Dealing with Desire - Transcend the Churning (R005)

Hello. We'll have a brief discussion on dealing with desire. As creatures embodied into a material world, we are constantly being pushed, pulled, back and forth, churned around by a multitude of forces — and two important forces are the forces of needs and desires. Now these two, while they have some overlap, they are certainly not the same thing, and...

Recognizing the Necessities — Our Basic Human Needs ¶

On how to deal with desire, we'll first understand the ground of being, of what is necessary fulfillment, needs.

We have our biological needs. We need to eat a sufficient quantity of nutrition in order to sustain the physical body, its functions. We don't need to eat too much beyond that. Again, we need to sleep enough to let the physical body rest, to let the brain and the body recover and integrate our life's experiences. But we don't need to sleep too much.

Again, we need a shelter, a dwelling, fabrics and so on, to shield us from the elements — but we don't need to bling, and we don't need to excess – unless there is a particular function for it. Right? So, baseline needs exist, they're a necessary aspect of physical existence, they need to be tended to. But in excess of that, we have the realm of desire.

The Pursuit of Desire — Emptiness and Hollow Fulfillment ¶

We pursue fulfillment. Typically by engaging our minds, our hopes, our wishes, with particular material objects — in order to feel whole, because something in here, inside of us, feels hollow. We seek fulfillment, right? The most basic ground of being is the world of the senses. We look for pleasant sights, pleasant sounds, tastes, scents and tactile sensations, physical contact etc.

So, that is one realm of desires. And suppose we enter the realm of desire, my life would be so fulfilled if I had that Norwegian salmon caviar, whatever, right? And my mind is preoccupied with the Norwegian salmon caviar — one day I will travel to Norway and have it, no matter what the cost, and then my life will be so much better, I shall never want for another thing.

No, that is very unlikely how it goes. You will go there, you will have the experience. The experience comes, the experience goes, the memory remains — but you are no more full, you are no more cured of your emptiness as you were prior to the pursuit and fulfillment of your desire. However the desire, when it is not fulfilled, when we are frustrated, we harvest suffering, misery as the by-product.

And also when we attain the object of our desires, in due time as things pass away, the objects of our desires pass away — and unfortunately our attachment and preoccupation does not co-expire at the same time. It will linger and we will be longing, we will be feeling even more of the emptiness than we had prior to the desire — and then we will look for other things to patch the holes in our souls, and so on.

So, that is the bottom line, function of a desire. You are not whole, you are not centered, you are not fulfilled unto yourselves, so you see the world of objects. You cast yourself, you literally incarnate into your senses — and if only the Tongue-Me or the Eye-Me or the Tactile-Me will experience certain pleasure, then perhaps the Deeper-Me in that process will be fulfilled. Well, no it won't, so it is essentially a futile pursuit — but alas, that is what we do in this world, right?

First Step: Recognizing and Acknowledging Our Desires ¶

But how do we deal with desires when they arise? Because they do arise — and we are also creatures conditioned by our past existence, and we have a long track record of pursuing desires. So even simply by the force of habit, we are prone to desires without any particular underlying need. The only real need we have is for our fulfillment — but how misguided our quest for that fulfillment is! So we need to break, break that conditioning, break the conditioning of being entrapped by desire.

Being led by the noose, with every-which desire that may arise, compromising what is more essential to us in life. Even compromising our more necessary daily activities — even our needs may be compromised because of our desires.

So acknowledge your inner contents, learn to attend to what is going on in your mind, learn to attend to what is driving you. Admit it first of all, admit it. Recognize it for what it is.

OK, another desire is rising, trying to pull me in a particular direction, and that is where I am at — I am not pure and free of cravings. Nope, doesn't break the news barrier there. That is 99.9% of creatures in this world, that's how they roll.

Next Step: Understanding and Contextualizing Our Desires ¶

Okay, so contextualizing these desires, rather than running after them. Recognizing them, understanding what they are made of, and understanding how they dominate us. They are not core to our being — they are born of contexts, and born of the hollowness of our incomplete fractured being. They are born and fueled also by the incarnations of our ego into the sensory, physical, into the emotional, also the intellectual and the egotic planes of being.

