Dropping desire is just another desire; knowing desire is fulfillment of desire

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question (Q): As I listen to you, I understand that when you don’t have a desire, you don’t have hope, and when you don’t have hope, you don’t have anxiety, and that leads to a peaceful life. Correct?

Acharya Prashant (AP): No! We have constantly been saying that you want change. What you heard is what the religions and traditions have been repeating always. So you have not really heard it here. You have been carrying it in your mind even before you entered this hall.

Listener (L): I am coming out of your statement on desire that — desire leads to hope, and hope leads to anxiety.

AP: No! I have constantly been saying that you are thirsty for change. Desire is something that you surely want. It is just that what you want cannot be given by hope, cannot be given by the future, because hope is always in time. Getting it?

This line — “don’t desire, don’t hope, and remain settled with what life has given you” — is a very beaten line. And the mind has found enough loopholes in this argument, to trash it long back. That is why we want to stick to this argument.