October 2, 2009

Desires are desires

Continuing from the question on desires I had put up on a recent post and the comments I received on that, I am motivated to add more on that point.

I feel a desire is a desire. There are no good desires and bad desires. Material desires and not-so-material desires. Desires, in a spiritual sense, keeps you away from God since your mind is pre-occupied with trying to fulfill those desires. Good or bad, the nature of desires, must not matter. In fact, the very concept of good or bad is man-made. God does not judge our actions. God does not tag our deeds and put them into separate good and bad buckets. He just watches them and smiles, perhaps. I strongly feel that the closest we can get to purity is by being non-judgemental. Judging things around us and classifying them as good and bad is humane. As much as it is difficult to avoid judging things, we must strive to get there I believe.

So, taking the same point ahead, desires cannot be tagged good or bad. They just are means of keeping our thoughts on worldly things. Ideally, if a spiritual leader is truly spiritual, I would think he would not have any wishes or desires. He simply observes and spreads rays of happiness to those around him. Happiness, not in a material way. Happiness, not by making poor less poorer. Happiness, not by giving out alms and charity. Happiness, by making people FEEL happy, joyful and calm. That is the essence of a true spiritual leader. Mind you, such leader could be your parent, your best friend, a cousin or a neighbour as well.

For me, a desire of not having desires is also a desire. For me, I would love to be just see things as they are. I would love to have a third party approach to everything happening around me. I would want to believe that I do not necessarily influence things. They just are as they must be. I would want to simply be calm no matter what happens around me. For others looking at me, that would imply laziness and lack of initiative. For me, I would choose to smile, perhaps!

I have just put down my thoughts on this point. This does not obviously imply that I do not have desires or I have already adopted a third-party approach to life. What I meant is to try and reach there somehow, someday.

5 comments:

Vishal said...

1. Sir, Whats the point in living without any desire?
And isn't craving for spreading Happiness a desire in itself?..Whats a desire, its something you want to do, achieve, its your endeavour.
2. So do you also say that one should not be ambitious?
3. Good-bad concept man-made, so be it. Whats wrong in being judgmental? till the time you are able to make the other person realise it(about the BAD) amicably, good naa??

Ultimate Thinking said...

As you rightly said desires can't b good or bad . Good and bad are always a subjective concept, but that doesnt mean we are not suppose to make any desire.Just that our desires should not make others unhappy or disappionted.

U No Hoo said...

Vishal, I will try to explain my point further soon in another post. :) End of the day, it's just a thought.

Thanks Sumi, though do not agree completely with you.

Vishal said...

5n sir, awaiting it eagerly!!!

Ultimate Thinking said...

Its fine, you dissgree with it. but don't u think when we have some desires we do think about the world around us , humm not the world but we do think about our near n dear ones for sure.This makes it clear that we dnt want to make our near n dear ones unhappy or disappointed(Just trying to explain wht i meant)