Paramahansa Yogananda Quotes on Desires WHY DESIRES...

Desire is produced by
indiscriminate contact with the objects of the senses. Expressing as the likes and
dislikes of the ego, desire creeps into the consciousness of one who is not
watchful enough in governing the reaction of his feelings to his various
experiences in the world. It is a condition the ego imposes on itself, and is
therefore detrimental to man's evenmindedness. Whatever has its origin in desire is
a disturbing element, for desires are like stones pelted into the calm lake of
consciousness. Attachment to pleasure or aversion to pain both destroy the
equilibrium of the inner nature. ... These psychological twins, man's feelings of
pleasure and sorrow, have a common father: they spring from desire. Fulfilled
desire is pleasure and contradicted desire is pain or sorrow. They are inseparable:
Just as night inevitably follows day as the earth revolves on its axis, so pleasure
and pain revolve on the axis of desire�the one ever alternating with the other.
Desire is what holds you in mortal bondage. If you want a big home on a hill with a
view, a nice income, a good marriage and family, you may wear yourself out striving
to get these things, then perhaps your spouse leaves you for somebody else, or you
get sick, or your business fails�that is the nature of human happiness. Every
unfulfilled active desire, unless roasted by wisdom, plants a new desire-seed in
the mind. These desire-seeds are more compelling than impulsive fresh desires,
deeply rooting themselves in the subconscious, ready to spring up suddenly with
demands that are most often unreasonable, frustrating, and sorrow-producing. As
desire begets desires, the only way to end the cycle is to destroy the causes. (bg)
Fulfillment of a particular desire seems necessary only if one lacks conviction
that he can find perfect fulfillment in God. One who is at peace in God is not
tortured by unfulfilled earthly desires. As often as we have come on earth we have
developed new imperfections and new desires. So we come back here again and again
until we fulfill all desires; or until, through increase of wisdom, we banish those
desires. We must satisfy our desires, or by cultivating wisdom, do away with them
altogether. Your fulfillment lies not in obtaining the objects of your desire, but
in the unfoldment of your soul qualities in making the effort to succeed in
worthwhile endeavors. A devotee who is master of his senses is ready for
emancipation. He who succumbs to temptations will remain entangled in sense
objects, far removed from soul knowledge. Every indulgence in any form of sense-
lures reinforces the desire for that experience. Repetition leads to the formation
of nearly unshakable bad habits. You must learn to work without desire, and to live
in this world without attachment. As soon as you are caught by desires or
attachment, you will have all the evil that is coming to you. This is why the Gita
says: "O Arjuna! no (compelling) duty have I to perform; there is naught that I
have not acquired; nothing in the three worlds remains for Me to gain! Yet I am
consciously present in the performance of all actions."* [*Bhagavad Gita III:22.]
Those who want to be liberated must do likewise, engaging in serviceful, joyful,
nonattached activity. Most people willingly work hard for money, but they won't
make even a little effort for their salvation. We must work for God. The way to do
this is to noncooperate with evil and to behave as God would have us behave. (dr
p.110) Sense delights, in reality, are felt as pleasurable only through an act of
imagination by the soul, created by the interaction of the sense mind with the
objects of the senses. Man can be truly happy only within his soul nature of bliss,
omniscience, and wisdom. He can never be contented by imagining himself to be happy
because the senses are happy. ... First of all, the sensations of beauty, melody,
fragrance, taste, and touch are not experienced on the skin surface, but in the
brain. The sensation of the taste of a strawberry is felt in the brain as a mental
reaction, evolving from the contact of the fruit with the surface of the tongue.
When the mind identifies favorably with the sensation of strawberry flavor, it
likes it. (bg) Man's life is a paradox. He is the soul, made in the image of
Spirit, which can be satisfied only with divine pleasures; yet bodily incarnate, he
is familiar only with sensory experiences. Placed as he is between the material and
the spiritual, he must use his endowment of discrimination to distinguish between
the real soul pleasures and the illusory pleasures of the senses. Krishna says: "If
you want to know the joy of heavenly consciousness vibrating in every cell of the
ether, do away with sense attachment!" (bg) Desires are formed according to one's
environment; they are created by, and therefore limited by, your sense perceptions.
... Live with thieves and you think that is the only life. But live with divine
persons, and after having divine communion, no other desires can tempt you. ...
