SHED DESIRE AND REALISE SELF
Desire exists when there is a subject and an object, i.e., duality. When all is One Existence only, there is no desire. Desire is a conative tendency of mental processes of attempted action or change. It encompasses impulse, volition, and the effort to enjoy objects in the phenomenal world through sensory perceptions and organs. Desire, according to Swami Sivananda, is an earnest longing for attaining some object or goal. It is a wish or an urge to enjoy an object or attain something. He explains that the desire to see is of the eyes; to hear is of the ears; to taste is of the tongue; to smell is of the nose; to touch is of the skin; to work is of the hand; to speak has become of the organ of speech; to walk has become of the feet; and to copulate has become of the organ of reproduction. Desire, Swami Sivananda maintains, is the root cause for this mundane life in the Samsara chakra (wheel of birth and death). Desire, sage philosopher Swami Krishnananda explains, is a concentration of consciousness at a finite point. The very nature of desire is insatiable, with any amount of effort not being able to be satisfied. The desire of a person, Swami Krishnananda asserts, is infinite in nature. It would like to swallow the whole world, if it were possible. That it is unable to do so is a different matter, but if it could be possible, it would do it. It would swallow the whole sky, too! Such is the rapacious, insatiable nature of desire. Desire is intertwined with Kleshas, or afflictions. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras (2.3) mentions about five Kleshas of Avidya (ignorance, misapprehension about the real nature of things), Asmita (egoism), Raga (detachment), Dvesha (aversion), and Abhinivesha (clinging to life, or fear of death). These are the fundamental causes of human suffering and mental turmoil, acting as barriers to Self-knowledge and Self-realisation. Avidya (ignorance) is the field of those that follow, whether they be in a dormant, thinned-out, overpowered or expanded condition. Swami Sivananda outlines that Avidya is the source of the four Klesas (afflictions): Asmita, Raga, Dvesha, and Abhinivesha, which are merely modifications or varieties of Avidya. Swami Sivananda says Avidya takes the non-eternal, impure, painful, and non-self as the eternal, pure, happy, and Self, or Atman. The method to remove Avidya, according to him, is discrimination to identify real and unreal.
1. Outline
Desire can only exist if there is something separate from the subject who desires. When that separation is not there, desire no longer exists. Bhagawan Ramana Maharishi says there is room for kama (desire) so long as there is an object apart from the subject (i.e., duality). There can be no desire if there is no object. The state of no-desire is moksha. (Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, talk no. 502). Ashtavakra Gita (8.1) says that desire is bondage when the mind longs for, grieves, rejects, holds on to, is pleased about, or is displeased While contemplating the objects of the senses, Srimad Bhagavad Gita (2.62) teaches, one develops attachment to them. Attachment leads to desire, and from desire arises anger. Anger leads to clouding of judgement, Bhagavad Gita (2.63) tersely says, which results in bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, the intellect is destroyed, and when the intellect is destroyed, one is ruined.
Bondage (Ashtavakra Gita, 8.3) exists when the mind is attached to any perspective. Liberation exists when the mind is detached from all perspectives. Ashtavakra Gita describes Vairagya (desirelessness or dispassion) as the natural state arising from the realisation that Atman, or Self, is pure Awareness that is the underlying reality of all existence, rather than the temporary body or mind. When one understands that all phenomena are transient and that Atman is unchanging, the need for desire, attachment, or aversion melts away, leading to inner stillness, freedom, and happiness. Desirelessness, according to Ashtavakra Gita, is not the absence of desire but the understanding that Atman is not bound by desires and should not be identified with them. In Ashtavakra Gita, vairagya isn't about renouncing external things but about realising the transient nature of the external world and the ego. It's a state of dispassion and freedom from worldly passions and aversions. Desire is about misidentification with body-mind-intellect complexes and pairs of opposites. It arises from Ashtavakra Gita, which presents the world as a dreamlike projection, or an illusion. Understanding this, one can see through its deceptive nature and become free from its perceived sufferings, duality, opposites and sorrows. The core message of Ashtavakra Gita (1.2-7) is that Atman, or Self, is unattached, eternal, free, unborn, actionless, and pure witness-consciousness. Bondage arises from mistaken identification with the mind and body, not from external circumstances. with the changing world and the mind, leading to a sense of lack and a craving for external objects to fulfil that perceived incompleteness. Desire will last as long as one is stuck in the dualistic view of "I have done this" and "I have not done that." Ashtavakra Gita (15.6) says recognise Atman in all beings, and all beings in Atman, free from the sense of responsibility and free from preoccupation with 'me'. Ashtavakra Gita (9.1-6) discusses detachment (vairagya) as a path to self-realisation by recognising the illusory nature of the world and the self as a pure, unchanging consciousness. While it is it is not a gradual process, it involves a deep understanding and immediate realisationsation of freedom from attachments to the body and mind, which are seen as limiting concepts. The text encourages dropping all effort and resting in one's true, already-liberated nature.
