What you do for pleasure need not give happiness

Pleasure is a type of happiness that is associated with senses and body. Pleasure comes due to the gratification of senses i.e. Watching (through eyes) Listening (through ears).Tasting (though tongue). Smelling (through nose).Touching (through skin).Our senses are like the input organs of the mind, which receives and then interpret the signals as pleasant or unpleasant.

The sensual pleasures is the result of the fulfillment of the requirements of body. For example, when you are feeling very hungry, you enjoy the the sight, taste and smell of the food and drink. However, the enjoyment of the senses not only diminish once the requirement of body is satisfied, but even becomes a torture, if you still try to consume more. The marginal utility (satisfaction due to consumption of unit input) of any input decreases as we consume more of that thing. And after a while even the total utility of consumption deceases, if you keep trying to gratify your senses more.

Even the total satisfaction (happiness) may become negative, if you consume too much of anything. For example, when you have eaten too much of food, you not only stop enjoying it more, but after a stage you may even vomit the food and suffer pain since your body can’t take it any more. Hence, our capacity to enjoy pleasure is limited and it may become a pain beyond a point.

Hence, the people who seek happiness in pleasure soon lose most joys in life. Happiness is associated with body (pleasure), mind(wisdom) and soul/spirit(service with love). Happiness is a wider experience which provides you unlimited scope of joy because there is no limit of the capacity of mind and soul. For example, if you enjoy learning, there is no limit to learning and your mind’s capacity can’t be saturated even if keep learning through your life.

In the same way, when you have love in your heart, you enjoy serving others and make them happy to spread happiness in the world. This is also a type of joy that is insatiable since there is no limit either to serve or to love. Pleasure, joy and happiness are all connected like body, mind and soul. They complement each other and they don’t exist independent of others. If you starve your senses of pleasure, you can’t have joy and happiness in your life.

Our body is like the temple of soul. If you don’t take care of the body, you can’t take care of your mind and soul as well. We must learn to enjoy moderate pleasures in life to take care of our body so that we can enjoy the higher level of happiness that comes from love and wisdom. Because pleasure is a reaction to a specific temporal situation whereas happiness is a permanent relationship between how you view yourself and the world. Happiness is a process of continuous being and has ups and downs, whereas pleasure is an event which can only be an “up” and ends when it is not.

Some examples of pleasure are: Accidentally falling asleep on the couch. Eating fast food on a long car ride. Baking a cake and having it turn out perfect. A full moon close to the horizon that looks out of this world. A bird coming up to you to eat out of your hand. Laughing with someone so hard you cry and it hurts but you can't stop. The excitement of watching your loved one walk over to you through a crowded airport. Your baby giggling as you shower them with hugs and kisses. Finding yourself at the finish line even though you thought you wouldn't make it. Finding enough courage to jump off a tall cliff into water before anyone else. Cheers!