Daily Meditation: Friday, January 21, 2005

Excesses and pleasures - must be paid for in one way or another

01/21/2005

Provided that we wrong no one, each of us is free in theory to do whatever we want, even to indulge ourselves. Why not? The problem is that by engaging in extravagances, in satisfying all our desires, we sign a pact with inferior entities, and later we are at their mercy and are unable to extricate ourselves. You have had a good time, you have eaten and drunk, symbolically speaking, and now you have to pay. This is precisely the meaning of the famous pact between Faust and Mephistopheles. Of course, entertainment and pleasures are enjoyable; you have new experiences, you live! Yes, but this is very costly. Human beings are never short of ideas when it comes to amusing themselves and savouring pleasures, but they are blind when it comes to foreseeing the consequences. They focus on pleasure alone, and pleasure is rarely a good counsellor. Nothing comes without a price. How many have ruined their health and destroyed their psychic equilibrium in exchange for a few pleasures!