Pleasure.

When we are young we experience pleasure and it makes us feel better.
We then assume that more pleasure will make us feel better still.

What actually happens is that our bodies and minds become addicted to the thrills of pleasure and we experience ecstatic highs followed by bleak, depressive lows.

Rock music has been shown to stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain.  We become addicted to this pleasure.  Drugs have a similar effect.  It is significant that a lot of rock music contains orgasmic guitar crescendos and dirge-like melodies.

Classical music has a different effect.  Much classical music puts the mind into an alpha state or meditative equilibrium.

Most of us spend our lives alternating between these peak experiences and despairing lows which we cure by another episode of pleasure in order to experience that high again.

This is the great illusion.

It is not that pleasure is bad.  It is just not the answer it appears to be.

Through the practice of yoga detachment that we are able to reduce the highs and lows and gain some equilibrium.

It is when we discover love, however, that the picture changes.

At first our moods are dependent on the presence or absence of the loved one (the beloved).

When we discover that giving love is even more satisfying than receiving love we gain some control over our moods.
The more love we give the more love there is to give.

If we them expand the theater of our love to include everyone we experience a stable well-being.

Finally, when, through the practice of prayer and contemplation, we make contact with the divine we discover that God is intimately involved with love.

When we become established in this marriage our anxieties recede.