Yesterday, we looked at this quote by Nisargadatta Maharaj:
The desire to find the Self will surely be fulfilled, provided you want nothing else. But you must be honest with yourself and really want nothing else. If in the meantime you want many other things and are engaged in their pursuit, your main purpose may be delayed until you grow wiser and cease being torn between contradictory urges.
Sometimes we have strong worldly desires, and it feels like nothing short of sacrifice to let them go. We might want a loving relationship, financial security, a child or grandchild, a home of our own, a home in a dream location, retirement or something else that feels really strong for us.
What are we to do with these desires? Repress them?
Of course not. Repression is never helpful.
Today’s reading recommends looking at desires with unrushed quiet clarity.
What do our worldly desires represent?
I’ve experienced very strong desires other than the desire to awaken. Sometimes, those other desires felt stronger than the desire to awaken. Sometimes, my mind whispered, “When I get that, I will be able to devote more time to awakening.” That thought made a desire feel really strong, because it became a “necessary” prerequisite to awakening.
However, when I looked at any worldly desire clearly, this is what I found:
- My other desire put awakening off to someday, after I achieved this.
- I realized that if I achieved this desire, ego would replace it with another desire that had to be achieved as a prerequisite to awakening.
- I saw that all desires other than the desire to awaken are delays.
- I saw that no desire other than awakening is final. If one desire is achieved, the mind will replace it with another desire. It is a never-ending path of desire and delay.
- I realized that any worldly desire comes with new problems to think about and solve.
- I came to see that any desire but awakening keeps me tied to the world, and therefore tied to my self as this body-mind-personality.
By looking at desires clearly, I was able to let go of even the strongest desires. Interestingly, some of those desires became manifest anyway. They came about on their own without being distractions for me. My awakening did not wait on them. Most likely, they were able to manifest because they ceased to be a distraction. Once they were benign, there wasn’t anything that blocked their manifestation.
(Sometimes when we desire something, we unconsciously desire it because we think we need things a certain way to feel safe, to be worthy, to fulfill lack or for some other wrong-minded reason. What we don’t realize is that by focusing on the desire, we focus on the feeling, “I am unsafe,” or the feeling, “I am unworthy” or the feeling of lack, etcetera. Those ideas can block manifestation of the desired object or circumstance, because unsafe manifests as more perceived unsafe; unworthy manifests as more perceived unworthiness; lack manifests as more perceived lack, and etcetera. When a desire based on a wrong-minded belief is let go, the associated focus on that belief is also let go, which can clear the way for a previous dream to become manifest.)
Of course, I’ve also had desires that haven’t manifested. Since I let them go, they aren’t missed. In fact, if they aren’t totally forgotten, they are seen as unnecessary clutter that was never needed in the first place.
If you would like more help letting go of worldly desires, refer to these tips from Year 1:
Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.
