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Things That Enslave Us
Desires lead to self-destruction
Our prayer says, "Our desires are putting bar to our advancement"
because every desire is a hold we have on life - not on the present
life but on the future life. We have enough holds from the past - our
samskaras. We have created enough holds in the present as a result of
those samskaras. What is a wish? It is the most dangerous thing because
I am creating a hold over the future. So, not being satisfied with the
past and the present, I am creating a burden for the future. It is like
mortgaging my land or my house; some day that fellow is going to come
and put a noose around my neck.
So, experience teaches us that the more we indulge, the more we want
to indulge. In the Oriental philosophies we say it is like adding oil
to a fire. One cannot put out a fire by pouring more petrol on it. To
put it very bluntly, desire feeds on desire. Or you can say, desire
is the fuel for more desires. So there is no such thing as finishing
with desires once and for all, you see, it doesn't happen. And if you
go by the experience of many old people who have been disillusioned
by this very sort of approach to life, they will tell you that all their
life they have indulged in their desires, but it has not stopped. And
the funny thing is that even then desire persists. This is not profound
truth, everybody knows this.
In the Gita, you know, we have a famous quartet which puts this in
a very beautiful, small way. It says; when we are not alert, desire
comes up; and when desire is not fulfilled, anger comes from it; when
the anger exceeds its limits, the human being loses his power of reasoning;
and when that happens, that is, when the power of reasoning is lost,
he or she destroys himself or herself. So if you shorten the equation;
desire leads to self-destruction; if desire is not fulfilled, it leads
to loss of intelligence, loss of the ability to discriminate, and we
destroy ourselves. So, do not have wishes. Because wishes lead to action,
action leads to result, and that leads to another samskara.
Some people ask, "Is not the desire for spiritual growth a desire?"
My Master gave two answers. At one place he said, "It is the only
desire which is permitted." In another place he said, "It
is not a desire, because growth is a natural thing and a natural law."
So it cannot be a bad thing to desire growth, because we are following
Nature in that.
"Desire is like fire - it demands more and more fuel to keep
itself burning."
Needs and Wants
Many have a need, as they imagine, for money or power or position.
For all these things they look below and the consequences are tragic.
We delude ourselves with the idea of greatness, or power, or position,
and remain here as merely human beings with the lowest of aspirations,
searching for them in lowest of planes of existence.
My Master teaches, "It is He, and He alone, the Master of calibre,
who can grant us what we need to cross this ocean of human existence
and reach the other shore safely". Therefore, it is wisdom to look
to Him, and to Him alone for needs. Our wants lead us astray. We have
to distinguish between "needs" and "wants", He provides
our needs. We have to give up our desires which must be abandoned in
our aspiration for the higher life, in our progress towards the goal.
Habits enslave us
A man who gets drunk and goes on getting drunk is a slave to his drink,
he is not free. That is why habits enslave us. As I used to say jokingly
to Babuji Maharaj, "I am a slave of good habits. I wake up at five.
I cannot wake up at seven, you see, unless I am sick, "So I am
a slave of a good habit, somebody is a slave of a bad habit, so habits
per se enslave us.
So Babuji had no habits, except his one habit which he told me himself,
of the hookah. He said, "That is my only habit." He didn't
say, "bad habit" or "good habit" and that was good,
you see, because when everything enslaves us, how can a good habit be
good if I am going to be a slave of it? So there are no things such
as good habits and bad habits, there are only habits. And all habits
make us slaves.
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