About the Innermost E-Book

Samuel Widmer Nicolet

• Herausgeber: via tolino media
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Man vergisst es manchmal fast vor lauter Auseinandersetzung mit den Konflikten, die zwischen den Menschen zu lösen sind, vor allen Wundern aber auch, die sich erschliessen, wenn man der Entfaltung des Gesunden im Strang des Gemeinsamen folgt: Es gibt noch das Allertiefste, das Allerhöchste, das Allerinnerste, das, was man nur im Alleinsein, in der tiefen meditativen Erschliessung seines Innern findet, nämlich die Möglichkeit, dass sich unser Wesen ausdehnt, ausdehnt über alle Grenzen hinaus, dass wir erwachen für das Ganze, dass nicht nur unser Herz, sondern auch unser Kopf sich öffnet und alles, alles umfasst im einen grossen Mitgefühl, dass sich unser Bewusstsein ausfaltet und den ganzen Kosmos umspannt, das All, das Eine, und Liebe und Stille ist, jenseits oder inseits von allem.

Leseprobe

About the Innermost

Samuel Widmer Nicolet

BASICINDIA

© 2011 Samuel Widmer Nicolet - Switzerland, 1st Edition

eBook (2016)

Romina Mossi, CH-4574 Nennigkofen

Printing und publication

Published and printed in India by Sharat Singh

on behalf of Basicindia, Mumbai, India

[e-mail], www.basic-editions.ch

ISBN

978-81-910780-3-9 (printed book)

Translation

Translated from the German edition:

“Vom Allerinnersten”, Basic Editions 2005

English translation: Uma Ranganathan, Melanie Paul and Petra Kaufmann

Edited by: Uma Ranganathan and Trevor Goode with inputs from Sudha Honavar and Chandran G.

About the Innermost

Samuel Widmer Nicolet

A word about this book

In the circles where he lives and works in Switzerland, Samuel Widmer is seen variously as a psychiatrist, a radical psychotherapist and as the misguided guru of a cult centred around free love. For many of us, however, who have taken part in his workshops and have had the fortune to have him accompany us on our inner journeys, he has been more than anything else, a true friend and guide. “Rebels of the heart” is the way his closest friends describe themselves, since the work we are engaged in not only springs from the heart, but also goes to the very heart of transformation and change. Among this circle of friends which has developed around Samuel’s work, are those who have questioned not only their own lives at the individual level, but also their role within society at a deeper level than has been traditionally accepted.

“About the Innermost” captures the essence of Samuel Widmer’s thought, which combines self awareness with social change, in the interests of a new world. A charming piece of work though it is, written with a light touch, this book is apt to shake the foundations of some of society’s most deeply held beliefs, and to spark off a radically new process of inquiry in the interested reader – a process which I believe is essential for any real and long lasting change in society.

Samuel’s way, the way of all those who have stepped out of mainstream society, is understandably, far from being a mass movement. Yet, it has attracted a considerable number of people young and old, who are no longer content with being handed the “truth” on a platter but have decided to look for it on their own, individuals who, in their search, have begun to regain their lost sense of authority and self-respect. “About the Innermost” will make you question your thinking on several common themes. For example, love, honesty, freedom and commitment and how these are related to each other. In turn we see how the interweaving of these elements can help us human beings to work together in order to lead lives based on friendship and love rather than on competition and hate.

For people caught in the confusing war of ideals and beliefs, trapped between the traditional and the modern, it could help to initiate a certain method of observing oneself and the world, without any attempt to moralize or control the way one sees, a method which will bring much clarity to their own lives and relationships.

For all that, the English version of “About the Innermost” has had an unbelievably long gestation period, and has passed through the hands of one translator after another, each of whom for various reasons was unable to take on the project as a whole. My friend and colleague Sharat and I, would have long since given up on the attempt had it not struck us as being one of those books, which it is better to translate imperfectly, than to leave untranslated. And so, supported by a handful of friends from Germany and elsewhere in Europe, we decided to go ahead, in the hope that for all its imperfections, the essence of Samuel’s expression will have been preserved in this translation. We hope that such errors as there are will only serve as a challenge to produce an even better version of this book, which in the future, will reach an even greater number of people in the world.

Uma Ranganathan

Mumbai

November 2011

Self-Knowledge

Self knowledge begins with the first step, with listening and looking, with listening and looking within, with moment to moment attentiveness and perception.

