D E S I R E S
Dictionaries define desire as a strong wish to have or do
something. The word also refers to a person or thing that is wished for.
Want, fancy, inclination, preference, longing, yearning,
craving, hankering, eagerness, enthusiasm, predilection, aspiration,
predisposition, lust and passion are the
synonyms of desire. But we should not
ignore the fact that no two words in a language have exactly the same meaning.
The word desire is also used to mean sexual attraction. A
person who is our desire is the one with whom we want to have sexual
relationship.
What is desired may also mean what is necessary, required,
proper, right, correct, exact, suitable and preferred. If a person is desirous
of success , he/she is wishful of or hopeful of or ambitious for success.
Desires
are also looked upon morally. But before we look at them strictly from this
angle, let us see some of the general views about them:
(i). Desires are the pulses of the soul; as physicians judge
by the appetite, so may we by desires. (ii).The reason that so many want their desires
is that their desires lack reason. (iii) Some desires are necessary to keep
life in motion; they whose real wants are supplied, must admit those of fancy. (iv).
Those things that are not practicable are not desirable. (v). Where necessity
ends, desire and curiosity begin. (vi). The passions and desires, like the two
twists of a rope, mutually mix one with the other, and twin inextricably round
the heart; producing good, if indulged moderately; but certain destruction, if
allowed to become inordinate. (vii). By annihilating the desires, we annihilate
the mind. (viii). Our nature is inseparable from desires. (ix). When a man’s
desires are boundless, his labours are endless. (x). It should be an
indispensable rule in life to reduce our desires to our present condition. (xi) The soul of man is infinite,
in what it yearns for. (xii). In moderating desires, not in satisfying them ,
lies peace.
The ugly side of desires is that
they tend to multiply. They go on increasing. They enlarge our appetites . gratifications
lead to the hunger for more gratifications. Satisfaction is, more often than
not, alien to them. Morally speaking,
they are the enemies of contentment.
When asked by a questioner: What is
the root of evil? Lord Buddha replied:
Desire is the root of evil, hatred is the root of evil, illusion is the root of
evil; these things are the root of evil.
And
when asked what is the root of the good? He replied : Freedom from
desire is the root of the good, freedom from hatred and freedom from illusions,
these things are the root of the good.
And to the question what is the
origin of suffering, his answer was: It is lust, passion, and the thirst for
existence that yearns for pleasure everywhere, leading to a continual rebirth!
It is sensuality, desire, selfishness; all these things are the origin of
suffering.
One of the most distinguished
Persian poets, Saadi Shirazi (1213-1291), writes in the account of his life, it is not
man’s situation in life, but his attitude towards life that makes him happy or
unhappy; and this attitude can even make such a difference that one man would
be unhappy in a palace while another would be very happy in a humble cottage.
The difference is only in the horizon that one sees. There is one person who
looks only at the circumstances of his own life; there is another who looks at
the lives of many other people; it is a difference of horizon which is
dependent upon the number of one’s desires in and expectations from life.
And finally, a quotation from The Sufi Message of Hazrat
Inayat Khan (London, 1963). It runs
as follows: In the Hindu tradition there is a very well-known concept , that of
the tree of the fulfilment of desires. A
man in India was told that there was a tree of the fulfilment of desires. He
went in search of it, and after going through forests and across mountains he
arrived at last at a place where he lay down and slept under a tree without
knowing that it was the tree of the fulfilment of desires. Before he went to sleep, he was so tired that
he thought, ‘What a good thing it would be if I had a soft bed to rest upon and
a beautiful house with a courtyard around it and a fountain, and people waiting
upon me!’ And with this thought he went to sleep. And when he opened his eyes, he
saw that he was lying in a soft bed and
there was a beautiful house and a courtyard and a fountain, there were people
waiting upon him; and he was very much astonished, for he remembered that
before going to sleep he had thought of all this . But as he went further on
his journey and thought deeply about this experience, he realized that he had
actually slept under the tree he was looking for, and that the miracle of that
tree had been accomplished.
Commenting on this story, Hazrat Inayat Khan rightly
observes: “The interpretation of this legend is a philosophy in itself. It is
man himself who is the tree of fulfilment of his desire, and the root of this
tree is the heart of man. The trees and plants with their fruit and flowers,
the beasts with their strength and power, and the birds with their wings, are
unable to arrive at the stage which man can reach; and it is for this reason he
is called ‘man’, which in Sanskrit has the same root as the word ‘mind’.
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22nd
June 2021 G.R.Kanwal