We not only crave for physical objects. We also have emotional desires, we also have intellectual desires, and importantly, we have — most desires are rooted in the ego. Ego, as in our sense of identity, that is finite — and for a finite being, fulfillments come from finite sources, right. So, but alas, if we are not finite beings — then the finite sources will never ever satisfy our inner core, right.

So we have here an alien invader, desire — actually a creation from our own compromised and fractured being, that needs to be dealt with, that needs to be tamed, because it keeps on compromising the greater importance in our lives.

Desire is the whisperer behind your ear, clouding your perception, trying to put a veil over you, to drag you down. That's what it does in the language of the religious — it is the enemy of the soul, the call of the twisted one, etc., etc. Take the metaphors for whatever they're worth. If they help you in recognizing the antagonism between your inner core and the veils that you keep on putting over yourself, all by yourself — then by all means play with those metaphors.

Witness the Rising and Falling Waves of Desire ¶

Okay, so here's desire. We need to deal with it, again. One of the hundred thousand desires on our list.

First of all, perspective. It's a very ephemeral thing, right. Desires come like waves. They rise, they're present for a moment, and they fall again — and they rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and fall, right.

And knowing that, it should be obvious that nothing of a lasting fulfillment will follow from the pursuit of our desires. And if we engage with them, we are simply... We are fueling a particular addiction that does not ever heal or improve by having more of it. It will simply up your tolerance and require more and more intense experiences for a shadow of fulfillment.

The waves that rise and fall — we learn to witness the process. Now, here's a wave of desire rising, and here it is before me, gaining shape. Am I going to give it my attention and my engagement or not? And if not, then again, it will begin to fall and vanish back to wherever it is that it came from.

Somewhere from the ocean of our deeper mind — entering there is a process beyond what we're discussing today, here the takeaway is simply recognizing the waves of desire. Noticing the process and grasping the unavoidable insight of temporariness of both the desire and the objects of desire. That in itself gives you a certain soberness in how you relate to things. Okay?

Our Existence of Holograms and Hallucinations ¶

Beyond that, going into a slightly deeper level, our existence in itself is like a hologram. Our perception of reality is full of projections — and the world outside of us is also full of projections. Hallucinations about, all around the place. Our senses too — what is the actual object of the sense, right?

In here there's a bottle of water. I drink the objective substance of water in order to hydrate my body — but my perception, my interpretation of this water, is far more than hydrogen and oxygen molecules combined with some minerals put into it. There is an entire world of meaning in it, that I weave into being.

So these are the holograms, these are the illusion, the subjectivity of reality beyond the actual objective existence of things. And our attachments, our desires, typically latch on not to the objectivity — but to the projection and imagination of things.

Like suppose, here's this beautiful girl that I should very much like to couple with — and that would surely fulfill all of my needs in life, right? And we are entirely veiled by love or lust, etc., etc. — and the being we imagine, we are attaching to, is a very far distance apart from the being as it objectively exists. Beyond the physical beauty, that obviously will wither over time, that is not something that will ever provide you with a lasting fulfillment. Emotionally, intellectually...

Well first of all, all is beautiful in the beginning. And second of all, the actuality of their mental complexes is very different from our hopes, our aspirations — our idea of what might be, what could be, what perhaps should be. But do not trust the should-bes, do not trust the hallucination you project into being.

Come to a point of realism. If you intend to pursue something, at least pursue the actual thing, rather than your hallucinations, right? You may in time actually attain the actual thing — but you will never ever attain fulfillment to your hallucinations, alright?

Beyond Clinical Detachment — Our Alternative Abiding ¶

So, perspective on the ephemerality, the waves, the holographic hollowness of the objects of your desire — that gives you a vantage point that is helpful. And beyond that, withdrawal from desire alone will not fulfill you on its own. Pure detachment, it doesn't work. You need to have a substitution — and what is that substitution?

The substitution are the things you do to fulfill deeper parts of your being — through contemplation, through the extraction of essence. Finer, more lasting essence in your life, through practices such as meditation, such as...

