Defining “Sensory Gratification”
Sensory Gratification means choosing things because they feel good to our senses, as opposed to making choices based on wisdom, true virtues, higher values, or spiritual principles, like Selfless Service, Harmlessness, or Lovingkindness.
To be driven by Sensory Gratification is a form of Grasping and Aversion. Like an immature child, we grasp at what we like and turn away from or avoid what we don’t like. We desire and seek what feels good or is “gratifying” to our physical senses.
Sensory Gratification also drives the limiting pattern of seeking comfort and shunning discomfort, even when what is uncomfortable is better for us and/or others. This too, is a lower behavioural pattern which we perpetually fall into unless we consciously choose otherwise.
At its absolute base, Sensory Gratification is driven by our lower instincts, our animal nature, and our physical appetites, habits, and addictions!
We must see and use our senses as the tools they are, but not let our tools control us and keep our awareness trapped within and driven by our lowest self.
Sensory Gratification and Initiation
In terms of achieving self-control, passing initiations, and gaining mastery; as disciples upon the higher spiritual path, we must choose to spend the majority of our free time in service, and not wasting our lives in the self-indulgent behaviour of gratifying our senses!
Yes, we can seek joy – enjoyment: the engendering of joy – but remember, true Joy is a primary quality of the Soul, not the incarnate Personality. Hence, it is through alignment with and living as our Souls that we can embody the greatest joy, not by focusing on our stimulated body senses.
Our Souls all live as one, endlessly giving towards the betterment of the whole – this is the source of their joy – as one is lifted, all are lifted. Therefore, like our Souls, it is in joyous selfless giving that we engender the joy that lasts – in contrast to the momentary fleeting happiness we get from seeking pleasure.
When we live to give, when we aspire towards living within the vast inclusive oneness that our Souls dwell in, this is when joy awakens within us. And when we strive to live this way, this leads us briskly down the path of initiation.
We must remember that in essence, the primary problem with “seeking gratification” as a driver, is that ultimately, it pulls our focus into the low-vibrational dense senses, away from the high-vibrational awareness of our Soul and above!
The term Sensory Gratification is referring to gratifying our physical senses, but it could just as easily be applied to our instincts and lower emotions, for indeed, our emotions or desires are frequently driving the seeking out of pleasure. Technically, as sensory gratification relates to our physical senses, we would address this while striving for the 1st Initiation, but our desires for such stimulation must be considered, and this brings us into the domain of what must be mastered for the 2nd Initiation. In truth, it is unlikely most will master their desire for sensory stimulation and gratification until they pass their 2nd Initiation.
As we are focusing on our feelings, both physical and emotional, we must learn to distinguish between them, and in fact, between all feeling states – without clear discernment, mastering anything is impossible.
Clarifying Our Feelings
Not all feelings are equal, nor do they serve us in the same way. What we register as feelings, and especially, “what feels good,” is a statement most frequently used about our lower feeling states. But we also have higher feeling states that vibrate at levels far beyond the physical or astral levels!
Therefore, when I suggest not making choices based on our feelings, I am not referring to these higher feeling states like Vibrational Alignment, Intuition, or Love, for example – these feelings are essential guidance to embrace. Nor am I speaking about utterly ignoring our sensory feelings and instincts, because they can also tell us about danger and what it is right to avoid. Clearly, we are speaking about the problem of “choosing from these lower inputs alone,” without evaluation, discernment, or moderation – we do not want to be a slave to our lower sensations!
In essence, the problem lies in maya, glamour, and illusion, and using feelings at these levels for guidance, as they will always guide us incorrectly, and usually into deeper identification with matter – the opposite direction to the spiritual path, which is liberation from matter.
While relying on the higher feelings may sound sensible and reasonable to you, the fact is, many people are still Feeling Illiterate. They do not understand that we register seven different levels or states as “feelings.” And this means they lack sufficient knowledge to use their feelings as an accurate barometer for wise choices, if they are in fact consciously choosing and not simply operating unconsciously from habit, addiction, and reaction. Hence, many folks are choosing from Sensory Gratification without even realising they are doing so!
Emotional and Mental Gratification
As “gratification” can appear at all levels, and if not kept in check, can cause many types of limiting problems within us, let’s also consider Emotional Gratification, or indulging our desires, or gaining stimulation by seeking to experience either side of any of the pairs of emotional opposites; and Mental Gratification, or the empowering of the story of our identity entity and the skewed perceptions of its true strengths, comprehension, insights, abilities, and our sense of self-importance.
With these two higher levels of gratification, we must consider personal ambition and pride – the former is a block to achieving mastery over our desire nature and emotions, the latter is a block to mastery of the mind. Both are qualities we could link to titillating gratification.
Breakthroughs and Gratification
If we are striving for self-mastery, and therefore, to pass Initiations, we are working to achieve breakthroughs, to break through all that binds and limits us.
If, on this journey, we are blessed to see the problems of Seeking Sensory, Emotional, and Mental Gratification, and we then commit to striving for liberation, we must be ever vigilant for delusion and self-deception! It is very easy to get swept into emotional and mental self-satisfaction when we make a breakthrough like freeing ourselves from Sensory Gratification as a personal driver.
To better understand the potential dangers, let’s unpack “breakthroughs.”
As the term breakthrough suggests, and in regard to conscious evolution, some thing, some field of limitation, is broken through. The key word here is “break,” meaning “broken” – the old limiting pattern no longer functions as it is ruptured, shattered, destroyed, or permanently changed.
Beyond freeing ourselves from a limiting paradigm, with each true breakthrough we make, we gain access to greater awareness, resources, and capacities. If the door to greater resources does not open before and within us, then it is not a genuine breakthrough, though it could still be an insight on the path towards a breakthrough.
With all breakthrough-increased capacities, must come greater responsibility. For the truly spiritual person, this means using wisdom to direct the new resources towards and into our field of service.
If we do not use the new awareness and abilities in service of others, we are using them in service to the little individual self. Indeed, all we are then doing is indulging our self-satisfaction with greater force, and thereby empowering self-glorification through our narrative or story of “breaking through” – we are empowering pride, and hence, our mental gratification!
Let all of us who identify as Soul or Spirit in Form, not fall into such base orientation!
To freedom from the false high of Gratification – in all its myriad forms!
Azure Seer
If you wish to learn about our Seven Feeling States, see my detailed Article: On Feeling Literacy and Resonance
If you want to take a Deep Dive int the Nature of Heart-Based Relations, from an esoteric perspective, see my Article: On Heart-Based Relations – an esoteric deep dive