At the same time it involves breaking open once again the wall of conformity, the pseudo-harmony and conditioning behind which the true spirit of mankind has usually been barricaded, and making once again the inner reality accessible. It is unavoidable that each of us will tread this path and, in order for this wall to gradually collapse, understand very exactly the inner construction of falsehood, pseudo-security and habit.

The first challenge to be overcome are the guardians of the entrance gateway, fear of truth and resistance, the defiance of truth. Overcoming these guardians reveals to the earnest seeker the first layer of the true personality beneath the distorting crust of socialisation: the layer of defensive feelings. Envy, hate, jealousy, meanness, greed, the love of power, and many other feelings and states that shut out the innermost secret from us, must first be appreciated and integrated. A chaotic world reveals itself to the willing learner, one that is frightening and yet best known. After all, it is the external world in which we live with each other, which results from our strategies of avoidance. It is more real than the being-nice of the layer of conformity, but still far removed from the unquestionable single reality of the innermost, which the seeker at this point can hardly foresee.

If he persists in his yearning to penetrate all the confusion and refuses to be intimidated by the barriers which have to be overcome, the seeker will finally, behind all his defensive behaviour, encounter its essence as his own self-will. This he further uncovers as being responsible for the defensive behaviour, which he then learns to let die.

This dying finally conquers the guardian at the entrance to the next, already more real, layer of defended feeling that now needs to be conscientiously examined. Here await the true feelings: pain, abandonment, loneliness, powerlessness, helplessness, being at the mercy of something else. These states accompany us long after we have realised that it is both better and necessary for a happy life to synchronize one’s own will with the will of the whole. They are the friction effect that arises during this learning process as long as we are unskilful and stumble around. They remind us that we are as yet not quite open for the one heart, that we have not yet surrendered completely and impeccably to the leadership of the inner power. We have not yet emptied ourselves of our own conceit and our reactions to all that life brings us. The emptiness of the innermost has not yet been completely accepted.

Only a choiceless, honest, and exact observation of all these inner movements will finally permit us to arrive at the innermost, which continues to be veiled by the curtain formed by feelings which have been rejected.

One can also refer to the rejected feelings as the major feelings. They are already very close to the ultimate truth about ourselves, although they too are still artefacts born out of our lack of understanding and inability to minutely scrutinise what is within us. Only when we have learned to completely give ourselves, to take everything the way it is and also to observe things as they are, only when the last grain of resistance against the truth and the last fear of the truth has disappeared from us, is the curtain raised and the innermost begin to shine through.

Within the Innermost there are no more actual feelings, at least no minor or major feelings, no feelings which have been rejected nor any feelings which themselves reject other feelings. The states or facets of the innermost, with which we intend to concern ourselves in this book, can best be designated as the sublime feelings. However, they are not actually feelings, they lie beyond all that thought and feeling can reach and touch.

At the end of the journey of self-knowledge, it is above all, thought, that needs to be understood, right down to its finest, most filigreed expression, until it dissolves or becomes still through the understanding of itself. At this point the thinker realises that he has tried to attain the goal of his yearning with this instrument of thinking, but that it can never succeed, because no thought and no feeling will ever enter this longed-for space. On the contrary, in order for us to arrive, all searching must come to an end. In recognising this fact, thought learns to be silent, along with all the feelings it has produced, such as desire. And thus the door, which was closed precisely because of thought’s constant activity, can open.

We have written and spoken enough over the years about the path of self-knowledge with all its difficulties to be overcome. This book is dedicated completely to the innermost secret, to the innermost in us, to that which reveals itself to the true seeker. It thus deals with that about which one cannot actually speak, with that which one cannot put into words.

And yet to attempt it is pure joy!

Listening and looking form the first step on the path of self-knowledge, and also the last. The only step, to be done again and over again: Look honestly, persistently and conscientiously. The way of self-knowledge comes to an end in the dissolving of the self, the unmasking of the self as an illusion. It uncovers our real being, the innermost, and in doing this, it leads us over onto the path of meditation.

Meditation is the discovery and the experience of this innermost space that we can never quite comprehend, a floating in stillness from sublime to sublime. Even in the state of meditation, the only step to be taken is looking and listening time and again. Looking and listening stand at the beginning of everything and at the same time they are what finally remain from all that which has been experienced during this cleansing process. Listening and looking are already aspects, qualities of the innermost. That we are ready from the start and thereafter to follow them, leads us eventually into the core of our being.

