Decoding Desires
This couplet needs to be pondered over and over – a whole lifetime is not sufficient to digest this knowledge: Desire kills joy yet the goal of all desires is joy. Whenever happiness has disappeared from your life, look deep within and you will see it is because of desire.
Yet all that we desire is happiness. No creature desiring unhappiness is ever born; never has it happened before and never will it happen in the future.
When your small mind gets tired of running here and there, of wandering everywhere, it reaches the conclusion, “My desires have killed my happiness.”
A person who has conquered his desires is called “mahavira”.
Bangalore Ashram, India
April 26, 2000
All desires are for happiness. That is the goal of desire, isn’t it? But how often does your desire lead you to the goal? Have you thought about the nature of desire? It simply means tomorrow, and not now. But joy is never tomorrow; it is always now.
How can you have desires when you are joyful? And how can you really be joyful right now when you have desires? Desire appears to lead you to happiness, but in fact it cannot. That is why desire is maya- illusion.
Bangalore Ashram, India
March 6, 1996
