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:

Lesson 133

Lesson 164

Lesson 185

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.

The most important characteristic of awakening is the desire to awaken. Without a strong desire to awaken, one is drawn into the mind’s desires, which means one continues to identify with the mind and remains subject to the mind’s highs, lows, misperception and general agitation.

Today’s reading asks you to be “a conscious-minded teacher of yourself.”

What does NTI recommend that you consciously teach yourself?

It recommends that you consciously teach yourself what you want.

A conscious-minded teacher teaches intentionally and deliberately. The teaching doesn’t happen by accident. You are actively involved in helping yourself realize that awakening (truth) is the only thing you really want.

It is as Michael Langford teaches in Chapter 4 of The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss:

70. Thus the key to bringing the ego to an end is the intensity of the desire for freedom.

71. Eagerness for liberation must be equal to the eagerness someone who is being held underwater has for trying to rise to the surface.

72. Reflect on #71 above.

73. Eagerness is another word for the desire for freedom.

74. How great, how intense is the desire of someone being held underwater trying to rise to the surface.

75. He would like to rise to the surface, but he is being held underwater.

76. See how intense his desire is to rise to the surface.

77. Every second his desire to rise to the surface is becoming more and more intense.

78. After one minute, how the intensity of his desire has increased.

79. After two minutes underwater, the desire for oxygen and therefore his desire to rise to the surface, is ten times greater.

80. After three minutes underwater, his desire to rise to the surface is one hundred times greater.

81. After four minutes underwater, his desire to rise to the surface is one thousand times greater.

82. How great, how intense is his desire?

83. That is how intense your desire for liberation must become.

As today’s reading says:

Desire is the foundation from which all else springs forth.
Be true to your true desire, and it shall lead you truly.

As Nisargdatta Maharaj said:

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.

Today is a good day to ask inner wisdom how you can most effectively teach yourself that awakening is all you truly want.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.

Today’s reading is about your current life situation, whatever it is. Whatever your health is like, whatever your financial situation is like, whatever your daily work is, whatever your personal relationships are, and etcetera—every detail  of your current life is absolutely perfect  for your awakening. There isn’t one single detail about your life that is a mistake. Every bit of it is exactly as it is, because you are ready to awaken, and this is the life that will awaken you.

When we live our daily life with this attitude, we awaken more quickly. If we judge some aspect of our life as “wrong,” and wish it were different than it is, we delay awakening. We misperceive the gift as a burden, so we do not accept the gift, and we do not use the gift for the purpose it was given.

I have come to see myself as still. I am still, and life circumstances are like a movie that plays in me. I enjoy the show, whatever it is. If, for a moment or two, I do not enjoy the show, I return my attention to my Self. When I do, peace returns, and then joy returns, and forgetfulness is forgotten.

When one sees herself as still, one does not see a reason for the movie as it is. It simply is as it is.

If you do not see yourself as still, you believe you are a character in the movie. You feel tossed about by the circumstances of the current scene. This is a misperception about what you are. This misperception is your only problem.

While you are susceptible to misperception, the movie has a reason or purpose. Its purpose is your awakening. Everything that happens in the movie (the world) is to help you see that you are not in the movie. You are still (unaffected), and the movie is in you. Accept the movie (especially your life circumstances) as having this purpose and this purpose only. Use the movie for your awakening, and you will awaken from the dream that you are a character in the movie.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.