The Innermost

At times, in the midst of our entanglement in all the conflicts which human beings have to resolve with each other, in the midst of all the wonders revealed in the process of uncovering what is wholesome in the strands of our shared lives, it is almost forgotten:

Yet it is there, the deepest, the highest, the Innermost, that which one finds only in solitude, in the deep meditative opening up of one’s inner self, that is, the possibility of expanding our being, expanding beyond all boundaries. Here is the possibility of our awakening to the whole, the possibility of not only our heart but also our head opening up and embracing everything in a single great feeling of compassion, of our consciousness opening up and encircling the entire cosmos, encircling all, encircling the Oneness, to become love and stillness, within or beyond all things.

What is needed for us to be admitted into this state is to be able to hold all energies when they arise – especially the sexual energies – and not to direct them into thought and pictures but rather, to let them remain as they are, without compulsion or pressure, to let them be, so that their energy can rise. All feelings which they bring with them, must also be acknowledged in stillness until finally the whole reveals itself. If we want to delve into these deeper layers of meditation, we have to – as we did earlier, in the process of self-knowledge – further embrace all feelings. Now, it is no longer about feelings which repress and which are themselves suppressed but to a certain extent has to do with feelings which are sublime, the ones which are gathered around the one feeling, the feeling of all encompassing oneness. Embracing the first sort has led to our becoming whole, to having a healthy, powerful centre, an awakened personality with heart, which can include all human feelings. Now, at least partly, it concerns our advancing into a godly state, if one wants to call it that, in which one learns to encompass the whole. Even this, again, causes “feelings”, something that one feels. One goes through many states, till everything finds place in oneself, and only the one feeling remains. By and by one will comprehend all these states.

My personal feelings, my thoughts, my physical sensations, these are not really me. They are only surface movements in me, just objects resting in my attention. The sounds around me, what I see, what invades me from outside is not the final reality. They are only happenings which surround my perception. My entire consciousness, everything that my consciousness contains, is only a limited part of me, it is not my deepest truth. Above all, what I am is perception, that in myself, which is aware of all this, that which looks, which listens, which feels.

Who is this person who sees? This dumb witness? What is perception?

I will recognise it when I begin to direct my attention to it, when I turn it back towards itself.

Am I, in the depths, this wide, still, endless expanse, this emptiness, this extension, which is perception? Am I this all embracing freedom?

The identification of the observer with the observed creates the bondage which takes away my freedom. Things, appearances, objects come and go. Not so the silent witness. It cannot be seen, cannot be pin-pointed, it doesn’t appear in the room, doesn’t prove itself in time. It is already there, always, unchanging, beyond death and birth, beyond everything, the great spirit, the quiet knowledge. It never steps into the current of time and of space, the current of birth and death. All that comes and goes. But not so my innermost reality. However, because the innermost part of me is empty, I can go beyond it and find myself in every form, in every you, in an inner oneness. Thus duality is again overcome at the very root.

First comes the ascent into oneness, that is the path of wisdom. And then comes the descent into the form, that is the path of compassion. Both belong together. Wisdom sees, that the many is one, and the other way round, compassion sees that oneness is identical to the many. The one heart, the one mind, that is the unification of both.

The baby which has not yet differentiated itself from its environment, is not yet awake, is dissolved in the whole. The process of meditation and self-knowledge does not lead back to it; that would be regression, a backward step. The process of awakening, of growth, leads to a new constellation. The whole dissolves in me. I myself, consciously and willingly, dissolve the whole in myself. This has something violent, even something frightening about it but also something most sublime, something beautiful and something very simple. I, or as the case may be my energy, expands until it can encompass the whole. One can also say, I dissolve until only the whole remains, but this happens in a process which is consciously attempted, for which I am responsible. I take responsibility for the whole. I go where there is nothing left but me.

This is not the primary narcissism of the baby, which cannot differentiate between itself and the world. It is also not a form of megalomania. It is a trans-narcissism, a crossing of all boundaries, until the deepest of all truths about me becomes visible. There is nothing, but me. I am the universe, the cosmos, god, the whole, the great emptiness and all forms, which are born out of it again and again. That’s Christmas.

