What do people want?- Pleasure -- you can have it.
- things that satisfy the five senses.
- Eat, drink, sleep - get what you want.
- "if pleasure is what you want, do not suppress the desire. Seek it intelligently."
- i.e., Kama Sutra
- Problems with pleasure seeking:
- Individual - its all about you
- Temporary
- "Sooner or later everyone wants to experience more than a kaleidoscope of momentary pleasures, however delectable." [Smith 15]
- They leave you wanting more and more, and eventually, you want something else entirely.
- Worldly Success
- Wealth, fame & power
- Still individual success, but now relying on the community to attain it.
- Less temporary than pleasure, but still temporary - just longer lasting
- Problems with success:
- Competitive and exclusive, therefore precarious
- Goes on forever - "the drive for success is insatiable"
- "Poverty consists, not in the decrease of one's possession, but in the increase of one's greed" -Plato
- Success is ephemeral - it doesn't come with you after death.
- It lasts for one, exactly one lifetime.
- Doesn't come with you.
- One lifetime is not a long time.
Hindu concept of time and live(s)Life Cosmic Live(s)
Age Spiritual Maturity
14 eat/drink/sleep
30
50 you can't still just eat/drink/sleep <-- if you did, you would be spiritually immature. BUT if that's still what you want, go for it.
75