On desire

We have been discussing the influence of ego or the false self on our life. Let us see how this inner  world works.

All through our life we seek happiness. We can say that all our pursuits have this common theme. Underlying our endeavors, this hidden purpose is always there. 

Please understand that this is not at all bad. Seeking happiness is not unworthy thing. Why?

It is our innate nature. We are nothing but Sat-Chit-Ananda. Our natural inclination is ananda. 

But it is wrong to call this happiness in the correct sense of the word , as this ananda is not a state of our mind, but a state of our being itself. Happiness is only a state of our mind while ananda is the state of our being.

So you can see why we seek happiness instead of ananda. We do not know our inner true self or beingness, so we seek happiness of the mind as a substitute. This is managed by our friend the ego who says, happiness is the best thing in the world.

The ego tells us that if we desire objects and get them we would become happy. Let us look at what happens here. There are two outcomes possible. One is that the desire is accomplished. What happens afterwards is curious. We feel temporarily happy. Now instead of being content, we develop allied desires like having some more property , some more money and so on so forth. This is what is called greed. Once greed is developed, we have to run behind that  Later this can lead to delusion , bewilderment and so on. Now what happens when we don't accomplish this desire , then internally a frustration develops , which after a while develops into anger and so on.

So we have seen both the outcomes of pursuing desires in life. Both don't accomplish what we thought would happen namely leading to a state of happiness. Instead it just creates lot of thoughts ,actions and finally leaving us nowhere.

Now you say how does this work? Why do i have desire? This is very easy to see. Desire comes from two things one is the feeling of limitation as we discussed before. Second is from attachment. 

You don't desire each and every thing in this world. You desire things which you are attached to, or pertaining to things which you are attached to. It may be for money, it may be for overcoming insecurity, it may for your kid. For each one it is different. Now you ask how do we get attachment.

This is the most interesting thing. Attachment comes from repeatedly thinking about something. 

If you peer inside your mind you would see how the desire developed in the first place. You started to think about something most of the time. You cannot shake it off. You are always coming back to it. This obviously is what leads to attachment to that entity. Now the mind develops desire for these entities.

Now you ask , is not attachment natural?. Is not attachment part of life. The answer is it is for you to decide where you want to go. If you want to lead a life filled with these endeavors and finally understand that all was not worthy of it, it is fine. If you want to truly see the deceit , it is upto you.

We have already seen how desire works. So you might ask are all desires bad?. 

The answer is no. There is something which we can truly desire and yet be out of all the problems with desire. 

It is desire for the self. This is the only desire we need to have. How can we have that desire. Obviously by attaching ourselves to it, by repeatedly thinking about it, use our mind itself to be 

the pursuer of self. This is what we do when we study philosophy and apply it to our life. Our intellect which is a part of the higher mind becomes enlightened with the knowledge and we decide to substitute all our desires for one desire. The desire for the self.

What is the outcome?. Now the mind has to turn inward from all the external world and focus on the inner world. So this is the only desire which will kill all other desires. 

This has to kill all other desires because as we saw self is unlimited , so having that we would not need anything else. 

Once we realize our true self , we would have truly reached the ananda which was hidden from us. 

This is why i have been telling you, meditation is continuous ..you should always think about your inner being develop  a passion for it , and try to reach upto it. 

The self enquiry is  a wrong term here , self abidance is the correct term. As we discussed before, even though we develop a desire for the self using the mind , the real process would be out of your mind when we reach upto the self.

This can be compared to the following . We may desire a sweet in the mind but our actions are using the hand and mouth. Just like that the desire for the self is in the mind, but the way to achieve it is to feel our true sense of being or existence. To probe and locate it continuously. Where is the real "I am"?. The true sense of being...which illumines all.