If we desire to live without desire will it be a desire?

Question

EXPLANATION :

• People live with many desires and karmas of good and bad come according to the kind of desire

• A man who perform's his duties without any desire and submits the results to god will not acquire any karma.

• If a man always desires to live without desire then he desires to be desireless .

• As he desires for desireless he wants the state of desireless for his own(Under maya as a conditioned soul)
  

QUESTION :

• If we desire for desirelessness isn't it a desire ?
• Does karmas takes place in these kinds of actions ?

Answer 1

If we desire for desirelessness isn't it a desire ?

Yes, it is indeed a desire, Which is necessary.

Does karmas takes place in these kinds of actions ?

Gita explains this in form of " निष्काम कर्म " or " Selfless deeds "

Lord Krishna said in Gita that One can not live with Karma, even if you are sitting ideal there is karma going on.

Karma should be done in state of keeping the mind in tranquility which means selfless deeds.

This is common misunderstanding but important to understand that Krisha does not mean we should not have desire or ambition while doing निष्काम कर्म

Example: In office or in business we always want more for more prosperity in our life which is good, but keep in mind that instead or promotion or success in business, you may be kicked out of company or business may fall down.

So now what should be the state of mind, we are not the controller of what happens outside our body, but inside we can control and if we do not give the remote control of our emotions or desires to outside people and situation would be better, it sounds easy but trust me its very difficult.

At last we always see paradoxical points in spirituality, that is why it is said spirituality is a journey from known to unknown.

There has to be a powerful desire (तीव्र इच्छा) to get Mukti or Moksha.

So in short as Buddha said find the point in middle, means there has to be balance in life.

Answer 2

The Gita Bg 3.5 says that basically you are forced to act according to the nature you already acquired by working towards satisfying your previous desires.

Everyone is forced to act helplessly according to the qualities he has acquired from the modes of material nature; therefore no one can refrain from doing something, not even for a moment.

Don't let the desires control you. Bg 2.70 watch yourself, and pray and meditate, take shelter in the Lord with all your desires, attachments and fears.

A person who is not disturbed by the incessant flow of desires – that enter like rivers into the ocean, which is ever being filled but is always still – can alone achieve peace, and not the man who strives to satisfy such desires.

Bg 4.10

Being freed from attachment, fear and anger, being fully absorbed in Me and taking refuge in Me, many, many persons in the past became purified by knowledge of Me – and thus they all attained transcendental love for Me.

A desire is like a wave, if a wave takes the boat away from the port, it is still a wave.

If you have a rudder on your boat, then you can navigate in the ocean of desires.

ŚB 10.14.58

For those who have accepted the boat of the lotus feet of the Lord, who is the shelter of the cosmic manifestation and is famous as Murāri, the enemy of the Mura demon, the ocean of the material world is like the water contained in a calf’s hoof-print. Their goal is paraṁ padam, Vaikuṇṭha, the place where there are no material miseries, not the place where there is danger at every step.

Answer 3

When someone opts or "wishes" to get free from desire then it is not "natural". But when desires themselves drop from your mind then that is real "desirelessness". By consiously "witnessing" or "observing" these desires one slowly starts understanding the pattern and they start to diminish.

Buddha is saying: To be in desire is to be miserable. He is not saying desire about what: desire as such creates misery – because in desire you start moving from the present, you start thinking of the future. You start thinking of dreams – you are going to do this, and this is going to happen; and if this happens you will be happy, and if that happens you will be very very miserable. The moment you start dreaming and desiring you have missed contact with life; you disconnected. You are no more living in those moments of desire. Those moments of desiring are death moments. Life has stopped flowing. You are frozen.

Whenever you are in desire you are not alive. Life and desire can’t exist together. They are two gestalts, you can have only one at one time. If you move into desire, life disappears; if you are living, desire disappears.

Have you not seen in some psychology books a certain picture of an old woman? And in the same picture, in those same lines, is hidden a beautiful young woman – both are there. But if you look at the old woman, then you cannot see the young woman. If you look at the young woman, then suddenly the old woman disappears. They are BOTH there in the same lines, but you can see only one at a time. Your gestalt changes. When you are looking at the young face, then those lines are making a new pattern. Because of this pattern, the other pattern cannot be seen. When you start seeing the old woman, the young woman recedes back; because of the old woman’s pattern, you cannot see the new woman’s pattern. You cannot see both together. Because you cannot see both together, whenever you are with one the other becomes non-existential to you. And you know both are there; still you cannot see.

Exactly the same is the case with desire and life. If you desire, life is no more there; you stop living. The same energy becomes desire, so no more energy is available to live. When you start living, desire disappears because the same energy has become life; you cannot desire any more.

But what happened? People listened to Buddha and they thought, ”He must be right. He says. ’With desire there is misery,’ So now we will desire desirelessness. How to attain desirelessness.?” Now they are ready to go on another journey of desire. Just the OBJECT of desire has changed. first they were thinking how to have more money, how to have more power, how to go to New Delhi, Washington, London, Moscow; now, their goal has changed – how to attain NIRVANA, MOKSHA, God, desirelessness.

But the object is there, and with the object the desire ii there. They have committed something very absurd. They missed the point. Buddha is not saying to create a new desire. Buddha is simply saying: Understand desire. Look into desire and you will find misery. Once this understanding has penetrated deep into your being, that desire is misery, then the problem has disappeared. Then you don’t desire at all. And, when you don’t desire, there is desirelessness.

Desirelessness cannot be desired; MOKSHA cannot be desired; God cannot be desired. If you desire, God has become an object of lust. You are again in the same trap – with a new label, but the disease is the same. Maybe the skin is new, but the wine is old.

-Osho , Zen: The path of paradox Vol 3