Let’s look at desires!

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

Question: Something happens and then suddenly a desire arises related to that. Please help me understand this!

Acharya Prashant (AP):

This should tell you that your desire is actually just an external stimulus,

an external stimulus that activates your conditional patterns.

This means that you have very little right

to call your desire as really your own.

Desire can be provoked in and every advertiser knows that. The world is a great advertisement! The entire world is a hoarding; ‘Come and Buy!’ It’s only purpose to provoke desire in you.

Once you’ve known that; now how do you take your desire too seriously? If it arises, then you know that, ‘Something has happened in the environment to arouse this desire in me.’

Without an environmental factor, desire couldn’t have come up. And if it is the environment that is inducing desire in me, then how is it my obligation to fulfill that desire? Then I’m being taken for a ride, I’m being exploited.

Question: Does that mean we are destined to desire?

AP: Of course you’re destined to desire but that does not complete the story of destiny.

There is nothing evil in desire

since desire is the name of the ‘space-time’ game.

So continue to desire,

but even when you’re desiring,

remember the higher destiny,

which is ‘Silence’ which is ‘Truth’.

So even in the middle of desire, ‘Remain Silent.’

I’m not talking about dropping desire or renunciation or such holy stuff. As a body, you will have desires; remain silent in the middle of them. Some of them will be fulfilled, some will not be fulfilled, even when some are fulfilled yet there would be a new set of desires, which is the old usual game and that will keep happening!

Remain silent.

I’m not talking of criticizing or negating desires.

Question: Sir, are you talking about just observing them?

AP: Yeah, Of course. What else can be done? What else would you do?

Watch the full video here.

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