In the Vedic world view it is not at all suggested that we must learn to be free of desires. First, to be rid of desires is impossible. No one is without desires. All that actually can be done is to discount or denigrate our desires, to find some way to push them down or away. But whatever we do, true desires remain. Second, our desires are an important part of the system of life. Our desires are how nature itself communicates with us. It's how we are shown where we are needed in this world. Our desires are our guide through life. Our desire for a certain job or a certain type of home or a certain love in our life absolutely is an indication of the direction in which nature would have us move. But but this desire only indicates direction, not outcome, and we so easily get focused on outcome instead, thinking that our happiness is there on the other side of accomplishment. We lose sight of our present moment experience, focusing all our awareness on the end we seek, and we end up missing the cues nature is giving us always as to where we are meant to be next.
The mistake we make is in thinking our desires are our own. That they come from us and belong to us. They do not. These desires come from nature. They belong to nature. Buddha said not that we must be rid of desire, rather that we must be rid of 'the authorship' of our desires. We must know our desires as coming from elsewhere, as coming from nature Itself.
Our problems with the system of desire and the sometime non-satisfaction of our desires arises from this mistake of ownership, coupled with our second mistake, the belief that our fulfillment lies somewhere outside the self. We feel incomplete, unhappy, unfulfilled, and then we get a desire that we turn into an idea of where we might find that missing fulfillment; from this idea, we set ourselves a goal, believing that the achievement of that goal will bring us to the fulfillment we need - this in spite of the fact that no one in the history of the world ever has succeeded in finding happiness or fulfillment in this way. There never has been enough love/money/success/sex/heroin/chocolate/safety/comfort to bring us the fulfillment we seek. Even when we accomplish our goal, fulfillment always seems to have moved elsewhere and we have to start all over again, moving continually from one idea to the next, one form of happiness to the next; never quite satisfied, never quite full.
Of course the truth is that there is nothing outside of our self that can bring us fulfillment. Nothing. Ever. Rather, we are fulfillment itself, right here, right now, only we haven't yet found the way to access that fulfillment, to experience that fulfillment. What is needed is to find the (spiritual) practice that takes us to that place of access, and to give ourselves permission to experience the happiness and the joy that is our birthright. When we have become able to do this, then easily are able to follow the subtle tug of charm (desire) within, and we naturally, effortlessly are drawn to those places where nature needs our happiness and fulfillment to be. We find ourselves in the right place at the right time doing the right thing with the right people and for the right reasons, and thereby being of service to nature, to ourselves and to the world at large.
This is how we are guided by nature. This is how we are shown where nature would have us give of ourselves. Giving of ourselves, being of service, is indeed one of the secrets of happiness. If I am walking into the world each day filled with the need for all that I lack, I am building an experience of lack. If I am walking into the world filled up with the idea of giving, I am building an experience of fulfillment.
Today I will see my true desires as gifts from God, and my idea of how the fulfillment of those desires would feel I will see as pointing me in the direction of how I could feel right now, if only I were able to allow myself.
Ducks, Brentwood, CA
