Is it wrong to have desires? Is the desire to have wealth considered a bad thing? Do you feel ashamed of your desires?
Desire can be a major conflict for many people when they don’t have the right understanding about desire. I am a classic example, because of various childhood conditioning, I used to think that people who desire to have huge wealth in their life is a curse, it is better not to have such desire and just live a mediocre life. I was also influenced by my superficial understanding of Buddhism which says “desire and ignorance lie at the root of suffering”. My shallow cognition was that all desires are cause of suffering. By desire, Buddhists refer to craving pleasure, material goods and immortality, all of which are wants that can never be satisfied. As a result, desiring them can only bring suffering.
It is no surprise that I didn’t choose a rich husband or have a desire to be a multi-millionaire! I was carrying many wrong ideas about desires which formed the basis of my cognition till I came upon the complete understanding of desires from Vedic tradition.
Here are the truths you need to catch!
First of all, human beings exist from the Source of life. Desire to exist is from the same Source and desire to expand is also from the same Source. This means that desire to exist is not something that is separate from existing. In the Vedic culture, there is a truth – “Sat Chit Ananda”, “Sat” means existing, “Chit” means knowing that you exist, celebrating your very existence is “Ananda”. Existing – Sat is eternal and since it is eternal, the desire to expand is also eternal. The desire to expand is nothing wrong since desire for expansion is eternal as existence is eternal. This is the very quality of Universe i.e. continuous expansion. Anything that exists expands, anything that expands exists. If we have the desire to exist, desire to create and desire to expand, it is not against the flow of life. This is the first click: “Existing, Exist and Existence are one and the same. Desire for expansion is our natural expression”.
Next, since the truth is desire exists, how are we going to handle it? Do we resist it and destroy it or divert it and enjoy it?
Having a desire to expand is natural and divine, however, in whatever space we choose to expand, it should be expressed as long as it is not interfering with others’ existence. In the grain-based agricultural civilisation, there is no grabbing because it comes from the consciousness of creation and sharing whatever is created with all as compared to the modern currency-based civilisation which we live in now that is built on hoarding and grabbing of wealth. This is when desire becomes a crime because when one’s desire to expand comes from abusing, grabbing, cheating others’ properties or destroying others’ lives. Any authentic desire to exist and expand should be fulfilled without any violence and negativity. The important thing is how we channel the creative energy of desires in the direction that fulfils us without destroying other’ lives and possessions. Fulfilment can only come from the consciousness of creation. Our ability to create wealth is equivalent to the amount of life energy we express. The more life energy we express, the greater in abundance we attract. Second click is: “Align our desires to the consciousness of creation and possibilities without violence”.
Next doubt you may have is – since any pure desire to expand is our nature, then how come many of our desires don’t get fulfilled? Though any authentic desire to expand is natural, but not understanding our true desire is the cause of conflicts in our life. We have plenty of desires and many times we feel we don’t have energy to fulfil all of them. There is a huge difference between true desires vs. borrowed desires. The true desires are our needs or karmas that we brought to exhaust in this life whereas borrowed desires are wants or something we accumulate after assuming this body. The truth is we only have enough energy to fulfil our true desires or needs, hence the first step in spiritual growth is knowing our innate desires or else we will be wasting too much time and effort on the borrowed desires which are not going to bring us fulfilment. All true desires always carry a quality of benefiting the humanity, not just benefiting an individual. Third click is: “True desires are selfless desires which carry the energy of the universe with them for fulfilment”.
Next, you need to understand the Law of Cosmos which is what we call as Law of Karma. This requires us to move deeper into more enlightening aspects of karma beyond the simple theory which we learn from our parents. First secret of Karma is – being stable with the capacity, the ability and inability of your personality. When you are clear about what you can do and what you can’t do, the very spectrum of your consciousness raises to a different frequency. For e.g. if you have 10 capabilities, but you start to promote 25 capabilities. By and by, you will be confused with your true capabilities as you forget your original capabilities and the ones you fabricated. Karma is about your ability to align your words, planning and actions with your capabilities. The second secret of karma is – the actions you perform does not come back to your life as a quantity but by a quality of the actions you picked up. For e.g. somebody has a habit of stealing, as per cosmic law, the effect will be based on the habit of stealing that gets built into his system. When the habit gets ingrained, the unconscious mental setup he acquired brings him into deeper and deeper problems. Only for a man who catches the law of Universe, who attunes himself with the law of Universe, the Universe opens all its mysteries to him. So if you exist in some higher space but your desires are in a lower spectrum of ignorance, violence, anger, fear or greed, your actions will only bring suffering. Anything that is not fulfilled will create a conflict or hangover in you. That hangover is called karma. On the other hand, when you work from higher spectrum such as intuition, true desires or the pure space of completion, the higher energies will be open to you and your actions will be based on highly evolved consciousness which only brings more fulfilment and bliss. There is no karma when you are aligned with the Cosmic laws. The highest spectrum is when the ability to harness the desire energy in its purest form without engrams as shown by the actions of enlightened beings. Fourth click is – “Align everything with your true desires and capabilities.”
In essence, every desire we have is nothing but a reflection of our deep desire for inner fulfilment. We desire something only because it reflects our own infinite possibilities! We desire for power and expansion because we know deep inside, that we are infinite. We desire wealth because we know that we are abundance itself. We desire fulfilling relationships because we know that we are love. Not realizing this truth, we get caught in the object of desire. Repetitively, through that person or object or act, we try to touch the space of fulfilment that is already there within us. The problem is not with having desires – it is with our attitude toward them. Changing the object is never a solution. Changing the attitude is the only solution to go beyond desires. If you cognise this truth, the very object of your desire becomes a doorway to the Divine. Namaste 🙂