very remote from the actual human experience. It appears to be something totally
disembodied and obtainable only eons later. This kind of bliss appears so unreal and distant from
what people consider truly desirable that it remains at best a vague theory.
In truth, there is essentially no difference between the ultimate spiritual state of bliss and the
human potential for it. Only the degree of intensity varies, for no human being is capable of the
depth of experience which is possible for an unstructured, highly developed consciousness. But
pleasure remains pleasure. Spiritual pleasure is not bodiless, for even unstructured consciousness is
not formless. Unstructured consciousness creates so-called "subtle bodies" of streaming energy in
the purest form. Therefore this energy form is without obstruction; it is pleasure itself. The human
body in its gross matter represents an obstruction that can be overcome only when the total
personality attains harmony with the energy streamings of cosmic origin.
A liberated human being with little or no blocks and inhibitions, without distortions and
negativity, is capable of a high degree of pleasure, for the energy of the subtle bodies penetrates the
surface body. We have often spoken about the fact that the simultaneous longing for pleasure and
the fear of it constitute one of your most basic inner struggles. You know this from your own
experience.
Tonight we shall discuss the legitimate need for pleasure and its purpose for the human entity.
I will show that this need is not only not in opposition to true spiritual self-realization -- as many
people falsely believe -- but is in fact one of its necessary prerequisites. Or to put it differently,
whoever blocks pleasure must, perforce, also block the deep connection with the spiritual self.
Conversely, only those who are free enough to let go in one respect are free to do so in the other.
These apparently two experiences -- spiritual self-realization and the capacity for pleasure -- become
one and the same. They are interactive and interdependent.
We shall also talk about the obstructions that barricade you from the deep experience of
pleasure supreme. What are these obstructions? What hinders the realization of that state which
will always be the goal of your greatest longing, whether or not you are aware of it? In your own
soul, you obstruct this longing and are therefore at war within yourself.
I do not wish to dwell too long on the cosmic meaning of pleasure, to avoid the danger of
making it appear too remote from your life in the here and now. This is not so at all, for all cosmic
reality is applicable at any state in the now. But it is easy to misread and misapply the meaning of
cosmic pleasure. Only when you reach the point where you can open the inner flow to remove all
obstructions and blocks so that you experience a high degree of bliss will you deeply know that
human pleasure is essentially the same as the cosmic state of bliss, that spiritual and physical pleasure
are one -- not opposites.
Pleasure, in the real sense, is intensely fleshly and intensely spiritual. There is no division
between the fleshly and spiritual state. This is why there is no need to dwell too much on the
philosophical aspects of pleasure in the scheme of creation. The only thing I would like to mention
about cosmic reality in this respect is that the ultimate state of liberation, of cosmic being, is total
pleasure. So pleasure is the ultimate reality. Bliss is not -- as religion seems to imply in its
misunderstood interpretations -- a reward for having been "good." Bliss is the natural state of a
unified being in harmony with itself and the universe.
When we speak of pleasure, we must also be clear about what we mean. I do not mean
pleasurable pastimes of the mind. I do not mean shallow substitutes and escapes. I mean a state of
physical and spiritual bliss that is experienced in every particle of one's body and soul, of the outer
and inner being -- with all sensations and faculties alive, awake, and feeling. This blissful state is very
much here and now. Yet this state is also the ultimate spiritual reality of every entity. It is your
birthright, my friends. Your longing for it is the most real and healthy movement within yourself. It
is only your confusions and dualistic splits that create your misconceptions, fears, and shames that
are so superfluous.
Let us now come to the meaning of pleasure for the human being on all levels of existence.
The pleasure we speak about here is, as I said, a total experience, not a divided experience. It is not
a physical experience with the spiritual side left out, nor is it a spiritual state that does not include the
physical state. Your entire being vibrates and pulsates, undividedly, in harmony with yourself, the
universe -- and hence with another human being. There is no division in you, no No-current, no
doubt about the rightfulness of your bliss, no ifs and buts because your bliss interferes with the
world around you. You feel no guilt or hesitation. On the contrary, you will feel deeply that the
greater your ecstasy and joy, the more you contribute to the world.
When you reach this inner awareness -- not a theoretical, but an experiential awareness -- you
will create the following conditions within yourself: You will make the total experience of pleasure a
spiritual and practical goal. You will act unceasingly on behalf of this goal. You will remove all
inner obstructions and patiently explore your unconscious to bring the obstructions to light. You
will devote time and effort to this venture. You will feel increasingly that personal fulfillment and
pleasure further spiritual growth and self-realization, and vice versa. The capacity to love intimately
and completely with your body, soul, and spirit will be the goal that simultaneously advances your
self-purification -- for one cannot exist without the other. I will say more about this later.
