Tagged: desire
The pursuit of happiness
What is the recipe to be happy? What is the method?
Why are most people looking for that “achievement”?
It appears that no matter what we DO, no matter what we achieve, there is something “lacking” and precisely that is what we believe could give us happiness.
Are you wealthy? Are you healthy? Are you vital? Are you beautiful? Are you famous? Are you intelligent? Are you confident? Are you wise? Are you attractive? Are you in a fulfilling relationship?
What is lacking?
That is what “I need” to be happy. That is what I desire.
Isn’t happiness the absence of desires? That is an inaccurate definition!
I wish you to be happy! That is my desire. Would that desire make me unhappy?
We try to define happiness, research it and hold it with our own bare hands although it is a shadow of intellectual illusions.
We dream about a constant state that we haven’t experienced. Life changes. Why can’t we? We believe that to prolong a moment of joy, is happiness. Belief upon belief we live in the anxiety of “achieving” a dream, just to keep on dreaming. When are we going to wake up?
A donkey is looking to grab a flying carrot. It looks so flawless, so tasty! That is our pursuit of happiness.
Awareness dictates that carrots exist, but they don’t fly.
A happy person does not have thoughts about being happy or unhappy. That is why he IS happy.
Every experience in Life is necessary just as it is, no matter how we label them.
Question: Isn’t desire the origin of suffering?
“You said that attachment is the origin of suffering. The Buddha said that the root cause of suffering is desire. That is the second “Noble Truth” in Buddhism. There is a vast difference between desire and attachment. Do you think that you have the truth and Buddha does not?”
http://www.pbs.org/edens/thailand/buddhism.htm
Thank you for your question.
No. Ahnanda does not preach truth. He only shares his experiences and realizations.
Take a look at the link below:
http://www.zen-buddhism.net/buddhist-principles/four-noble-truths.html
Here is a quote from that website: The cause of suffering is: “the attachment to the desire to have (craving) and the desire not to have (aversion)”.
What happened then? Perhaps this website has the “wrong” interpretation? Millions of people believe in what you said: “Desire is the cause of suffering.” However, that belief even though held by millions is plain and simple nonsense.
This problem arises when we believe what the book says, the guru, the expert without looking at our own experience.
Buddha did not say that. It was interpreted like that.
What millions know is only the interpretation, the translation of someone who may have many degrees, who may be very proficient in many languages, but who does not have the capacity yet for inner observation. Perhaps that was a Buddhist follower, maybe not.
Through that nonsense of getting rid of desire, many “spiritual” people are denying life to their own experience through the ideal of DOING what the Buddha “said.”
Misinterpretation is the mother of all scriptures. Please quote me on that.
Perhaps if you take a test in “introduction to Buddhism” you may have to choose: “Desire is the root of all suffering” as the “right” answer. You may score 100% because of that answer, but know that your “right” answer in the “Office World,” is not so in Life.
We could have many desires. As many as we want. Suffering will kick in when we are attached to a particular desire. That means that we may need to attain/possess the object of that desire to feel fulfilled in Life.
Nevertheless, let me share a “noble truth” with you. Attachment is not the true source of suffering, but the ONE who is attached is…. Yes, the “I.”
To intellectually understand the above, is not easy. Therefore, let us stick with “attachment.” But, if “attachment” is hard to perceive, then “desire” is an easy answer. It will sell many books. 🙂
So what do we take home from all this?
Any spiritual guru or any self-realized being including the “word of God,” are by nature, limited by language. In other words, to truly understand what they are trying to convey, we need to look at those words through the mirror of our own personal experience. If it does not make sense, then that is so for us at that moment. That is OK. Move on.
If it makes sense, then do not try to “practice it.” Allow for Life to work on you and go beyond the intellectual realization, by integrating THAT as part of you. Then, you know for you ARE that. BEING is KNOWING.
But if you don’t understand and you are simply following what someone is telling you to practice, then my friend; you are not being honest with yourself, with your current state of BEING.
You may want to be like Buddha, but you ARE not there yet.
Do you think that practice will get you there?
It can only distract you from what you ARE… until you are AWARE.
Thus, “practice” is an entertainment in the meantime. Nothing wrong with that. 🙂
Question: How to eradicate physical attraction?
Can you Please share your view point and a solution to the following spiritual problem:
I want to get rid of physical attraction from its root COMPLETELY. When we get attracted towards a good looking body, we feel full of thoughts like, wow what a good body, I wish I had him/her, I wish i could make him/her mine, followed by some sexual and normal usual fantasies. There is a huge feeling of discontentment with this kind of feeling, because end of the day, you don’t have him/her!!How to get rid of these two things? Physical attraction leading to discontentment!
Can dedicating yourself completely to meditation and the process of awakening/self realization help in this matter!
Thank you for your question.
For centuries, there has been misinformation about what is “spiritual.” The belief that a human being needs to act like a spirit or an angel to be “good” has been turning followers into masochists. This belief is so ingrained, that we will not realize how much harm we are inflicting to ourselves for the sake of following some man made, mind conditioned ideal.
