From IIM Ahmedabad To Happiness

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp Printers

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IN PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
toothsome only so long as the glands of taste are in actual contact with it, but not when the act of eating is over.
It can easily be seen that pleasure and pain are both in the nature of an affection or modification of the soul, since nothing corresponding to them has ever been known to exist in the external world, and also since nothing but one's own states or affections can be felt by an individual. Indian classical music can be a source of much entertainment to a connoisseur, and the same music may be repulsive for a glitzy high-flier. Also, the extent of grief that a 5-year old girl would experience at the loss of her favourite doll can be far greater than that experienced by a rich, 50-year old man at the loss of his car. It is clear, therefore, that pleasure and pain both are emotions and depend on our internal state rather than on any outside object.
An agreeable disposition of the soul-substance occasions a feeling of pleasure while an opposite kind of sensation arises from a disagreeable affection. Both pleasure and pain are transient for this reason. The sense of pleasure chiefly depends on two things: first, the capacity to enjoy, which decreases with age, and second, the novelty of sensation which wears off with intimacy and repetition. When both, the capacity to enjoy and the novelty, are gone, the soul, whose thirst for happiness has by no means abated, is plunged into mourning over its lost power to enjoy itself with the objects of the senses. This undesirable experience comes to every one sooner or later in life, and no one is immune from it. Gratification of the senses only goes to augment the craving, and lust invariably leads to anguish on the impairment of the senses, as in old age. Pleasure is essentially fleeting, transient, full of trouble in its procurement, and liable to give birth to suffering and pain. Pleasure and pain are two sides of a coin; neither can be had alone by itself, and the latter being mostly the lot of living beings in the world. Even the little pleasure that is to be had here is obtained
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