Let us first discuss what full pleasure means on all levels of the human personality. On the
physical level: physical health and well-being are regulated by and dependent on the state of
pleasure the body is capable of allowing. The streamings of pleasure are the simultaneous forces of
life, health, self-renewal and regeneration. Therefore health and longevity result from the capacity
for pleasure. Conversely, to the degree you deny yourself pleasure -- due to shames, fears,
misconceptions, negativities, impurities -- to that degree you cut off your body from the wellspring
of the universal flow.
You have often heard me say that each human entity is a microcosm of an entire universe
within, representing the macrocosmic universe. The same laws and conditions apply to both.
Therefore, if your inner universe is in harmony with itself, the universal flow of spiritual healing
power, life, health and pleasure that permeates the entire creation can also permeate you. You
become part of the universe and the universe is part of you. You transcend the structural limitations
even while you are still within your body. The universal, unlimited abundance of ever self-renewing
life will become a part of you -- in a relative way, because you are still in the body. This happens in
an absolute way only when the body is transcended.
But do not think that the feelings you experience in an unblocked body and soul cease to exist
when you die. On the contrary, the body feelings come from the subtle bodies and can manifest
because the body blocks are removed. When bodily existence is transcended, the identical feelings
will manifest ever so much stronger because they are even less blocked by the gross matter of
physical life. It is important to understand that feelings of pleasure and bliss that you register in
your body will not cease in an existence beyond the earth life. They will only be intensified. You
will be more capable of sustaining the feelings of pleasure supreme, ecstasy, bliss, love, and what is
called sexuality in this earth sphere -- a total fusion with another being. Here I am talking about
entities who have put false fears and obstructions behind them; otherwise their spiritual existence
will not be different from their earthly one.
Any kind of physical illness or deterioration, including physical death, is a manifestation of
division, conflict, and denial of pleasure. Spiritual unfoldment must bring an increase of pleasure
and not, as many authoritarian religions want to have it, denial and sacrifice of pleasure. This
concept of martyrdom is a total misunderstanding of spiritual truth. But the truth can be
understood only when pleasure is no longer felt to be negative, when it is no longer at the expense
of another human being, when it no longer carries destructive currents. Anyone can confirm that
the degree of deeply experienced pleasure determines energy and well-being. This is not something
you have to take at face value. You can experience it yourself.
Now let us go to a deeper level in exploring the importance of pleasure. On the psychological
level, the importance of pleasure is at least as great as on the physical. How can you shoulder
mature self-responsibility? How can you accept the difficulties of the temporary reality which
surrounds you and which is, in effect, the expression of your present state within yourself? How can
you cope with the frustrations that come your way?
In the last analysis, of course, frustrations come your way due to your inner limitations.
Nevertheless, you have to accept your limitations, and that is not easy. How can you want to give
up the various ways in which you violate and impair your integrity, in which you want to secretly
cheat life, in which you want others to carry the burden of responsibility for your mistakes? How
can you truly commit yourself to integrity, truth, deepest honesty and a positive approach to yourself
and life? How can you wish to abandon negative pleasure, the pseudo-satisfactions of your
pretenses, your role-playing, your defenses? How can you begin to wholly and consciously commit
yourself to the reality of living, not for the sake of appearances but for the sake of what is, if you are
not aware of the fact that the deepest bliss awaits you just as a result of abandoning these pseudo-
satisfactions and pleasures, these poor substitutes?
As long as you are convinced that these substitutes are all the pleasure you can have and that
living a decent life implies sacrifice, you cannot even believe in pleasure. This difficulty is intensified
because you cannot bear pleasure exactly to the degree that you cling to all these false ways of life.
You become capable of taking in genuine pleasure only to the degree you give up the false, negative
pleasure.
You must find a way to break through the vicious circle in which you are caught, which goes
like this: The less you truly want to give up all the subtle falsities and destructive defenses, the less
you can accept pleasure; therefore you cannot believe in it; therefore you cannot want to give up that
which obstructs you from experiencing it; therefore neither the will and commitment to experience
pleasure, nor the giving up of destructive, life-inhibiting patterns can exist.
Accepting reality and mature self-responsibility seems an insurmountable hardship if not
accompanied by pleasure as a by-product. But to the degree you insist on being an irresponsible
child -- wanting to make others pay for your actions or inactions, wanting to secretly, neurotically
cheat life -- to the degree you impair your integrity, to that degree you cannot experience pleasure.
Your innermost being does not make it possible. Your energy is engaged in negative inner activities.