You may think that Yogananda didn’t feel physical attraction or Buddha or Jesus or whoever, therefore “I “must DO it to be as “elevated” as they are.
That way of DOING spirituality is pure self-violence.
There is a process for everything in Life. It may be true, that the above beings did not feel physical attraction at some point in their lives, however; I can assure you that it wasn’t always like that.
Not to feel attraction is the result of allowing the process of feeling attraction.
Your mind and its conditioning believes that once you find the method to eradicate attraction, you will be “better off.”
That is an illusion.
Ahnanda knows that to feel physical attraction, is a gift of living Life through the manifestation of a human experience. OBSERVE what it does to you, how it takes you away from “you.” That magnet is not depending on you and your “choices”. It happens.
Rather than tasting the moment, you want to get rid of it because your mind interferes with the recurrent thought of possessing that which attracts you. As a little baby who cannot have what he wants, the mind will cry: “If I cannot have it, let me destroy what makes me desire another.”
That sort of destructive and violent mind is the one creating that sort of “spirituality.”
You feel attracted towards a good-looking body? Enjoy the experience. You want to possess that body?
Tell that person that. Tell that person that you only want her/his body.
Perhaps your mind may learn that there is more than a body to a person. Can I get the body and not the whole person? Why get the whole cow when I can milk it instead? After all Life is about ME… and that is why LOVE cannot be known at that point of our journeys.
Many have gone through that “spiritual” route. Our society allows that. Pay for your desires. There are all sorts of bodies to select from.
Do you want to try that? That is the opportunity to satiate your fantasies. One “solution” is there. What is stopping you?
If you really want something, you ought to accept the consequences as well for whatever they are. Are you ready for that? One way or another, you will gain an experience in Life. Remember: Ultimately, WE DO what WE ARE for that brings full satisfaction.
Physical attraction does not lead to discontentment. The possessiveness in your mind does. Do you want the solution for that? Possess as much as you can. There will be learning in that experience.
You ask if dedicating yourself completely to meditation and the process of self-realization will help in this matter.
Definitely No. First go into your demons, into your possessive mind and your idealistic perceptions. Don’t run away into “nice” ideals.
Self-realization happens to you. It is not something that “you” DO or pursue for that to happen. So, enjoy Life while that happens! 🙂
Oh yes… As we know, Love is the solution… So you have 2 solutions to your “spiritual” question. 🙂
The unreachable star
You are the far unreachable star
melting my heart with one desire
to be there, to reach to you
be part of the selected few
My day is lit with your presence
my night is just your omnipresence
that is the time where my dreams
meet your name as it seems
In the darkest moments of my life
i could see you and be fine
to be there will take time
for now, to see you is sublime
Sparkling lights are your eyes
their depth is truly a work of art
your beauty matches your heart
you are the star… among the stars!
The heart’s mind
I know the answer of your issues
no need to cry for spilled water
resolve your sadness on the tissues
and forget about that blotter
is the mind weeping for help
moving the gloomy tides of despair
to the unsinkable peaceful heart
floating now, in the ocean of scare
Dry up the vile waters of desires
with the warm sunshine of love
unveil those rays til the dark expires
let the heart be free as a pristine dove
Life brings the tides of the mind
just to be seen with a candlelight
for the brightness of hope
is always sweeter with love.
Understanding “consequence” rather than desire.
Ego is that we separates everything. Ego isolates. Ego labels. Ego thinks. Ego makes sense out of things.
The understanding of the Drama gives us the tool to see that everything flows and has a completion by itself. There is no need to "make effort."
How about that? It sounds disturbing, right? Baba says to make effort… 😉
If there is Ego, there is Effort. So, as long as we are driven by Ego, we will need to make "effort."
Soul consciousness is natural to us. Baba has said so. We are souls. Point #1 in any Raja Yoga course, then for heavens sake, why is it so difficult to recognize something which is so NATURAL?
Because there is ego. Ego wants to survive. The mind wants to think and make plans out of nothing, making an important "something" with a disturbing meaning.
Something to "do." Something to think about.
As long as there is a desire to be something even if that something is to become a Deity, we will be experiencing Ego.
Desires work in future tense. Desires are goals to pursue, in that pursuing something, we forget about "being" about living "now."
If we "do" ego-lessness, we automatically receive a consequence. There is no need to desire to be that. Any desire is ego.
Ego-lessness is our journey. It takes just a second to realize it but…. many karmic accounts to burn, before we get there… this is the price, the consequence; of our previous deeds. The Drama is about natural consequences, not about desires.
Everything is automatic, it works like a clock, when we flow in the stream of easiness and "being-ness." The minute we "desire" to do something about it, to be faster, to be "more successful" or to be something which we are not…to desire… that is the moment the magic is gone. Everything has a consequence and that consequence works based on what we "are." Doing is merely a consequence of being. Please see this.
How can we become ego-less? Paradoxically, by not desiring to be egoless, but by being aware, accepting of that what is right now. To recognize it, to observe it as a "detached observer." That could be a good first step. Recognizing something that "is," means to see the potential to be what "is" not.
That is to embrace change without desire. To be natural.
Exploring the Depth of Living 