Perhaps everyone can be catapulted into this state during special moments, as a peak experience, as a climax. But to find a definitive awakening one has to climb up the steps which go before that and that means self-knowledge and therefore the overcoming of the self, the overcoming of the “I-reference point” in favour of the “You-reference point”. This means resolving the triangle-problem, the human problem in general, in one’s own heart. Therefore it is essential, to enter all confrontations and conflicts in relationship over and over again, to accept the restrictions imposed by them; although, as mentioned in the beginning, we are easily caught in this and are lost; forgetting what it is all about. Over and over, we identify ourselves with the content of our consciousness, with the quarrel between us human beings, with thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations in us and have to again overcome these in the process of self-knowledge.

This deepest state of all, reaching the fundament of all being in itself, the highest possible step in consciousness for us which always only a few people are able to touch, this unity with everything, the primeval basis, of which the mystics have time and again sung, is identical with what Castaneda’s Don Juan calls the warrior’s attitude, and so, finally, identical with something quite simple and useful in everyday life, the same attitude which a warrior has to establish within himself in the course of his life, which places him beyond everything, outside of everything, above everything, which allows him to put up with it and to withstand everything with dignity and calmness and which he knows how to establish within himself over and over again. To create this feeling in oneself, is the most difficult thing of all, says Don Juan. But this is also the state about which we constantly talk, which together with Krishnamurti, we describe as being “without reaction”, the state which can hold all feeling still in it, and therefore, touches the essence of all. Although there have always been individuals who have been able to realise this, it is also the state to which people will aspire in the second half of evolution. In the first half, the ego was developed and half of the awakened heart personality; in the second it will be about finding this great, inner oneness, which will pour itself in an overpowering flow of compassion into all forms. That, then, would be the new history. The task it entails is to overcome the “triangle problem”, the solution of the incest taboo.

Stillness

One becomes increasingly still on the path of self-knowledge. Observing one’s own thoughts and feelings gradually calms them down. Self knowledge is the process in which one learns to keep a rein on one’s horse. One learns not to be at the mercy of one’s own energies any more but rather, to keep them quiet, to command them instead of being subject to them, until one finally attains a feeling of inner emptiness. This is however not yet real stillness. It is the grounding for it, the preparation, the receptivity which one creates so that true stillness can touch us. Finally one has a still mind, one can more or less switch thoughts on or off at will. The mind no longer thinks in a wild and chaotic manner, but rather one thinks when one wants to and when there is something to think about. Also the emotions, the inner reactions to everything, the aggression, the desire, the ambition, the greed, the demands for power, all these energies have been brought together under a certain degree of self control using inner discipline, though this has nothing to do with repression.

In this state of inner emptiness one is also often drawn to nature, with which one feels connected, from out of which one derives stillness. Time and again it helps to satisfy the unfulfilled mind, to unite the contradictory energies within oneself into a single energy, oriented towards the power of intention. Nature gifts us stillness, because all being, all of nature is stillness, rests in stillness.

All this is preparation. All this belongs to the process of self-knowledge, which is the grounding for meditation. For meditation is something one cannot do, something one cannot look for. In a way it comes from outside; just as love surges from out of oneself to radiate into the world, Stillness, as another facet of the shining diamond, flows into oneself. It is the immeasurable that one senses in it, which almost slays one, when one is completely open and still, when one learns to stop the inner dialogue. Sometimes it sinks into oneself as a blessing. One cannot call out for it, cannot invite it. It comes when it feels like.

To be still, to be still with oneself, to hold one’s feelings in stillness, does not, at first, have to be a pleasant state at all. In the first place, existence does not care whether something is pleasant or unpleasant. Unfortunately it is our ego that finds it so important. With this it probably creates the biggest problem, which we human beings have to struggle with. To be still with oneself can at first be quite unbearable. Most of all, if we have consistently avoided ourselves and our truth, for a long time. The confrontation which then takes place with oneself can be most painful. To a certain extent one feels the withdrawal symptoms brought about through years of avoidance.

To be still is not isolation either. One is not preoccupied with oneself and because of this one is still. Being still is always, being still together, being open for the whole, being in relationship with everything and everyone. Without compulsion and of one’s own free will, one offers one’s stillness to the whole. With this, every authority problem to do with “having to be still” is dissolved.

