It is only the play of desire that takes you away from yourselves. As long as some desires linger in your mind, you cannot be at total rest. Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, ‘You cannot get into Yoga (union with the self) unless you drop the desires or hankerings in you’. Every desire or ambition is like a sand particle in the eye! You cannot shut your eyes nor keep them open with a sand particle inside - it is uncomfortable either way. Dispassion is removing this sand particle so you can open and shut your eyes freely! The other way is to extend your desire, or make it so big - then also it will not bother you. It is a tiny sand particle that irritates your eyes - a big rock can never get into your eyes!
Learned men from many years have talked of dispassion and the need for dispensing of desire. But does that mean that you need to do whatever you can to shed the desire and work towards abolishing it completely? Isn’t the want to get rid of desires a desire itself? While shedding desire from your soul, you are clasping it within your bodies.
To shed desire, you need to embrace it with all your heart. Be willing to accept all that your mind realises and your heart feels. If you have a desire coming into your mind right now, at this very moment what do you do? You work to fulfill that desire. After it gets fulfilled, do you know where you will be? It will lead you to the very same place where you were before the desire rose in you.
So let us understand, what is this quest all about? A teenage girl sees an expensive dress and immediately falls in love with it. But like all exquisite things, this one is too expensive for her to buy. She tries to convince her father to let her buy the dress and tries every possible way to make him understand that the dress is worth the price and maybe even more. The father refuses despite everything. The young girl gets so upset that every party and function she goes to, she feels incomplete without the dress. Each time she sees a beautiful girl; she visualises the dress and feels insecure about herself. Each time she sees the dress in the window sill of the showroom, her heart tugs from inside. After a lot of tears, bickering and ranting, the father finally gives in, and buys her the dress. The girl is delighted. She wears it to every possible party and function, but after six months the very same dress is lying idle in the cupboard. After two years, the same dress lies in a heap of discarded clothes.
So you see desire from the most superficial perceptive, taking a life form and finally being turned into nothing. Do not give too much weight to the fulfillment of desires. Don’t fight it off and try to rid it from your system. You have no control over your desires. Instead of holding on to them, or daydreaming, just offer the desires to a higher power. This process is called sanyas. When you offer everything as it arises in you, then nothing can take you away from your centre.
