Friday, October 31, 2008

Desire and Becoming

Some teachings state that we should not desire anything. Desire draws us back to earth and the snares of living in materiality. I personally feel that there are good desires such as learning self-mastery. If we achieve self-mastery, then if we desire to return to earth we bring with us the strengths we have accumulated through love for the good, discipline and right choices. Desire originating in the inner Self is quite different from the desire of the ego/personality.

It is actually funny when you think about it. Desire is used to rid ourselves of desire; we desire the state of desirelessness. Our mental constructs are such an absurdity. Instead of removing a personality anger trait by becoming angry at our weakness, why not remove anger and misplaced desire by seeing the reality of our current condition? We are a spirit trapped in a soul/mind/emotional and physical body. We must be aware. Awareness of who we really are frees us from desires that entrap.

Why not change right now? Why wait? The process of becoming is a form of deception because we are always seeing ourselves as less than we actually are. It is easy to deceive ourselves into believing that through time we will gradually change hatred into compassion, greed into nonattachment and fear into joy. When we always see ourselves as becoming, good changes are postponed. When we groan about our weaknesses, the past and even talk about the future, it is the ego talking. Maybe we need to simply accept the spirit living as us and live accordingly.