Handling Desires : 4.

Desires which are sleeping may become causes of mental ill-health. There can be a manifestation of peculiar complexes of behaviour in that person – susceptibility to sudden rage or anger at the least provocation, and desire for silly things which a normal person would regard as meaningless. A desire for a pencil – we can imagine what a desire it is.

We will think it is foolish to desire a pencil; but a person whose desires have slept for years and could not reveal themselves even a little due to unfavourable conditions would find a tremendous joy even if a pencil is presented to him. A fountain pen is, of course, heaven. Why? Because the desires have been starved. They are hungry like lions, ready to devour anything that comes near them.

A hungry lion is a dangerous animal even it is unable even to get up because it has been starved for days. Therefore, it is essential that we should not play jokes with God or the system of yoga by merely running to cold, remote regions, taking baths in icy water, and not seeing the face of human beings. This may continue for years, but that is not the whole story. There is something more about it.

The prasupta condition is the sleeping condition of a desire. We cannot know that the desires are sleeping, except by the complexes that we manifest in our lives; and unless we are good psychologists, we cannot know what these complexes are because they would look like normal behaviour to us.

It would be unnatural behaviour in the eyes of a very shrewd observer – even to a normal person, in the worldly sense; but to one’s own self, it may look like very healthy behaviour. Irascibility is one of the features found in people who have forcefully subdued their desires for a long time. They immediately get angry by even the smallest thing, and make wry faces and retort in a manner in which even a person in the world would not indulge.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ....