“Love” is a word that creates a feeling of pleasure
leading to bliss; well, in most of us, except some chicken-hearted stingy ones.
We spend considerable amount of time in search of at least one Love in life. We
feel blessed finding a Love; some even do struggle throughout life to find
“perfect” Love. Love makes us forget all pain in life forever.
Wait! Did your Love really help you forget your pains?
E.g. when you had a bad headache or did not find a single tea-stall during a
five kilometre hilly road you decided to walk? Probably it did when you found
your first Ladylove in a coffee shop close to your college or discovered your
first musical instrument delivered at your home.
Is the Love you found yesterday seems so pleasant even
today? I think I am anticipating wrong, it is still the same. But does your
Love you found last year still brings the same ecstasy this year? Well, if it’s
the drug “ecstasy”, then I am sure the Love is same or probably bringing you
more bliss than that it was bringing last year. But otherwise, there is something
special with Love. The emotion defined by the word Love is variable. It is
associated to a feeling of pleasure experienced by our body and brain. And with
the same object remain unchanged, the experience of bliss does not remain the
same perpetually.
Research tells that be the object of Love a human
being or a lucrative job opportunity or a musical instrument, it does not give
us the same pleasurable feeling once obtained. Once one object is achieved, we
need another. Once one job is secured, we look forward to promotion. If the job
does not offer us expected hike at the end of the year, it is time for another
change. Otherwise life is boring – at times intolerable. In case of object of
love being books or musical instruments or fine arts, we do not feel that
boredom because the vast area of knowledge offered by books or never ending
scope of experimentation associated with fine arts. These bring infinite
options of pleasure. But in other cases, we need never-ending options to please
ourselves, not a single Love, where Maslow’s law of hierarchy proves itself to
be safely applicable. According to Maslow, pleasure comes from fulfilment of
needs – different at different stages of human psychological development. Love
is nothing but a particular stage associated to need for belongings,
attachment, intimacy etc. So pleasure is associated to many other Needs, not
only Love.
Maslow's hierarchy of
needs, represented as a pyramid with the more basic needs at the bottom - Wiki
Question is, what’s next after self actualization is achieved?
Does a person who attains ‘self-actualization” stops looking for options or
supposed to stop looking for options. Is a person at the top of the pyramid,
whose full potential is explored, in a state enjoying perpetual ‘bliss’? There lies the problem. No bliss is bliss
forever. Even if one person had explored own potential and completely aware of
own limitations, urge for crossing the hurdle of that limitation drives him\her
forever. In other words, self-actualization is not permanent.
Does Maslow accept this? No, he adds another stage on the top of the
pyramid after a few years. After one attains ‘self-actualization, that is all
his\her ‘worldly’ needs are fulfilled, human being develops a ‘higher goal’,
that is spirituality. Sounds convincing? To most of the Indians, yes. Indian
religions like Buddhism and Jainism defines ‘Spiritualism’ as the only goal of
life, while in general Vedic philosophy determines attaining Spiritualism as
final goal of life. Spirituality brings eternal bliss after which people do not
ask for more. And here lies the scope of conflict.
Philosophy established in Bhagavadgita (propagated by
Bhagavat school of philosophy?) as well as some other schools find ‘pleasure’ itself
the source of pain - that is the obstacle on the way to attain eternal bliss or
spirituality. It is pleasure that encourages humans to go though the same painful
process of attaining pleasure again and again. Attaining bliss is not the step
by step route to self actualization. So avoiding pleasure is good option to
avoid pain. In other words one can forget pain if he\she stops seeking
pleasure. Hence, one should strive to become a no-seeker or convert into a
non-seeker to attain eternal bliss. Once eternal bliss is achieved, one would
not have a chance to reborn and fall in the cycle of pain and pleasure. Thus
secret of ‘eternal bliss for all’ lies in non-existence.
Conclusion - everyone in the universe would reach the
state of eternal bliss once the universe becomes non-existent – sounds
convincing? I don’t know whether Maslow’s followers would agree J
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