Image by Lucy Lopez
Recently a client of mine told me that she had been advised not to be greedy. I asked her to explain. She said that she had expressed her desires to write a children’s book, start a special interest group and train for a marathon. That’s when she was told not to be greedy.
If you reflect on your life, you will find that there are many things you would have desired especially when you were younger. Have you noticed that children, for instance, are naturally desirous of many things almost all of which essentially boil down to HAVING FUN?
Unlike adults, children’s desires are quite pure. By that I mean they reflect the spontaneous arising of a movement towards joy which, in this material world is mediated through things – play, activity, stories, movement, surprises, cuddles and so on. These spontaneous experiences of desire are not contaminated by history which will express itself as CRAVING or AVOIDANCE/AVERSION.
And this is a key point.
Desire is NOT craving, which is something that adults have learned to do. Why? Because adults have history and often the history involves wanting something and being denied it.
This denial, especially when it is not replaced by something equally desirous, festers and becomes that familiar state of mind called CRAVING. Or, if there had been significant negative reactions to a child’s desire such as punishment or insult or anger, then history is likely to express itself as AVERSION or AVOIDANCE.
It is not that adults don’t experience (pure) DESIRE. They absolutely do but that first, tentative and pure arousal of desire is almost instantly overridden by craving or aversion.
You see, consciousness is a bubbling ocean of desire. If it were not so, the universe would not have come into existence. Now, I realize that when we use the word ‘desire’, we think of it as something that happens in or to humans only. In other words, we are unlikely to speak of a plant desiring something because we don’t believe that a plant has the same emotional experiences as a human being.
But, if you think of desire as an IMPULSE, a natural movement of joy toward joy, of wellbeing toward wellbeing, then it doesn’t seem so strange to think of a plant having ‘desires’ or to see that consciousness is a bubbling ocean of desire.
The difficulty for us as adults is that our experience of those spontaneous arousals of desire have become so chronically clouded with craving or aversion, with experiences of denial or unfavorable judgment, that we have really forgotten what an authentic experience of pure desire is.
In fact, the experience has been so contaminated by various religious, cultural and social traditions that condemn it such that desire has become synonymous with sinful or immoral craving and possession especially in relation to another person or to sex or money or fame.
So it is really important to separate the spontaneous arousal of a pure movement of consciousness from joy to joy, from wellbeing to wellbeing, from excitement to excitement i.e. DESIRE from the historically derived need to have or to possess i.e. CRAVING.
Desire is a wonderful thing. It is a natural expression of your joy in life, your excitement and enthusiasm for life. It is the denial or suppression of desire that causes us so much suffering.
You are, by nature, a forever expanding expression of consciousness and it is the impulse of desire that causes this natural tendency of expansion. To stifle, to stop, to deny this natural tendency of expansion is unnatural and ultimately unhealthy on ALL levels of being – mental, emotional and physical.
Stress, which is recognized today as the underlying cause of the majority of diseases including heart disease and cancer, is the psychophysical effect of many unnatural tensions one of which is the suppression of desire.
As I said earlier, in this material world, desire is almost always given expression through some ‘thing’. In the case of my client, it was through the materialization of a book for children, a marathon and a special interest group, albeit in her imagination at that point. And that was just her desires on one day :).
In fact, if we did not have our history of denial and unfavorable judgment or punishment, we would be like children who are bubbling constantly with pure desire. When desire is pure, uncontaminated by history, by craving and/or aversion/avoidance, we’d find ourselves full of desires and enjoying the very experience of having desires! Why wouldn’t we?
Pause for a moment and consider something that you’ve desired recently. Trace it back to that first, initial arousal. Didn’t it feel wonderful? Gorgeous? Exciting?
But what happened then? Thoughts such as:
It’s too hard.
It’ll never happen.
Oh, that’s a bad thought.
I’m not good enough.
He/she/it may not agree.
Can you see how quickly the joyous experience of desire is sabotaged by negativity, judgment and doubt?
OK, so what do we do about our desires? I mean if we truly allowed ourselves, we’d have a dozen every 10 minutes, right?
Well, perhaps. But you see, if you allowed yourself to really ENJOY the arousal of a desire within you, you are likely to find that that itself can be so fulfilling.
On the other hand, there will clearly be some desires that you will want to see materialized. And even if you had ten of these at any given time, you can focus on one or two while assuring yourself that, rather than deny or suppress the rest, you will attend to them later.
This is a healthy and empowering management of your desires in a TIME-SPACE paradigm where not everything can be done instantly and at the same time.
In short:
1. ALLOW and ENJOY all your desires. They are the natural movement of consciousness within you from joy to joy, wellbeing to wellbeing.
(Think about this: If consciousness isn’t allowed to move from joy to joy, wellbeing to wellbeing, where else has it got to move to? Lack of joy and lack of wellbeing, right? And isn’t that what so many of us experience a lot of the time?)
2. Do not confuse DESIRES with CRAVINGS, AVERSIONS OR AVOIDANCE
3. Manage your desires without denying any. Some will have done their work of taking you from joy to joy, wellbeing to wellbeing in an instant. Others will do the same but seek further expression in this time-space bound material world i.e. they will seek to materialize. Honor that.
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