This somehow made me think that desire really does give movement impulsion and agitation to man’s life whether the outcome one might judge is either good or bad and so much of what spiritual people preach about desirelessness feels like it brings you stone like inertness where prana has not yet animated it yet. Is it not that a guy who has desire for women and chased multiple women and got heartbroken everytime and even got humiliated atleast had a more interesting and eventful life than the one who gave up lust and desire for women before even trying and never really went through this agitation and says he has a “peaceful” life without any drama? Because I’m thinking that as much as one wants to pursue higher ideals of wanting to know God, serving the nation etc… I feel there’s this bit of an impersonal abstract nature to them unlike my desire for this concrete particular woman who i can see infront of my eyes and the desire of having her in my arms gets quite personal and even neccesitates me to improve myself physically ,financially in the process to get her and the movement and tension pursuing this desire would bring. I remember vivekananda in the context of encouraging non vegetarian food said that so many of those who perceive themselves to be satvik are in fact in the deepest tamas and that we need more rajas right now and even the chapter death desire and incapacity in the life divine doesn’t exactly feel like a complete negative assessment of desire and doesn’t those verses of the Upanishads and vedas say that the when “it” was all alone and then “desire” appeared in him creation stirred, is not cessation of desire altogether brings about what the Buddhists want with their cessation of all tanha-craving and return to formless peace of nirvana, i know this question is all over the place but I somehow felt this is all interconnected .
Minimalism and spartan living has little to do with spiritual life. The spiritual man and woman can sport with luxury, govern a kingdom, engage in war, create prolifically or simply lead a happy and beautiful apparently ‘ordinary’ life doing little things, living after as a householder. In fact he does it even better for the spiritual man brings a greater consciousness, a deeper and vaster knowledge as well a greater power and love. He even enjoys much more because his enjoyment is not dependent upon any external object. That does not mean he has to shun anything. He has to only replace the fuel of desire and the stormy drive of passion and pleasure and pain with the delight of existence that is inherent in everything. The Yogin drinks directly from the Source while the man chasing worldly pleasures is drinking a heady cocktail of pleasure and pain, and struggle and achievement, failure and success and, gain and loss. Of course it is his choice. Some like tasty food with balance of ingredients, others like spicy dishes.
The mistake we make is in believing that desire is the only impulsion that makes us progress and feel alive. A little fact check will show desire has hardly contributed to human progress. It has rather helped amass comforts, imprisoned man behind bars of gold, stifled his higher intellectual strivings and sold his soul to the devil of suffering. Whatever lasting progress man has ever made has been through the force of thought entering the doors of knowledge rather than the force of desire that has led our feet towards the abyss via the paradise that never was. There are any number of persons who created beautifully and powerfully organising and even building empires impelled by a deeper urge, the urge for Truth and Justice and Freedom and Nobility. From Vyasa and Valmiki, Homer and Blake, Einstein and Newton, the ancient seers of India who discovered profound truths of matter as well as human psychology, Avatars such as Sri Rama, Sri Krishna, Sri Aurobindo and The Mother who ushered a new age are standing examples of beings who were driven by higher and larger motives than desires could ever imagine.
Be careful of the advertisement of the luxury house. Peace and joy are never found in a house. Such advertisements are only an advertisement or an invitation to hell. Of course some consider this hell as heaven. Its their choice. Some prefer the heady wine that makes man giddy over the wine Divine that makes us clear and happy. To each his own intoxicant.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
