PLEASURE: THE FULL PULSATION OF LIFE

Key Extracts from Lecture 177

Three attitudes are at the roots of all destructiveness and deviation… pride, self-will, and fear… Where there is pride, where there is self-will, where there is fear, there must be a state of contraction… In pride, self-will, and fear, the ego structuring becomes more tight and rigid. Self-will says, 'me, me, me' – the little me, the little self, the self that puts its stake only into the outer, conscious ego personality and that completely disregards, ignores and rejects the greater consciousness, the cosmic consciousness, the universal consciousness, of which you are an expression… 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 soul. Pride says, 'I am better than you.' This means separateness, it means one-upmanship, it means everything that is opposed to a state of love. By the same token, 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'… A relaxed, struggleless, and unpretending state is the absolute prerequisite to pleasure. Fear, needless to say, is a total contraction. It cannot trust anyone, or the self, or 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, bound in self-will, pride, and fear, bound in the negative creations, bound in the struggle within itself that denies its own negativity and hence does not know it exists.