WHY THIS CONTRADICTION?
Endless Desires and Limited Fulfilment
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) was an English poet. He wrote:
Our sweetest songs are those
that tell of saddest thought.
THIS is a common experience. Everyone likes sad stories and tragic songs. The most famous novels are ones that are tragic, not funny. Similarly, a singer who can sing the songs in a painful or plaintive tone often gains most prominence. What is the reason that sad stories, poems or songs hold this appeal of reaching out to people’s hearts?
The reason for this is that every person usually lives in the psyche of non-fulfillment of desires and a sense of deprivation. Under such circumstances, happiness seems unreal,while misery seems real. Studies reveal that Man is a 'pleasure-seeking animal.’ In this vast universe, Man is an exceptional creature in every sense. He alone has the ability to feel pleasure. A unique gift to man given by his Creator is his ability to sense a wide variety of emotions and to enjoy them.
The objects of enjoyment of Man’s desires are unlimited. But Man has a limited capacity to enjoy them.
To think, to hear, to speak and to see and so on are all delights for man; moreover, to eat, to drink, to smell, to touch are all pleasures that man can avail of. But there arises a strange contradiction here. Man has an immense desire for pleasure, present within him, but to fully experience this in this world is not possible for him.
Man amasses wealth, achieves status, power and pomp, builds a lavish house for himself and wallows in luxury. But when he is done with all this, he realizes that between him and his enjoyment a definite barrier remains. He is not able to gain satisfaction from any luxury or material comfort. All objects of luxury fail to give him genuine peace and happiness.
The objects of enjoyment of Man’s desires are unlimited. But Man has limited capacity to enjoy them. It is this inability of Man that crops up between him and his object of enjoyment. Even after achieving everything, he continues to live with an acute sense of deprivation. Man’s physical weakness, the aging process, disease, calamities and, eventually, death, all continually go on refuting his desires. After having acquired the objects of his desire, he loses the capacity to enjoy them.
If we do an in-depth study of this contradiction, we find that in actuality this is not a contradiction but the result of difference in chronology. The law of nature, prescribes that in his pre-death period Man will obtain just a preliminary introduction of the luxuries that he yearns for. Only in the post-death period will he be able to completely obtain and enjoy them.
Man has been endowed with an unlimited sense of enjoyment; but the objects of his happiness have all been kept for him in the Hereafter.
A farmer first sows seeds and then harvests them. Iron is first melted and then cast into steel. Likewise, everything in this world is accomplished on a step-by-step basis. Everything first passes through its preliminary stage and then reaches its final form. Nothing is an exception to this law.
The same holds true for Man. Man has been endowed with an unlimited sense of enjoyment; but the objects of his happiness have all been kept for him in the Hereafter. In the present world Man discovers his sense of enjoyment, but he can fully attain the objects of his happiness only in the Hereafter.
As per the creation plan of God, Man gets to see in this world a prototype of all possible joys and luxuries. In this way, God conveys to Man that if he wants to avail all of these joys eternally and completely, he has to qualify for it. What is this qualification? In one word, it is to make one self a purified soul. Man must keep himself away from all negative thoughts and tendencies, such as greed, selfishness, dishonesty, lying, anger, revenge, violence, hatred and so on. He should develop a totally positive personality, and in this way become worthy of entry into heaven.
Man’s life is divided into two phases — the pre-death period and the post-death period. A very tiny part of his life is spent in the pre-death period, and the rest of it, which carries on forever, is the life in the Hereafter. If Man’s life is seen only from the point of view of his pre-death period, it appears as nothing but a tragedy; but if it is viewed from the point of view of the post-death period, it appears to be joyous.
According to the creation plan of God, Man is standing at a very delicate point. He faces two choices, and he has to pick one of them for himself. He can avail of the opportunities given to him and become entitled to eternal happiness in the life Hereafter, or he can lead his present life in ignorance and, thereby, entitle himself to a life of eternal deprivation.