Human desires are not perfect, hence their fulfillment does not lead to perfect
happiness. Unfulfilled desires are the root cause of reincarnation. You don�t have
to be a king in order to have complete fulfillment. Nor do you end desires by
giving up everything and becoming a poor man. You have your own self-created
destiny with its lessons to be learned, and you must play well that part for which
you were sent here. If everybody on the stage wants to be a king or queen, there
will be no play. An actor with even a minor part can ruin the entire production by
a poor performance. Every role is important; everyone should interact harmoniously
for the success of the play. I enjoy everything, but I have no desire for anything,
so there is never any pain or disappointment from unfulfillment. Whatever I do,
wherever I go, I enjoy myself. Material things cannot be owned by anybody, for at
death they must be left behind and given to others. We are only allowed to use the
objects of this world. So it is foolish to be possessed by material possessions.
Just pray to be given the use of what you need, and the power to create those
things at will. Until you fulfill your strong desires, your mind will not rest; it
ceaselessly works toward fulfilling those desires. Your mind should be on God night
and day in the same way. Transmute petty desires into one great desire for Him.
Your mind should continually whisper, "Night and day, night and day, I look for
Thee night and day." The only way to outwit earthly disappointments over
prosperity, fame, and happiness is not to feel sorry when you are denied what you
think you want. The world ends for us when we are free from desires. I enjoy
everything, but I have no desire for anything, so there is never any pain or
disappointment from unfulfillment. Whatever I do, wherever I go, I enjoy myself.
The truth is, only fools are attached to this world. �Fools� are those who live in
ignorance, those to whom the world is real because they think it is the only way of
life. In the name and guise of fulfilling one's needs, ego lures man to continuous
seeking of self-satisfaction, resulting in suffering and vexation. What would
content the soul is forgotten, and the ego goes on endlessly trying to satisfy its
insatiable desires. Kama (lust) is therefore the compelling desire to indulge in
sensory temptations. Coercive materialistic desire is the instigator of man's wrong
thoughts and actions. The initial state of happiness accompanying sensuality is
always followed by unhappiness, owing to the impairment of physical vitality,
mental self-control, and spiritual peace. It is the enigma of maya that the poison
of sensual experiences is found to be so pleasant in the beginning. The initially
pleasurable taste of the poisonous honey of evil deludes people and so causes them
to indulge in harmful experiences. If evil had no charm, nobody would try it.
People swallow the bitter pill of evil because it is sugarcoated with immediate
pleasure. (bg) Lust applies to the abuse of any or all of the senses in the pursuit
of pleasure or gratification. Through the sense of sight man may lust after
material objects; through the sense of hearing, he craves the sweet, slow poison of
flattery, and vibratory sounds as of voices and music that rouse his material
nature; through the lustful pleasure of smell he is enticed toward wrong
environments and actions; lust for food and drink causes him to please his taste at
the expense of health; through the sense of touch he lusts after inordinate
physical comfort and abuses the creative sex impulse. Lust also seeks gratification
in wealth, status, power, domination�all that satisfies the "I, me, mine" in the
egotistical man. Lustful desire is egotism, the lowest rung of the ladder of human
character evolution. By the force of its insatiable passion, kama [desire for
material pleasures] loves to destroy one's happiness, health, brain power, clarity
of thought, memory, and discriminative judgment. By constant self-indulgence, the
ordinary person remains sense-ensnared. He finds himself limited to enjoyments
connected only with the surface of the flesh. This sense pleasure yields a fleeting
happiness, but shuts off the manifestation of the subtle, more pure and lasting
enjoyments�the taste of silent blessedness and the innumerable blissful perceptions
that appear whenever the meditating yogi's consciousness is turned from the outer
sensory world to the inner cosmos of Spirit. The transient, misleading physical
sense emotions are a poor substitute for heaven! So long as a man has any material
desires, he has to work out his karma in a physical body. When he is able to
extricate himself, by nonattachment and the practice of Kriya Yoga, from all
fleshly delusions and bondage, he then finds himself
confined in the astral body and entangled in his astral karma. By deeper immersion
in ecstasy, the devotee escapes from the astral body and becomes lodged in the
causal or ideational body, vibrating with the original subtle seeds of all past
karmic impulses. By constant self-indulgence, the ordinary person remains sense-
ensnared. He finds himself limited to enjoyments connected only with the surface of
the flesh. This sense pleasure yields a fleeting happiness, but shuts off the
manifestation of the subtle, more pure and lasting enjoyments�the taste of silent
blessedness and the innumerable blissful perceptions that appear whenever the
meditating yogi's consciousness is turned from the outer sensory world to the inner
cosmos of Spirit. The transient, misleading physical sense emotions are a poor
substitute for heaven! (bg) Further readings: Ways to Overcome Desires -- Read
more: http://yogananda.com.au/gurus/yoganandaquotes05a.html#desires