Any opposition effectively directed against the urges as self-preservation, self-assertion or self-expression may lead to the projection of the psychic defense mechanisms known in the fields of psycho-analysis as identification, projection, interjection, rationalisation, compensation, fantasy, repression, regression, symbolism, dissociation, condensation, displacement, conversion, testing out, dreams, etc. Fear, hatred, anger and violence of any kind, kleptomania, truancy, wandering, sleepiness, gluttony, talkativeness, excessive physical activity and sportiveness may also tern out to be, the consequences of such opposition, all which, come out for the purpose of finding an outlet for their movement in order to relieve oneself of nervous tension and mental stress caused by factors hostile to the natural functions of the system. In fact, a behaviour or action may be covered by the following factors: (1) physical constitution, (2) internal changes, chemical or mental, (3) suppressed or opposed instincts clamouring for expression, (4) dominance of urges, unconscious or rational, (5) compensation for defect in any part of the organism, (6) company of others, (7) study of books, and the like. Psychological conditions may be brought about by physical factors, and vice versa. Chemical changes going on in the body may stir up an instinct or some instincts. Psychological states, such as joy or grief, or a state of repressed feelings or other internal forces may bring about changes in bodily conditions.

The urges of the human individual which have obvious objectives before them can, when they are not allowed free expression in the direction of their choice, divert themselves to substitutes for their main intentions. Such are, for instance, the satisfactions derived by instincts through innocuous channels. These are what go by the name of social work, political activity, vocational pursuits, philanthropic deeds, acts of service to others or any such physical or mental engagements by which the unconscious urges of one’s energy are drained off. The pursuit of aesthetics along the lines of literature, music, dance, drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture and gardening may act as good substitutes providing a wide range for the roving of the instincts along channels of joy, personal or social.

The rational urges are of quite a different nature and they move in the direction of the pursuit of science and philosophy. Study of mathematics, physics, chemistry, technology, astronomy, geology, geography, biology, psychology, axiology, sociology, logic, epistemology, metaphysics and ethics are the major branches of rational learning. These subjects draw the attention of one’s mind as aims in themselves, as independent values of life, though it is not difficult to discover that they are certainly means to the fulfilment of the vital needs of the individual, which work either as the calls of its physical side or the aspirations of the mental and intellectual faculties, which intend, in the end, to contribute the requisites necessary for the growth of the body or the mind in the social context of its existence.

The experience of happiness is the outcome of one’s affiliation to the objects to which one is attached, whether they be animate, such as wife, children, etc., or inanimate like house, property, etc., or any other objects of gratification which are supposed to bring satisfaction by contact of the senses therewith or even contemplated by the mind merely, such as name, fame, power, authority, prestige and the like. When, through gratification of the thirst for objects by means of contactual union, the senses and the mind are calmed down and, therefore, at that particular moment of time, do not go back to the objects—that flash of a moment of cessation of sensory and mental activity attended with consciousness is the experience of happiness; while desire and restlessness are due to the thirst for such enjoyment and it is these that cause unhappiness, for the alienation of the mind and the senses from the consciousness of Selfhood by means of their movement towards an external object is what wrenches them from establishment in the consciousness of Selfhood, which is another name for the experience of happiness. Thus, indulgence in the enjoyment of objects through the senses and the mind cannot bring about a cessation of thirst for objects, for the passion for objects increases by the application of the senses to enjoyment, and further, the impetuousness of the senses in search of such gratification gets intensified. Ignorance of the fact of happiness being the same as the experience of Selfhood is the cause of the objectification of pleasure, and beauty is nothing but pleasure objectified in an external content of sense-perception. Inasmuch as a basic error in the very conception of happiness is involved in its experience through the senses and the mind, it is indubitably concluded that the experience of pleasure or happiness by contact of any kind is another name for working in the darkness of ignorance for the purpose of a satisfaction which it cannot bring.

The perception of an object is really a simultaneous forgetfulness of the Self, for what is known as the object is nothing but a screen that covers a part of the consciousness of the Self, so that the Self which is inclusive of all being, seems to miss the presence of that particular feature in itself which is screened by the object-consciousness, just as a particular geometrical shape of a part of the sun may be obscured from one’s vision if one looks at the sun by means of a glass part of which is stained with a touch of pitch or some dark substance, and the pattern of the obscuration of the sun will be the same as that of the darkening element in the glass. This implies that the consciousness runs towards a particular object due to a loss of consciousness of a particular aspect of its being, and its running towards the external object of a corresponding character or feature is only another name for its attempt at coming in union with that part of itself which it appears to have lost due to loss of consciousness thereof. Thus, every act of object-perception is an endeavour on the part of the Self to unite itself externally with those features or aspects in itself which are obscured by non-awareness.

Thus, loss of consciousness of a particular feature or aspect of oneself, motivating object-perception of a respective character, is brought about by the predominance of certain forces of one’s past karmas, which, due to their insistent pressure upon the self to limit its consciousness to the aperture provided by the forms of their manifestation, obscure the possibility of the self’s knowing that it has also other aspects than what are permitted by the pressure of these forces of karma. Here is, perhaps, the anatomy of desire, sense-perception, and the experience of what is known as pleasure in this world.

Also the perception of the features of any particular object is an abstraction by consciousness of certain groups of characters from the infinite resources of Nature, by limiting the consciousness to motivation in respect of these given features alone, a process that takes place under similar conditions and caused by the same factor as in the case of the perception of an object and desire for the purpose of contactual pleasure. To cite an instance, the perception of blue colour is an abstraction from the resources of sun-light which are far wider than mere blueness. This abstraction gets compelled upon the visual sense due to the limiting character of the structure of that basic substance which is supposed to be blue in colour, that is, the structure which absorbs by abstraction that feature called blueness and excludes every other colour or property belonging to the infinite richness of sun-light. So is every kind of object-perception an abstraction by consciousness, from the infinite resources of the Absolute, of only those characters, which go by the name of objects, due to the obscuration of aspects of consciousness brought about by the peculiar structural finitude of an individual by the forces of karma of the past as described above.