Pursuit of Pleasure is Invocation of Pain : 6.

Therefore, the pleasures always remain unsatisfied. Inasmuch as what we ask for is an infinitude of pleasure, we cannot be satisfied with a little of it. Hence there is an urge to repeat the contact of the mind and senses with the object, endlessly. Throughout life we can go on having these contacts; and yet, there can be no end to it. So, what happens? These peculiar types of tendencies with which we are born get exhausted, get worn out. The senses also become tired because of repeated activity; then, their momentum ceases. The momentum of these tendencies ceases on account of exhaustion and inability to fulfil themselves to the extent they require from within, and also because the tendencies with which we are born are finite – they are only certain aspects of the possibilities of other types of contact we can have.


What happens is these tendencies have to come to an end one day or the other by exhaustion of momentum, and then the organisation dwindles; that is called the death of the body. If all the personnel in a government disintegrate, the government itself does not exist. It ceases to be because the constituents have separated, and so the complex diminishes in quantity until it becomes a zero. The forces which brought together the physical atoms of matter into the formation of a body withdraw themselves to their sources, and the complex structure of the body disintegrates automatically. The particles of matter go to their sources. This is what is called death.

But death is not the end of the matter; there will be rebirth because the desires have not been fulfilled. For various reasons, as I mentioned, it was not possible for the mind to satisfy itself fully with its activity, so it experiments with a new set of circumstances; and births repeatedly coming, one after the other, are the different types of experiments that the mind performs to see if it can get what it wants. It fails every time, but it is never tired: “If this fails today, I shall work in another manner tomorrow.” So, another birth is taken.

To be continued  ...