When during the process of self-knowledge, everything that one is really not, finally peels off oneself, when the identification with the self is broken, when one no longer identifies with the body and its needs, but perceives them in the same way that one perceives thoughts, feelings, and moods, and when one also perceives worldly objects as hazy forms which arise from the innermost – which is the only everlasting thing, which means that they appear from the depths of truth – then one has found stillness, this smooth ocean in the depth of all things, which is always the same, immovable, incapable of being influenced. One looks out from this elemental ground and recognises the essence in all things, and the heart is full of love and compassion for everything which rises out of this One, as a form, only to fall back into it again. In this state, the brain and the whole being is flooded with this stillness, with this one fragrance.

Stillness is the immeasurable out there, which a still mind can receive, and into which it can enter. This is a necessary condition, in order to be able to dream or to fly. Dreaming is the art of flying out to each other through space and time, through the connection of the heart.

Stillness is perception, is love, is compassion, is the innermost, is silent awareness, the holy, the still witness to everything, the elemental ground, that which cannot be further questioned, the immeasurable, ecstasy, sobriety, it is wakefulness, that which has no beginning and no end, the deathless, the one heart, the one mind, it is emptiness, is the great nothingness, that from which everything comes, the place and the power of creation, the intelligence of the whole, the Tao, it is that which does not explain, does not understand, cannot be understood, it is simplicity itself. Stillness cannot be achieved. It is. Whoever awakens to it, knows grace. Stillness is peace, is eternity, is wisdom, is the deepest point there is, it is happiness, it is meditation. Stillness is there, when everything that is not stillness peels off, everything which blocks it from itself. Stillness is there when clinging to what is limited ends, when attachment to the part disappears. Stillness is That. Stillness is eternity. Stillness is the one fragrance. Stillness is stillness.

Love

The process of self-knowledge leads to the discovery of love in one’s own heart. This is perhaps the most important thing of all. From the Innermost of one’s heart, there begins to gush an inexhaustible stream, one which appears to emerge from the void. The innermost core in us, in everything, is above all, love as well.

Time and again it is amazing to find, that what love is not, is not yet common knowledge. Because love is hard to grasp, it is much easier to define it in negative terms, through striking out everything that it is not.

In having had to confront the attacks on our work, to which we were often exposed, we were time and again forced to see that people had misunderstood us, because they thought that when we spoke of love, we meant the usual things which people understand in the context of love, that is sex, dependency, possessiveness, jealousy. But all this has nothing to do with love. Love is what remains when all of this has been understood in the process of self-knowledge and has fallen off from oneself.

Love is the innermost core within us. The sanctum, that which we really are, in the depths.

What else is one supposed to say about love? Everything has been said about it, and yet it doesn’t dwell among human beings. I thought that in the meantime everyone had realised this. But one has to keep pointing out what love is not. It is not dependency, not jealousy, not possessive thought. But what is it then? And how can one attain it?

At first, it is self-knowledge, the concern with oneself, which opens us to the flow of love. But from a certain point onwards, it is the contrary: our preoccupation with ourselves closes us. What then opens us is to touch the You, to be concerned about others, to gift ourselves, to allow ourselves to be permeated by the You. Then, this turns into the daily practice of conquering the self over an entire lifetime.

In a somewhat bold and simple way one could say: love is the capacity to love in a threesome, to love in a many sided relationship. That which one normally describes as love, love between two, is more the kind of love which actually has to do with jealousy and possessive thought, the kind of love which is against the other two persons in a triangle also loving each other, instead of loving one’s own self.

Earlier, I had always believed that if human beings were not capable of being in a triangle, it was because it was forbidden, that they had to be accordingly freed. Actually, this is also part of the problem. But in reality, there is, more than anything else, the other fact, that people don’t want to love within a threesome, they don’t want to share and to be considerate, they don’t want to be disturbed. They want the others only for themselves, they want to have each person they meet for themselves alone. Love, one could say, is the readiness to share, to be considerate, to make allowances for the fact that the other person, that other people, have the same needs as oneself.

What stands in the way of love’s flow, is the resistance posed by the self. This is not something that one can just let go of. Nobody does it willingly. That doesn’t last. What happens more often, is that because one sees it and confronts it, one despairs over one’s own not-wanting. It happens because rather than suppressing it, one stays persistently with this fact, until at last it leads to a breakdown within oneself. The ground, to a certain extent, gives way. At its peak, the resistance breaks down, it is not that I have given it up. That is why finally, its energy, our entire energy are held in the state of love.

