Pleasures of consciousness || On Advaita Vedanta (2019)
Throw out concepts like ‘I am virtuous’ or ‘I am a sinner’. What is the entity that senses this? Body-consciousness will not lose its grasp on you with the thought that your well-being is the result of some spiritual activity. All you need is to keep observing yourself.
Do not befriend anything that is visible to you. If you have to act at all, do only this: please your consciousness. It is very merciful. It will show you all that is, directly.
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Questioner (Q): How is it possible to please the consciousness without getting pleased in turn? Moreover, the sense of correlation between spiritual activity, like listening to talks or reading spiritual books, and the sense of well-being and peace is obvious. Why does Nisargadatta say that one must get rid of all that?
Acharya Prashant (AP): The pleasures of consciousness are not the pleasures of the body. The body has its pleasures, and consciousness has a totally different dimension of pleasure. That which pleases the body is not that which pleases consciousness, but the two become one because our consciousness is body-consciousness.
Consciousness not entangled with the body seeks a destination of a totally different nature. And as far as the body is concerned, it is seeking pleasures of its own kind. In some ways, the saint is also a pleasure-seeking individual, so is a greedy or lustful man. It’s just that the pleasures that the two are seeking are widely separate.
Please the consciousness, not the body. And those who are in the business of pleasing the body, to them I say, I exhort and invite: try experiencing the pleasures of consciousness, you will forget all about the pleasures of the body. If pleasure is what you must have, then, in Nisargadatta Maharaj’s parlance, have the pleasures of consciousness.
The pleasures of the body inflate the body, reinforce the body, and the pleasures of consciousness dissolve the consciousness. Such a great difference. The more pleasures you give to the body, the more body-identified you become. The more pleasures you give to consciousness, the more all identifications dissolve.
Usually I do not use the term ‘pleasure’ in the context of consciousness. But here because Maharaj is using that lexicon, so I am following him. The pleasures of the body are called sukha (happiness), the pleasures of consciousness are called ānanda (joy, bliss), and the two are very different.
In fact, when you are consciousness itself without its traps and identifications, and when you are trying to please consciousness alone, then that can result in displeasure to the body. And that is alright, because the quality of the pleasure of consciousness is far higher than the quality of pleasure of the body, so the latter can be compromised for the former.
Why does the consciousness need to be pleased? Because it is lonely. It usually gets attached to the body. Now you are saying, “No, you will not have the body,” so it has become even more lonely. You need to give it something better than the body. That is what is called pleasing consciousness.
Give consciousness something better than the body to be with. This will greatly please consciousness, and probably annoy the body, but that is okay. It’s a good trade-off.
Q: Acharya Ji, can you please give some examples related to this?
AP: When you are sitting here listening to me, obviously I am not giving you a body-massage. But you are getting pleased, right? What is getting pleased? Not the body, but the consciousness. And the body is getting displeased: look at him (pointing at someone in the audience who is moving constantly) ! Forty-second times!
So, that’s what I am saying. In giving pleasure to consciousness, even if the trade-off is that you will have to displease the body a little, it is alright.
He (referring to one of the volunteers) comes to me when I am about to fall asleep—sometimes after I have fallen asleep—and starts massaging. He starts massaging me, I start sermonizing; both of us are pleasing each other. But who is getting a better deal? He is. He is giving me pleasure of the body, I am giving him pleasure of consciousness, and that is the reason he keeps sneaking into my room. After all of you have fallen asleep, he will come over, pick up some oil or something, and start doing his thing. Usually I have fallen asleep by that time, and I wake up, “What is it?” and find him at my feet, so I start saying something.
That’s a great mistake, you know, to not know which of these is higher. It’s a cardinal mistake man makes—to place the pleasures of body higher than the pleasures of consciousness. Just don’t make that mistake and everything will be okay.
Q: Acharya Ji, does the negation of what is not always bring us to what is?
AP: It will not leave you to go to any point. You are saying, “Sir, if I negate what is not, will it bring me to what is?” That which is not includes you as well. If that which is not is negated, will you still be left?
But that is the common expectation. “After everything has been negated and cut down, I will survive, and I will then reach the Truth.” Once you are determined to cut down everything that is not, you will have to first of all slit your own throat. Firstly, you are not. Who will, then, remain to reach the Truth?
Therefore, the Truth is not a destination. Forget the Truth; look at your own validity. Do you exist? And if you do exist, is it doing any good to yourself?
Ask the ego to do you a great favor—what? Leave! She leaves, you leave. Nothing remains. Peace. Nothing remains in context of what was existent earlier. Would there be something after you have gone? Maybe, maybe not. What is certain is that this question would not be there after you have gone.
The very need to be certain that even after your disappearance things will carry on is a mark of the ego still hanging around. It is only the ego that wants a certainty about the future, right? “After I am gone, would there be bliss? After everything has been negated down, would there be Truth?” You are talking about the future. Who is concerned about the future? Exactly that entity which you are thinking of hacking down. If it has been hacked down, who will think about the future?
So, don’t think about the future. Just see whether all this that is around you and within you needs to exist, whether it is doing you any good by its existence. It’s a simple thing. Just look at what you have and what you are, and ask yourself, “Is it doing me any good?” Full stop.
Q: We know that there are five ways to get the pleasures of the body—through the five senses—and one gets the pleasures of consciousness at the feet of the master and by reading scriptures. Are there any other ways to get pleasures of consciousness?
AP: Wherever you get it. What is pleasure of consciousness? Doubts receding; peace prevailing; complexities getting dissolved; all that which keeps bugging you, nagging at you, frustrating you from within, subsiding. That is pleasure of consciousness.
So, the pleasure of consciousness lies in not being. Pleasure of consciousness is a pleasure of disappearance. Pleasure of consciousness is similar to the pleasures of sleep.
And why do you want to try out five or seven alternate ways of seeking pleasures of consciousness? You said, “I know two ways of getting pleasures of consciousness: reading scriptures and listening to the Guru. Can you tell me five other ways?” Why? These two ways you want to abandon? If you know two ways, is that not sufficient? Why do you want five other ways?
But man is like this, you know. “Can I have a few more options? I love him, I love him, I also love him. Let there be bounteous choice!” If man gets one option, he should be thankful for that, and that should suffice for entire life. Why do you want fifteen? There are one hundred and fifty actually—but you do not need one hundred and fifty. And if you chase one hundred and fifty, you will probably not have even a single one.
Begin with what you have. Be grateful for what you already have. Stick to it. Maybe that will open the door for many others. But don’t be in expectation of many others. Stick to what you have.