By the same token, to the degree that you assume self-responsibility, to the degree you respect and
love yourself because you no longer cheat even in the subtlest of ways, to that same degree you
become more and more capable of experiencing pleasure.
The more you can look forward to a full and blissful existence, the less hard it will seem to
give up these destructive patterns on the deepest level imaginable, to stand on your own feet, to
accept necessary frustrations. The equation of the acceptance of full autonomy with the capacity for
pleasure is extremely important to comprehend. One is not possible without the other. If being a
deeply self-responsible and decent person in the truest sense seems to imply that pleasure must be
renounced, then pleasure cannot really be desired, or if it is, then only in an unhealthy way, as a
reward to the "good child" from an authority figure one depends on.
You will want selfhood, autonomy, in the truest sense of the word -- however hard it may first
seem to attain it -- when you know that your fear of pleasure will disappear proportionately to your
self-purification. To the degree you assume what initially appears as the hardship of adulthood with
all that this implies, something in you will ease up and feel less and less threatened. Instead you will
become open to pleasure in its deepest and fullest meaning.
All of you can meditate about the connection between emotional maturity with all its
meanings and the realization of personal pleasure. This is very logical, my friends. You know that
you can truly love only when you are self-responsible, not when you cling to someone else, when
you are dependent on someone else. Such dependency may have the superficial appearance of love,
but you have already experienced in your work on this path that nothing could be further from the
truth. Dependency stems from fear and creates greater fear, leading inevitably to resentment and
hate. You try very hard to conceal these feelings, because it is threatening to hate the person one
needs and depends on.
Love is possible only when you are free, when you are a self unto yourself without depending
on another. And pleasure is possible only when you love. As I said before, sexual pleasure without
love is very incomplete and must always wind up in a dead-end street. There will always be
something missing. It is an expression of inner division of the spirit, the soul, and the body. Total
unification of pleasure exists when you love and when you are a sexual being, because then you are
also a spiritual being. This means that you have emotional and mental integrity. Therefore pleasure
and spirituality, pleasure and decency, pleasure and emotional maturity, pleasure and physical health
are all intricately and intimately connected.
Now let us consider the obstructions to pleasure. Some of you who are here for the first time
and are unfamiliar with the depths of our work may not know at all what I am talking about when I
mention the fear of pleasure. Offhand, you all want pleasure and long for it, strive for it. You
believe you want pleasure, but you ignore the fact that you also do not want it, that you also fear it
desperately. My friends here, who are already somewhat advanced on this path and have explored
their hitherto unconscious being to a sufficiently profound degree, have found indeed that they are
often terrified of pleasure. Perhaps they fear it even more than negative feelings within themselves
or from others.
Elsewhere I have pointed out the connection between the fear of negative feelings about
yourself, about others, and the fear of pleasure within you. For only because you fear pleasure do
you inadvertently but logically want the opposite -- the unpleasure. Thus you fear the result of your
negative desire. Deep inside, you know that what you want will be so. The less conscious you are of
what you want, the more you must fear the result. Hence, fear of death always connotes an
unconscious death wish.
Conversely, pleasure is made possible when the state of mind and emotions is quietly
confident, calmly expectant and receptive, patient and unanxious, unhurried and unworried.
Otherwise your battle against your own fear of pleasure will consciously manifest in an excessive
striving for pleasure, in an anxiety about not being able to realize it, in a pessimism or even
hopelessness about it. Such pessimism makes you fluctuate between two damaging extremes: either
resignation or compulsive, blind, and consequently inappropriate overactivity. This obstructs the
attainment of pleasure to a considerable degree.
Fear of pleasure must be made conscious in order to battle it. One of the first obstructions to
look for is the dichotomy of anxious striving versus hopeless resignation, arising from an
unconscious rejection of the desired result -- whether pleasure or anything else, for that matter.
Hence awareness of being afraid of pleasure must be transformed into acute and direct awareness of
the fear. This is not easy, but it is certainly possible on this path. Anyone who seriously desires it
can bring what is unconscious into awareness.
I said in the last lecture that you must make your negative creations, your negative pleasure
conscious to overcome them. You must also be in touch with your denial of pleasure. I might
safely say that no human being is completely free of such denial. The degree varies, but it is only a
question of degree. I ask even those of you who are relatively free from fear of pleasure not to
overlook those areas within where you shrink away from pleasure as though it were a danger.
Meditate and commit yourself to wanting to be aware of it. Then the next step can be taken: the
exploration of the validity or invalidity of this fear, so that you can finally want to give up the fear
and obstruction to pleasure to an ever-increasing degree.
