Neutralization

Neutralization

Posted by gurukripa

(CAVEAT: The following write up on ‘Neutralization’ is based on teachings of Swami Parthasarathy & subsequent group discussions by students of Vedanta Academy)

What is Neutralization?

Neutralization is a state where a person derives no pleasure upon contact with an object but experiences displeasure without the object. Then he is said to have neutralized with reference to that object. All human beings are neutralized w.r.t. oxygen, use of eyes, limbs etc. The word ‘Addiction’ is used in common parlance to mean neutralization, especially with sense objects.

What is meant by pleasure upon contact?

Pleasure upon contact is nothing but cessation of agitation. The desire to possess and enjoy the object causes the agitation. This agitation seems to relieve itself upon contact with the object. This cessation of agitation is termed as pleasure.

More the relief you feel, greater is the pleasure. When you have a desire to enjoy an object, building up the desire to the optimum builds the potential to enjoy it. Building up the desire is not to be understood in terms of craving. Of course, there is increase in the desire. Like, desire for mango over a period of non-seasonal 9 months. But it is not that all the time you are constantly craving for mango. With the potential built up to the maximum, you contact the object; then you feel a sense of pleasure.

Why does this pleasure diminish on subsequent contacts?

Pleasure is registered when there is full potential in terms of enjoyment of the object and you contact it. After cessation of agitation upon the first contact, one needs to consciously build up the original potential, in order to maintain the same level of enjoyment. But before that potential is built up, the contact is made. So there is a fall in the pleasure content. The same holds good with subsequent contacts.

If there is a diminishing pleasure content, what makes a person contact the object frequently?

A person does and must have desire in order to eek enjoyment in contact of the object. But when he experiences pleasure, he believes that it is the contact of the object that gives him the pleasure. If the contact of the object has to be the source of pleasure, then every subsequent contact should produce the same pleasure. Hence the pleasure is not in the contact.

Is it then, the desire to enjoy + the object à both meeting together that gives the enjoyment?

In that case, how will a person know that he has reached his optimum, in order to contact and derive pleasure? Also, during this time lapse, will he not be agitated?

Contact only signifies cessation of agitation. How much it is able to really satiate is going to determine the pleasure derived out of the contact. Hence the variation of pleasure is not directly linked with contact.

Is one’s potential built up naturally with time lapse? In other angle, if you fully enjoy a mango if you eat it after one year, will there be any difference if you eat it after two years?

Suppose you have a capacity to eat 2 mangoes. You eat the very first mango of the season and enjoy. You enjoy thoroughly. If you eat the same type of 2 mangoes the next week, everything else remaining the same, you derive a lesser enjoyment – then that means that you have not yet developed your potential appetite. That potential might come, say, after a month. Hence, time lapse after a month makes no difference. So it is absurd to compare between one year and two years in this context.

Is there a difference between enjoying pleasure and avoiding displeasure as in the case of post-neutralization state?

It is clear in case of natural neutralization, like breathing oxygen, using limbs, etc. While doing these, there is no actual pleasure registered. But there is tremendous displeasure when the usage is denied. But in these cases there is a perpetual contact.

This is not so in case of sense contacts. In other words, nobody can be with alcohol all 24 hours, all 7 days in a week. Still a person may get neutralized with alcohol. It may be something like – he should drink one glass of alcohol every morning and one every evening. Mechanically, he does this. But there is absolutely no pleasure derived out of this exercise. Also, he feels very uncomfortable without drinking that glass of alcohol. Hence he is said to be neutralized with intake of alcohol.

In case of pre-neutralization, there is clearly joy registered upon contact. After neutralization there is no such joy registered.

Pre-neutralization – there is an agitation and the person seeks contact with a view to derive pleasure. The contact ends the agitation.

Post-neutralization – there is no pleasure-seeking attitude. There is no registration of what comes out of the experience. Perhaps there is no registration of the experience itself. Of course, he is agitated when denied contact.

In the second case, if we take denial of object into consideration, there is an agitation created in one’s mind (displeasure). This agitation stops only upon contact. Why can’t we then call it pleasure? What is the difference between this agitation and the erstwhile agitation?

In the first case, where there is a pleasure-seeking attitude, desire causes an agitation which is a burden on a normal man. In the second case, where he only avoids displeasure, the contact itself is required to brand him as a normal man. Without the contact he is not what he is. For example, a person who is neutralized with smoking, when denied a cigarette, is not what he is. This is his state post-neutralization. 

To put it in the form of an equation –

  • X + Cigarette = Pleasure
  • Upon neutralization, X = X + Cigarette
  • Then X – Cigarette = Displeasure

PS: The following ideas may be taken up for discussion in a subsequent post dealing with the same subject:

  1. Referring to building up of one’s potential, if you say that it should not be equated to craving and hence strengthening of desire on that account, then how come one contact is different from another contact?  I.e. if it is not desire building up, what is it that is going to cease in case of contact, to give the pleasure?
  2. Also, if a person is not contacting an object, but is constantly craving or thinking about it, the very statement ‘Abstinence is pleasure’ seems absurd. We may say if a person constantly muses upon a sense object, he is agitated and it transforms itself into contact. In that case, if you say external (actual) contact is a further extension of internal contact (craving), where is the question of abstinence? Again abstinence may refer to mental abstinence. But very clearly we are dealing with physical abstinence.

 Namah parama rishibhyo namah parama rishibhyah