Really even these sorts of discussions. Discussions, they bring us to planes of consciousness that are closer to the pure, uncompromised plane of primal consciousness. So they're all helpful, and they give you a higher taste, a greater taste — a taste that will subvert and cast away the fickle taste given by momentary desires and their fulfillment.

So, do not simply withdraw from something. Go forth into something that is greater — and through that process, you will find freedom from the pangs of desire. You will also find fulfillment that is beyond the fulfillments you would ever hope to achieve by pursuit of your cravings. Alright?

Nurturing and Purging Helpful and Harmful Mental States ¶

And now remember, this is a process, it's a gradual process. We have a basic stance.

We have negative, undesirable mental states that are present. We try to eliminate them. And we are aware that there are negative mental states that are absent at this time. We try to keep it that way.

Again, on the other hand, we have positive, helpful mental states. The ones that are present, that are alive — we shelter them, we sustain them, we nurture them. And the positive mental states that are absent at this time — we try to kindle, awaken, bring them into being. That's what we do.

That is the path, right? But it's a patient path. You will, through introspection, through self-reflection, notice phases of progress. First, you are in an entirely compromised state of awareness, mesmerized, entangled into the web of your desires, with no idea that you are even being controlled, alright? And that's where we all start with.

Point of Clarity and Gradual Evolution of Purification ¶

Second, we come to a point of perception. A certain clarity, acknowledgement — these problems exist, alright? Initially we only see them from time to time. Sometimes we are shocked into the reality of our condition — but over time, we will be spotting and able to detach more and more from the world of bondage that conditions us. And through that, through increasing acknowledgement, combined with the proper stance or attitude, a process of gradual diminishing and clearing is taking place.

And given the volume of your conditioning, given the volume of your desires, if you evaluate yourself from day to day, you may not notice much of a difference. But if you evaluate yourself month to month, or quarter to quarter — indeed there is transformation that happens in your consciousness, until such a point where complete purification has taken place. At some future horizon, which is certainly not on next Sunday, right? It's a patient process.

In time, these desires return to dormancy. We do not suppress, but we simply, we do not even really bypass... We recontextualize and let desires, let cravings, let the pushings and pullings that are not a vital part of our existence, we let them expire of their own accord. And with this, they settle into a dormant state, only to be rattled into being again under unusual circumstances.

Distillation of Essence — Palace of Pure Consciousness ¶

We have all the solids that have settled to the bottom of the pot. We put the high fire on — and some of it may still rise to the surface again. And that is how we are tested after a long period of peace and quiet. It's a necessary process.

A process that eventually leads us to a point where our water with the solids is poured through a strainer, through a sieve — and the residues of our conditioning, having been boiled and broken down, are removed from the flow of consciousness, discarded — and only pure essence remains.

And that pure essence, once established in its pure nature, is on a plane existentially far beyond the world of cravings — so it is safe. And whatever you establish on that plane will always be there, no matter the waves that you undergo.

The path, every step you take, adds up to your higher grounding, higher plane of existence — and it is always there waiting for you to take the next step, and to build up your palace of pure consciousness.

The Patient Path of Overcoming and Rising Beyond ¶

Patiently, step by step, overcoming your obstacles and reaching beyond fragmented identity and its side effects. That is the basic path that we are pursuing. Alright?

So, those are short reflections on how to deal with desire. Understand need, contrast with desire. Understand excess, understand deficit, and also deal with the deficit.

If your needs are not always fulfilled, that's fine — you'll survive. But if you are grumbling and wailing, it is not only a need that was neglected, it was a desire riding on top of the need. Alright?

So, recognize the two — separate them. Deal with the needs, and deal with desires in a different manner.

Then, understand the actual nature of desire — born from a fractured sense of being, and a misguided quest for fulfillment from sources that come and go, where fulfillment actual is not ever possible.

Understand the ephemerality, the temporality, the hallucinatory nature of what you are craving for — and gain a higher ground. In your practice, also gain a higher taste on that higher ground, and that will carry you to the other shore. Alright?

Patiently, gradually, waning the negative — gradually, augmenting the positive. That is what we do on this path — and that is as far as we review the topic today. Okay. Keep well.