Only when you are acutely conscious of how you fear and deny your pleasure will you stop
making others responsible for your deprivation, which makes you keenly suffer. The deep inner
burden of being puzzled and hopeless about attaining what you deeply yearn for will dissolve. This
burden is subtle and unpronounced. Once you can ascertain in full consciousness, "I am afraid of
pleasure," the hopelessness will disappear. You will feel the two forces within yourself: one pulling
you toward pleasure, the other away from it. You will feel these two forces on all levels of your
being: in your mind, in your feelings.
When the battle goes on unbeknownst to your conscious mind, it is extremely painful. When
you know of its existence, you can begin to settle the conflict. Once the struggle is conscious, it can
be met, but not when it is unconscious. This is why becoming conscious of any inner condition is
such an important undertaking for any human being. You can never free yourself of the vague
anxiety and the feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy which result from your not knowing that
you deny what you want, that you wish on the one hand and fear on the other. As it is impossible to
overcome your destructiveness and negativity without knowing that you want to be negative, so it is
impossible to settle this struggle unless you know and feel and experience that this fight goes on
within you.
Just as with the negativity I discussed in the last lecture, you will also have to find out the
further consequences of your denial of pleasure. You are afraid of pleasure because your holding on
to the negativity, your not wanting to give up negative and destructive patterns of behavior and
feelings, makes the real pleasure not only undeserved in your own unconscious estimation, but also
actually frightening. It is too frightening for you to be open to pleasure, for your negativity creates a
state of soul and body that is essentially incompatible with pleasure. Your negativity creates tension,
separateness, contraction. It comes from an excessive ego-orientation and is therefore totally alien
to a state of pleasure.
Negative pleasure is always more geared to gratifying ego goals than fulfilling the real and
legitimate need of the entity for bathing in the light of pleasure supreme. It harbors the three
attitudes that are at the root of all destructiveness and deviation: pride, selfwill and fear. I said many
years ago that where there is pride, where there is selfwill, where there is fear, there must be a state
of contraction.
Contraction cannot be fully given up, ever, no matter what approaches of therapy are used
and no matter how good they may be, if pride, selfwill, and fear are not abandoned. In pride,
selfwill, and fear the ego-structuring becomes more tight and rigid. Selfwill says, "Me, me, me!"
meaning the little me, the little self. That self puts its stake only into the outer, conscious ego
personality and completely disregards, ignores, and rejects the Universal Consciousness of which
you are an expression.
Unless the total person is unified with the greater consciousness that transcends the ego,
holding on to the ego becomes imperative. The ego would not be so emphasized if the false belief
did not exist that the self is annihilated the moment the ego is not the sole ruler of human life.
Hence, when you identify exclusively with the ego, you can neither identify with the greater
consciousness, nor with the feelings in your body, for they go together. Direct experience of
spontaneous feelings in your body is as much an expression of the universal truth of being as the
guidance, inspiration, and knowledge that spontaneously flow into you when you identify with your
being that extends beyond the ego consciousness.
The tight ego structure says: "It is my ego world that counts. This is all there is to me and
therefore I cannot give it up. Otherwise I cease to exist." With this attitude, pleasure becomes
impossible, for total, real pleasure depends on the ability of the ego to let go of itself and to let itself
be carried and lived by a greater power within the body and the soul.
Pride says, "I am better than you." This means separateness, one-upmanship, everything that
is opposed to a state of love. Pride may also manifest as, "I am worse than others, I am worthless, I
have no value. But I must hide this fact, so I must pretend that I am more." Of course, these
thoughts are not articulate, but they may not be altogether unconscious. Distorted pride, as
opposed to healthy dignity, is always comparing and measuring the self with others and is thus
perpetually in illusion. For no true evaluation of a person's worth can ever come from this attitude.
It is a hopeless and endless chase for an illusory goal that leaves the personality not only exhausted,
but also more and more frustrated. The chasm between the self and others widens forever more,
love becomes less possible and hence pleasure further removed.
It does not matter whether you actually think you are more than others or only pretend in
order to hide your feelings of worthlessness. It is all the same. This attitude cannot produce love --
and how can true pleasure ever be realized in a loveless state? Love is not a command that is
supposed to deprive you. Love is the most selfish of all attitudes, for it brings the greatest of all
pleasures -- physical as well as mental and emotional pleasure. It simply feels good in itself. Love
opens you up. You flow and pulsate in a state of peace, security, vibrancy, excitement, stimulation
and utter confidence. Your innermost being and your outer limbs feel sweet and fulfilled when you
love. But when you are in an ego state of pride, you must be tense, anxious, contracted. You
cannot pretend when you are in a relaxed state, and pride always leads to and requires pretense of
some sort. A relaxed, struggle-free and unpretending state is the absolute prerequisite to pleasure.
