Handling Desires : 5.

Sometimes, the desires become thin. They are not sleeping; they are awake, but they are thin, like a fine silken thread – as, for example, when we descend from Gangotri to Rishikesh but stay in an ashram. The desire is slowly awakening: “Oh! I have come to Rishikesh. This atmosphere is more congenial than in Gangotri, but my desire cannot be fulfilled because I am in an ashram.” So, the desires are like a weakened snake which has been starved for many days and is slowly trying to move, wriggle out of its hole and find an opportunity to fulfil itself. But it cannot, due to the restrictions of the atmosphere in which one lives.


When we voluntarily fast – not under compulsion – on ekadashi, for example, the desire for food is thin. It is not destroyed, because we have a satisfaction that tomorrow we will have a good meal. That satisfaction is itself a strength to bear the pain of today’s fasting; otherwise, if we are not sure that we will get food for even ten days, or do not know what will happen for days together, then it will be a horror. Very difficult is this mind to understand.


You may have no money in your hand just now, but you have the satisfaction that you have plenty in your bank. So money need not necessarily be in the hand always. It can even be in a bank, thousands of miles away from here, but a mere feeling that it is yours, or it is there, can give you a very healthy satisfaction. On the other hand, if I throw millions of dollars that belongs to the government on your lap, you cannot be happy, because it does not really belong to you and you cannot use it. You may be a cashier in a bank; what is the use? Counting, counting, for nothing! It is not yours. You will be cursing yourself even if you are touching millions of rupees or dollars. On the other hand, you are happy even if nothing is in your hand, merely because of the feeling that it is yours thousands of miles away. Subtle is the behaviour of the mind.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ....