Happiness in the present moment consists of very different states from happiness about the past and about the future, and itself embraces two very distinct kinds of things, pleasures and gratifications. The pleasures are delights that have clear sensory and strong emotional components, what philosopher’s called ” Raw Feels”, ecstasy, thrills, orgasm, delight, mirth, exuberance, and comfort. They are evanescent, and they involve little, if any, thinking. The gratification activities we very much like doing, but they are not necessarily accompanies by any raw feelings at all. Rather, the gratifications engage us fully, we become immersed and absorbed in them and we loose self consciousness. Enjoying a great conversation, rock climbing, reading a good book, dancing and making a slam dunk are all examples of activities in which times stop for us, our skills match the challenge and we are in touch with our strengths.The gratifications last longer than the pleasures, they involve quite a lot of thinking and interpretation, they do not habituate easily, and they are undergirded by our strengths and virtues. Happyho also provide best Meditation classes in Noida and Delhi NCR India area.
The bodily pleasures are immediate, come through the senses, and are momentary. They need little or no interpretation. The sense organs, for evolutionary reasons, are hooked quite directly to positive emotion, touching, tasting, smelling, moving the body, seeing, and hearing can directly evoke pleasure. The stroking of their genitals evokes smiling in very young babies. Mothers milk and the taste of french vanilla ice-cream to the same thing in the first six months of life. When you are covered with muck, a hot shower washing it all away feels great and this good feeling transcends the knowledge that you are getting clean. Orgasm needs no advertising agency to puff about its virtues. For some people, emptying a full bowl brings relief mixed with bliss. Vision and hearing are also tied to positive emotion, in a slightly less direct, but nonetheless immediate way: a cloudless spring day, the ending of the Beatles’s ” Hey Jude”, pictures of babies and young lambs, and sitting down infront of a blazing fire on a snowy evening are all examples of bodily pleasures.
Despite the delights they so reliably bring, however, it is not easy to build your life around the bodily pleasures, for they are all just momentary. They fade very rapidly once their external stimulus disappears and we become accustomed to them very readily within habituation often requiring bigger dosages to deliver the same kick as originally. It is only the first taste of french vanilla ice-cream, the first wisp of Shalimar, and the first few seconds of warmth from blazing fire that gives you a buzz. Unless you space these encounters out abstemiously, these pleasures are enormously diminished.
