Do your pleasures really please you?

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner (Q): Pranam Acharya Ji, please help me understand deeply the futility of chasing bodily pleasures. Looking back, my love for pleasures has always been above everything. There is the very strong feeling of pull, of missing out when I don’t act on my urges, which makes me act eventually. Gratitude.

Acharya Prashant (AP): Futility does not lie in chasing pleasures. Futility lies in chasing futile pleasures. Do your pleasures really succeed in pleasing you? It doesn’t look that way from your face. Have you ever been really pleased by anything? What kind of pleasures then you are talking of? Why call them pleasures, call them illusions.

Being a pleasure seeker is your natural state. Man, for substantial reason has been called as a manifestation of joy. Have you seen all these Sanyasis from various orders, how they keep calling themselves as ‘Turiyānanda’, Ātmānanda, Brahmānanda, Kevalānanda? That is one thing common in their names. What? Ānanda. Have you ever wondered, why all of them, monks, necessarily have ‘Ānanda’ in their names? What they are saying is, “After everything, Ānanda”. It doesn’t matter what comes before. After everything, there remains ‘Ānanda’. So, it is ok, if you love pleasure. ‘Ānanda’ is something that you must love…