Fear is a total contraction. It cannot trust anyone, neither the self nor the universe. Therefore
the self that is in fear cannot let go of itself. Pleasure is unrealizable when the personality is bound
to the ego in selfwill, pride and fear -- bound in the negative creations, in the struggle within itself
that denies its own negativity and so does not know it exists. The personality does not know the
nature of its own suffering. The self is bound in the struggle of wanting and fearing the same thing.
Unawareness of this struggle leads to frustration and discontent, as well as to blaming others for the
lack. This in turn elicits resentment, bitterness, anger, and defiance. The resulting confusion is
torment for the soul.
As I said, the realization of pleasure you all deeply long for comes from letting go of all of
these destructive attitudes. Let me recapitulate: for pleasure, a totally relaxed inner state is needed,
but relaxation is not passive apathy, paralysis or inertia. True relaxation is a constant, harmonious
movement. It is the movement of the universe. Any human entity who is sufficiently free to be in
the unified state of pleasure will feel the cosmic pulsating rhythm and will be in harmony with it.
The pleasurable rhythm of the universe is in each microcosmic universe. It requires being
very finely attuned to the cosmic rhythm within. It follows the soul movements -- not the
distortions, but the reflections of the greater cosmos. In order to be thus attuned, an inner calmness
must prevail. All agitation of the mind must settle down. The turbulence must cease. Then another
kind of movement within you will make itself known that is neither active nor passive in the outer
sense, but it combines an inner activity of the most pleasurable rhythm with an inner calm
receptivity and apparent motionlessness. Such receptivity is not contradictory to movement, but an
intrinsic part of it. What appears to be a contradiction on the ego level becomes a unification on a
different wavelength. In that state there can be no division or struggle against the self, no pushing
or tense striving. In that state there is no harassment from time, for there is timelessness, even now
while you are in the body.
Of course, this state cannot be attained at all times. But it can be attained again and again,
leaving you each time a stronger, more unified, more complete person, with your ego fully intact,
more integrated with the greater self. Evolution, growth, and self-development must bring you to
more frequent realizations of this state, which is most significantly and intensely experienced in a
love relationship. But in different ways you will experience this state in all you do and all you are, as
you live, move, and have your being in the Universal Consciousness.
Wherever you are at any given moment, you can transcend this one instant, no matter how
unpleasurable it is. If you go sufficiently deeply into yourself to fully explore the you in this
moment, in this situation -- if you do not escape from it -- this very moment of unpleasure must
turn into its ultimate nature: pleasure supreme.
It is not easy to do this when you are separate in your perception of yourself, even after you
have experienced some of the truths and states I mentioned. In such a state of disconnectedness,
going into yourself requires probing and groping to find the right measure of self-discipline, self-
facing, and summoning your goodwill to see the truth and change the destructiveness. It also
requires both a patient letting go and a waiting, trusting expectancy. You have to find the right
answers and attitudes, of struggling and not struggling, both in the right way and the right measure.
Remembering a former similar state of your mind will be of little help. The truth must be
recaptured each time anew. Memory will only help you to know that the truth can be attained and is
not an illusion. No, it is not easy to transcend your now and tune into your inner cosmic rhythm.
But the more often you attempt it, the more often will it become possible, until this eventually
becomes your normal state and disconnectedness the exception. The difficult times will increasingly
serve the purpose of bringing you toward your inner center where pleasure supreme reigns.
These difficult moments will then be the catalysts they are meant to be to ready your whole
person for the state of unconflicted pleasure that is within you. Accept the pain that you have
created through your misconceptions and destructiveness, and do not cringe or run from it but
explore it. Hold still instead of fighting against it with your subterfuges, negativities, with your
games, roles, and pretenses, with your projections and your escapes. Truly look at yourself. The
attainment of pleasure and the state of being in pleasure will ultimately and increasingly unfold for
you. You will become an integral part of it. That must be the aim.
Pleasure is, at one and the same time, the ultimate spiritual and human goal. It is also the
curative agent without which you cannot heal.
I think you begin more and more to realize that such a path is not to be dreaded as a difficult
chore. Every step is the most joyful thing in itself, not only because it ultimately brings liberation,
but even while you are struggling, and each time you win, such a path brings you bliss in varying
degrees. The exact degree depends on your ability to overcome your resistance.
Be in the state of bliss that is your birthright, that is the ultimate destiny for all of you. Realize
the truth that there is nothing to fear. Be blessed.