DESIRES

                                    

This Area of Life defines what we seek for temporal fulfillment and happiness. In the Far East there is an adage: “Treat your desire nature as you would a cobra. Give the cobra milk, make it happy, but don’t trust it.” We should use this same approach with our desire nature. Don’t suppress it, keep it happy, but don’t trust it. If we suppress our desire nature, it expresses itself in the most inappropriate ways. The desire nature is a powerful horse which we should ride freely, but which we should also consciously control; otherwise, we will be thrown off and become injured. So, by all means, ride the horse of desire with great vigor and joyfulness, but be alert during the ride. Make sure you are guiding the horse and not vice-versa! Any time there is a conflict between your innermost spiritual nature and your desire nature, go with your inner nature. It will never disappoint you.

According to all the ancient teachers - when we desire something, seek to fulfill it, and then desire something again - this leads to suffering. It creates an inner friction and insecurity, which can be very detrimental to health and longevity. This is why many individuals suffer a rapid physical decline after losing all their money or possessions, especially if they don’t have a strong spiritual nature which helps to keep everything in perspective. As everyone knows, wealth can be a blessing because the individual who possesses it can buy anything he or she wants. It can also be a curse because each fulfillment is only partial and leads to another pressing desire. Wealthy people often suffer more than the poor because they no longer have the illusion that money will relieve their sense of emptiness. Thus, it becomes important that we learn to become the master of our desires. If we don’t rule them, they will certainly rule us. This is best accomplished through our spiritual nature, which teaches us how to control our desire nature, how to distinguish partial from total fulfillment, and how to achieve total fulfillment.

The eight basic desire personalities are:

INTEGRATIVE: desire for leadership and adulation.

DEVOTIONAL: desire for deep emotional bonding, and wealth.

WARRIOR: desire for self-sufficiency and power.

COMMUNICATOR: desire for knowledge and the opportunity for expressing it.

GIVER: desire for community, fellowship and selfless service.

IDEALIST: desire for ideal love relationships, beauty and positivity.

LONER: desire for privacy, simplicity and silence.

REBEL: desire to be the rebel, the revolutionary, and to purify society.