A further aspect of love for example is, that it doesn’t owe anybody a good turn. That means, where necessary, it is capable of causing pain. It holds the other in this pain, it suffers with him in compassion, but it doesn’t avoid entrusting the other person in a relationship with difficult feelings which result from the false images which he has, which must be corrected. This means to entrust the other with feelings through which he can grow.

Love is compassion, or at least, it is a step before it. Compassion is not a nice feeling towards someone else but to feel oneness with him; the capacity, to feel his whole being in terms of energy, feeling, his pain, his suffering, his fear. Compassion is love which has joined with pain over our tragedy, a passion which goes for truth and reality and doesn’t let go until everything is all right again. Love which is ready to carry and to transform until only what is good remains.

To love means to live from out of one’s heart, to look from one’s heart, to be in relationship from one’s heart. The spring in the heart is nourished from below, from the energy of the earth, which rises through the pelvis and the stomach into the heart, and then further into the head and beyond it. That is the one flow which strengthens the heart. The other comes from above, from the sky, from that which is immeasurable. It flows into a still brain and sinks down into the heart, into the belly and the pelvis, and finally connects with the earth again. From these two streams arise two cycles; the flow from below divides itself over the head like a fountain, flows around the body to build a protective cover and collects in the ground under the feet, in order to rise anew, amplified through the power of the earth. In exactly the same way, the flow from above opens below the feet like a fountain and surrounds the body, rising up from below until it collects again over the head and united with the power of heaven, flows back into the brain and into the heart. Perception can extend this capsule of energy, extend it into the infinite, and in this way build a protection for others, for an event, for a place, and finally it can consciously surround the entire earth, the entire cosmos.

The most important thing however, is the flow from one’s heart to the others. The current of earth and the current of the sky meet each other in the heart and make it overflow. The energy of the heart flows into the circle, which all being, all human beings and spirits create, the circle in which we are held and in which we hold each other. However it also flows directly to each “you”, creates a reinforcement in the circle with every “you. “ in which we can travel to each other through space and time, feel each other without being in physical contact. To love means to be awake to this flow, not only to enjoy it when it is present, but also to concern oneself with it, to see to it that it is not blocked through images, through fear and resistance, through denial. To love means to see the river which links everything and everyone and to feel responsible for it.

Reality

Reality has no opposite. It is. It simply is. It knows no duality, the way we constantly experience in our alienation from reality. All that is not real must end, so that reality can appear. All that veils reality must burn in the flame of awareness. The unreal will never become real, hate never become love, greed never become generosity. In being seen, lies an end to hatred. In recognising greed something new is born, which stands for itself alone.

But if one wants to see reality as being the opposite of something, because that is what we tend to do, then I would see it as the opposite of pleasure, this inherent tendency in us which is almost impossible to overcome, of wanting to pursue what gives us pleasure. At first this sounds like a paradox perhaps, and seems unexpected. But when one observes it more precisely in the process of self-knowledge, the connections become apparent.

To give primary importance to pleasure makes for stress. One feels driven. One is constantly after something, trying to accomplish what is not appropriate at a particular moment. This already prevents one from observing what is real, in peace. Reality is lost because of it. One is blinded. One creates illusions. The inclination for pleasure however, goes together unavoidably, with fear and frustration, as one never gets what one would actually like. Thus, a new reality arises, one which is sad and gloomy. The original reality is hidden and lost to us. Depth is lost, one creates a superficial, shallow and illusionary reality in which thought, stress, ambition, competition, envy and jealousy and everything that comes out of it, plays an important role. One is soon lost in confusion, chaos, conflict and illusion. Beneath all this, now as before, lies naturally, the actual reality. But one doesn’t see any more, one doesn’t hear any more, one doesn’t feel any more. And the pleasure which one had sought, is of course no longer something that gives pleasure. Instead, it has turned into dependency, addiction, suffering, and clinging, an endless struggle over something that is not going to succeed.

Pleasure, or perhaps better still, enjoyment, happiness, beautiful things, all of this is part of life. Excluding it would not solve the problem. This is what many religions, many religious paths which have engaged in asceticism have attempted to do. As a result their followers have only lost the beauty and become entangled in insoluble contradictions.

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