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VI. The Goal of Life is Bliss Only
It is the established doctrine of all systems 53 that
bliss unmixed with any suffering is the highest goal of
life. The commonly accepted view that there are four goals
of life--namely, religious duty, the acquisition of wealth,
pleasure, and final liberation 54--is to be taken
figuratively. This is because, like the saying, "The plow
is life," it suggests that things which are really only
means are, in fact, ends.55 Therefore our thesis that bliss
alone is the goal of life is not upset.
According to the logicians of the Ny膩ya, there are
two goals of life: bliss and the absence of suffering. 56
But this is not correct, because it is simpler to take bliss
alone as the goal of life. The determining factor in a
given cognition's giving rise to a desire to act upon it is
its having pleasure as its object, not its having either
pleasure or the absence of suffering as its object. This
would involve unnecessary prolixity. 57 In fact, the absence
of suffering is useful only at it is a pre-condition of
bliss.58
The authors of the Ny膩ya treatises, however, might
object to this, arguing as follows: "If it can be said that
the absence of suffering is useful only insofar as it leads
to bliss, it is equally possible to say, because of the lack
of any deciding factor, 59 that bliss is useful only insofar