2. Scriptures
Scriptures serve as the pathfinder and guide to illuminate the pathways and uncover the veil of ignorance through self-enquiry and ratiocination. They serve as facilitators and enablers amidst the confusing signals received by the mind, the thought-manufacturing machine, from sensory perceptions, helping individuals realise Atman, or Self. It is a holistic combination of the Oneness of indivisible, uncaused, imperishable, eternal, and infinite Absolute Reality, also known as Absolute Truth, or Existence. That need not be resolved, unearthed, or found out, but rather realised through experience based on deep contemplation, meditation, and absorption. One needs to discriminate between real and unreal, eternal and transient, and eternal bliss and momentary pleasure. Desire is attachment and bondage to the world of objects that keeps one in circulation in the cycle of Samsara chakra (wheel of birth and death).
Ashtavakra Gita (20.11-14) discusses Atman as a self-illuminous, unattached and imperishable One only Existence. It is eternal, Truth and Reality only, and is of pure awareness, complete, uncaused, whole and indivisible. It is One only, irrespective of dualistic and opposite states manifestations. The phenomenal world of Maya (illusion) and Samsara (of birth and death) are of an illusionary nature. Atman, or Self, is ever pure awareness, or consciousness only. It is immutable, changeless, limitless, ultimate existence, absolute good, and non-dual, and nothing exists other than Self. Once that is realised, there is no bondage nor liberation from limitation, and nothing arises as desires or fulfilment.
Know this truth that you are an unreal self and must become an unreality afterward, as stated aphoristically in Srimad Bhagavad Gita (2.28) and Yoga-Vasistha (4.54.9-16).
Srimad Bhagavad Gita (2.28) says:
avyaktādīni bhūtāni vyakta-madhyāni bhārata
avyakta-nidhanānyeva tatra kā paridevanā
All created beings are unmanifest before birth, manifest in life, and again unmanifest on death. But it (Bhagavad Gita, 2.20) declares that Atman, or Self, is neither born, nor, having once existed, does it ever cease to be. Atman is without birth, eternal, immortal, and ageless. It is not destroyed when the body is destroyed. However, according to Bhagavad Gita (2.27), death is certain for the embodied who has been born, and rebirth is inevitable for him who has died. Therefore, one should not lament over the inevitable. Yoga-Vasistha (4.54.2-6) says desire is a mental construct, and remaining in the divine Intellect, it thinks of thinkables, as they are distinct from itself, and its longing after them is called its desire. It (Yoga-Vasistha, 4.54.6) teaches that desire is produced by desiring something, and it grows in size and quantity, causing us only trouble and no good or happiness. The world is formed by the accumulation of our desires, just as the ocean is formed by the accumulation of water; without desire, you are free from worldly misery. Knowing yourself as nothing, Yoga-Vasistha (4.54.11) declares, why do you think of your birth and your pleasures here? You are deluded in vain by the vanity of your desires. He who has learnt to disbelieve his own existence and that of all others (Yoga-Vasistha, 4.54.10) and knows the vanity of his joy and grief is not troubled by the gain or loss of anything. Do not entertain your desires, as stated in Yoga-Vasistha (4.54.12); if you relinquish your desire, you will evade all difficulties, stop thinking about anything, and your desire for it will vanish. He wants to destroy his desire. Yoga-Vasistha (4.54.16) contends that he can do it in a trice by forgetting the thought of his desired object.
3. Remarks
Atman is eternal, transcendental, immanent, infinite in infinitude, complete, imperishable, and all-inclusive. It is Sat-Chit-Anand, or Existence-Conscious-Bliss. When it is eternal bliss and complete, it is futile to long for objects in the phenomena to quench the insatiable desires. One should put in a little bit of self-effort to live by Atman, realise it, and be consciously aware of it. Atman, or Absolute Truth, is dignity, Acharya Prashant says bluntly, and those who live by the true Self live a life of dignity. Those who live by their falseness live a life devoid of all grace and all dignity; no respect or glory is available to them. Bhagawan Ramana Maharshi is sharp but eloquently expresses that you are Atman, or Self; nothing but Atman; anything else is just imagination, so Atman here and now. There is no need to escape to a forest or isolate yourself in a room; continue with your essential duties, but free yourself from association with the doer of them. Atman is the witness; you are That (Talks With Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamala, first edition, reprint 2006, foreword by T.M.P. Mahadevan, 1958).
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