Page 30 - NAMAH-Apr-2018

Dissolving desire

James Anderson

Abstract
Desire is not healthy. It impedes our growth. It has no place in the New World. The only way to
dissolve desire is to live in the true consciousness and, when it arises, to act upon it from that poise.
When that happens it can be transformed into the psychic counterpart of aspiration.

I have been intending to write about desire a great impediment to our well-being and
for some years now. Something though, health. The trouble with desire is that as soon
has always held me back. How can I offer as it is triggered there is an automatic impulse
myself as an authority when the riddle to give oneself to it. It is a knee-jerk reaction
remains so unsolved inside? Writing about and the habit unfolds from the moment one
it has compelled me to look closer at my own is born. As long as ego is present there will
relation with this action of the life-force. It is always be identity with it. One needs to be
a vast and many-tiered subject. This energy constantly awake to forestall its effects on the
has many facets: physical satisfaction and being, something way beyond the capacity
vital craving up to the more rarefied levels of most of humanity.
of emotional satisfaction and aesthetic and
intellectual fulfilment. However at each level In spite of its attractions, desire only takes the
it drags us down. Looking at desire, I feel sweetness out of life. If one gives oneself over
compelled to ponder from what standpoint I to it, one will embark on a road to misery. If
am writing. Just how far have I gone towards allowed to proliferate inside, it will plague our
eradicating it? entire psychology. It muddles and twists our
emotions; it debases our noblest sentiments
What is more clear to me are the issues that and warps our mind. Desire creates a massive
desire presents and, thanks to the guidance of division inside and if one embraces it one
the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, the best way climbs over a fence with little prospect of ever
out. However, implementing it is a massive coming back. One convicts oneself to a life-
undertaking. Our being requires a complete sentence of suffering. The stakes are higher
overhaul. It is undeniable that as soon as we if one is committed to an upward path and
embark on a path of growth, desire becomes the potential fall much greater. If we give

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