The Creation of Pleasure and Pain : 4.

Do the objects jump upon us, or do we jump upon the objects? What do we mean by 'relationship'? What is this contact with the objects that we establish, on account of which we suffer or enjoy life in this world? Whether it is the object that seems to have an impact upon our experience or we have an impact upon the objects, the question is similar, a single common question. What is this relationship? Is it physical or psychological?


If it is the object that has the impact upon our experience, it should be physical because objects are physical in their nature. But physical experience is unknown. All experience is mental. We cannot have a purely physical experience. There is no such thing as experience divested of a mental operation. Unless mind also plays a part, experience would be unintelligible. Physical experience divested of mental relationship is no experience at all, at least as far as we are concerned. Hence, all relationship, from the point of view of the causative factor of pleasure and pain, has to be psychological, and not physical.


Thus, we boil down the causative factors and come to a residuum: where do they actually lie? The factors of relationship with objects that are the causes of pleasure and pain, being psychological, seem to have an intimate connection with our own personality because what is psychological relationship but the operation of our own mind in respect of the objects of the world? Where does the source of pleasure and pain lie? Not in the objects, but in the relationship of objects with us. What is this relationship? It cannot be physical. It has to be psychological. But what is this psychological relationship? Being connected with the mind, it has to be connected with us.


Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ......