Quote of the Day
What is pleasure? To possess a beautiful car? Or have lovely 12th century furniture; to polish it, to look at it, to evaluate. There is a furniture in England, in a particular room, it's about l6th, l5th century. And one has paid a great deal of money for it. And it gives you, watching it, great pleasure. Then you identify yourself with that furniture. Then you become the furniture, because whatever you identify yourself with, you are that. It may be an image, it may be a piece of furniture, it may be a man, woman, or it may be some idea, some conclusion, some ideology. And all the identification with something greater or something which is convenient, satisfying, doesn't give you too much discomfort, that brings us a great deal of pleasure.
And pleasure goes with fear. I don't know if you have watched it. It's the other side of the coin. But we don't want to look at the other side. But we say to ourselves, pleasure is the most important thing, either through drugs, which is now becoming more and more in this country - opium, cocaine, alcohol. You know all that, what is happening in the world, especially in this country, which breeds certain irresponsibility, gives you for the moment certain élan, energy, quietens the brain probably and dulls the brain, and ultimately destroys human beings. You have seen all this on television. If you haven't seen all this, you know of somebody and so on. We start with pleasure, and end up in ruination. And pleasure of possessing something, the woman or the man; pleasure of power - you understand - over somebody, maybe over your, if have domestic help, over that person, or your wife or husband or something or other, we want power. Right? Let's be quite honest about all this. We admire power, we extol power, we idolize power. Right? Whether it is spiritual power of the religious hierarchy, or the power of a politician, power of money. To the speaker power is evil. That's why followers are those who want power through knowledge, through enlightenment, you know all that rot they talk about. Not that there is not enlightenment, but not the stupid nonsense that they talk about.
And pleasure goes with fear. I don't know if you have watched it. It's the other side of the coin. But we don't want to look at the other side. But we say to ourselves, pleasure is the most important thing, either through drugs, which is now becoming more and more in this country - opium, cocaine, alcohol. You know all that, what is happening in the world, especially in this country, which breeds certain irresponsibility, gives you for the moment certain élan, energy, quietens the brain probably and dulls the brain, and ultimately destroys human beings. You have seen all this on television. If you haven't seen all this, you know of somebody and so on. We start with pleasure, and end up in ruination. And pleasure of possessing something, the woman or the man; pleasure of power - you understand - over somebody, maybe over your, if have domestic help, over that person, or your wife or husband or something or other, we want power. Right? Let's be quite honest about all this. We admire power, we extol power, we idolize power. Right? Whether it is spiritual power of the religious hierarchy, or the power of a politician, power of money. To the speaker power is evil. That's why followers are those who want power through knowledge, through enlightenment, you know all that rot they talk about. Not that there is not enlightenment, but not the stupid nonsense that they talk about.
Ojai, California USA | 3rd Public Talk 18th May 1985