It is generally attributed to Gautama Buddha that
he said “desirelessness.” When he said “desirelessness,” he is not so stupid to
think that people can exist here without desire. He knows that without desire
there is no existence at all. When you want to be desireless, then your wanting
itself is a big desire.
What
being “desireless” means is that you have no identification with your desires
in all respects. Desires are just things that you play with and you act for.
Without desire, there is no game at all, not any act by anyone at all. But now,
when the desires are not about you anymore. It is just the way it is needed for
this moment, for this situation and everything is there the way it is and you do
whatever you can do about it, then you can be deeply involved with everything,
but still not be identified with it anymore. That is “desirelessness”
Once
that awareness is there, once you are desireless in that sense, there is no
karmic bondage at all for the person acting. Whatever he does any act, even if
he fights a war, there is no karma for him because he has no desire to do
anything like that. It is not coming out of his love or hate for something. It
is just coming because simply, that is the way.
This is
the whole Gita. Krishna is constantly talking aboutnishkarma– not performing any karma – but
insisting that Arjuna should act.
Channel Your Desires
So
do not ever try to fight with your desires and passions. The more you fight the
more they come up. In the puranas they say, if even one drop of blood falls on
the ground while killing an asura, a thousand asuras come out of it. Desires
and passions are like that. If you try and fight with them, if you chop them,
they will spill blood and for every drop…, one thousand more desires and
passions will come up. Fighting them will be futile, it will be a waste of
life. You can never fight with them. You should just be educated for your
desires and passions to flow in the right direction.
Your
desire, your passion and everything you go through is simply plain energy. It
is you who makes it into desire or fear or anger or whatever else. May be these
things are not in your hands right now. Maybe you are not conscious of them.
But it is you who makes them what they are. Whatever the emotion, whatever the
nature of your passion, it is only the effort of your life energies trying to find
a deeper foothold into life. Life energies are only trying to enhance the
experience of life. It is just that if it is focused towards various things in
the world, whenever some thing or someone obstructs its fulfillment you will go
into misery. If it is focused in one direction, the results are very quick.
So
when you desire, desire for the highest in life. Let all your passions be
directed to the highest. Maybe when you are angry you cannot be loving. You
cannot suddenly make your anger into love, but you can direct anger itself. If
you get angry, direct it towards what you hold as the highest. Let your passion
increase. Channelizing them in one direction is in your hands.
Anger is tremendous energy. Lust is also tremendous energy. Direct
it in the right direction. Every energy that you have, every passion you have,
every emotion you have, every thought you have, if they are focused in one
direction, the results are very quick.
Questioner: Dear Sadhguru, it is well known that desire is the
cause of all sorrows and tension. But being a wife and a mother I can’t get rid
of these desires. I seek your valuable advice in this regard. Thank you.
Sadhguru: Now, it’s not because you’re a wife and in turn a
mother that your desires have come. If you were nobody’s wife, probably your
were desiring, when you were nobody’s wife, you were desiring to be somebody’s
wife. Now that you’re somebody’s wife, you desire to have a child and become a
mother. Now that you have a child, now you’re saying, “It is these two entities
which is making me desire”. It is not true. If you are nobody’s nothing, even
then your desire will still burn within you, is that so? Yes or no? If you are
nothing to nobody in the world, still your desire will burn, isn’t it? So
please don’t think your desires are because of your child or your husband or
your family or whatever. Anyway you would desire, because that’s your nature.
Now you made a statement in the question that “desire is the
source of all misery”. Desire is not the source of all misery, unfulfilled
desire is the source of all misery isn’t it? Isn’t it so? Desires fulfilled are
the source of your joy, unfulfilled desires is the source of your misery. Now,
what to do with the desire? Shall we kill the desire? I know people have been
teaching you such things, “You must kill all your desires. Unless you destroy
your desires, your misery will not go.” These teachings have come to you, isn’t
it? Now, if you want to destroy all your desires, all you will have is, you
will have a great desire to destroy all your desires. And you will remain
eternally unfulfilled. “I don’t want any desires!” is this a desire? Is this a
desire or no? Yes. So if you try to play tricks with this, it is not going to
work. Because desire is not desiring for anything in particular. The energy
which you call as desire is not different from the energy that you call as
life. If you want to move from point A to point B, you need a desire, isn’t it?
Now what brought you here today, it is not your bus or car or something else.
It is your desire which has brought you here today, isn’t it? What is it that
will take you home? It is your desire that will take you home. What is it that
will make you eat? It is your desire which will make you eat.
So what you call as desire is not different from what you call
as life. Your life is desire. The very basis of your life is desire, isn’t it?
So if I tell you “Kill the desire”, the only way is to hang yourself. There is
really no other way. Now, “I want to die”, that is also a desire, isn’t it? Yes
or no? So do not deceive yourself with these things. Desire is the very essence
of your life. But at the same time you also know that desire is an unending
thing. If you fulfill one, the next one will be ready. If you fulfill that, the
next one will be ready. It keeps you on all the time. And obviously some
desires will be unfulfilled and those unfulfilled desires cause much misery to you.
If you look at the desire, actually when we started, this is
what we were looking at, we just did not use the word “desire”. There is
something within you longing to be little more than what you are right now.
That is desire. So your desire’s ultimate goal is unboundedness, the infinite
nature. But because you’re unaware, you are giving it an unconscious expression
for the longing that is wanting to become unbounded. So you don’t have to
destroy your desire, because you cannot. Can anybody destroy their desire? Is
it possible? There is no way because that’s life. It is just that you have to
make your desire into a conscious process. Right now it is functioning
unconsciously because right now your desire is not even about you. Please look
at this. Right now you’re living in Trivandrum or Tirivunathapuram, your
neighbour has a big car, what is your desire? You want to have two cars like
that. Now you don’t know all these cars, you are living in a remote place and
your neighbour has one big buffalo. What is your desire? You want to have two
buffaloes like that. So your desire is just a reaction to the social situations
in which you’re living, isn’t it? This is so because this longing to expand is
finding unconscious expression.
If you make your process of desiring into a conscious process,
then desire is no more a problem. Then desire is a wonderful vehicle which will
take you places. Even if you want to reach the ultimate you need a desire,
isn’t it? Yes or no? Anyway the desire in you is longing for unboundedness, it
is longing for unlimitedness, it is longing for the ultimate nature. You just
have to bring awareness to it. If you bring awareness to your desiring process,
it is a wonderful instrument. If it is finding unconscious expression, then it
makes you run like madman. All the time it keeps you running endlessly.
So, being a wife, being a mother, it’s extremely important. Now
that you’re a mother, it is not a small responsibility. You brought another
human being into this planet. Now what kind of human being you produce is a
very huge responsibility isn’t it? It is not just about reproduction, what kind
of next generation you create is in your hand, as a mother, isn’t it? Yes? What
kind of people are going to live on this planet in the next generation is decided
by the mothers of today, isn’t it? When such a responsibility you have, you
cannot afford to live unconsciously. You must become conscious. Especially the
women must become conscious. It’s very, very important.
