Desires - Root Cause of All Emotional Deficiencies

A quote from Gandhiji, ‘There is enough in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed’ describes the content of this topic really well. Our bodies need food, water, and a comfortable place to live. The word ‘need’ in the last sentence describes the necessities of life, without which life is difficult and sometimes can even end. In essence some desires are necessities of life. In today’s world many of the ‘wants’ are described as necessities of life. Few decades back, not every family in India had a landline phone. In contrast, most people in today’s India have multiple mobile phones (private, public, office, etc). These people will try to convince you that having multiple phones is a necessity of life. Is it really? Desires in themselves are not a problem, infact they are necessary to give us a sense of purpose and direction in life. Wouldn’t life feel burdensome if we did not have a desire to live. At Brahma Kumaris, I was taught when desires shift from being a power to becoming a weakness. The clarity I received has helped me to wisely let go of the desires that are detrimental to my emotional well being. I would love to share some of those secrets with you.Why do we create desires?

The answer to this question lies in another question, what is attained after a desire gets fulfilled? Indeed, we create desires to experience happiness. It is important to check for how long does that happiness lasts and is it moving us  towards becoming a more happier day by day? Few decades back people did not have so many desires, yet they were lot more happier than the current generation. In today's world, desires of many affluent people is getting met. Yet, they are the most unsatisfied people, why? Instead of being satisfied, they are experiencing exact opposite feeling - greed or sorrow. This clearly indicates that happiness does not increase as more expectations are met. 

Why is there discontentment with the rise of desires?
The fulfillment of the desires is dependent on multiple factors which are not in our control. People are trying hard to control others, situation, future, and nature so that they can be happy after their desire is met. The more they try to control, the more their mind goes out of control (that is mind becomes peaceless). Does it make sense to even put effort in controlling things that we know are beyond our control? Yet we keep trying by creating desires like, 'people should behave nicely, weather should not be too warm, traffic should be light, my body should be beautiful and healthy'. 
It is also important to check the intensity of the happiness and the duration it lasts. A happiness that is achieved by using the support of objects (food, gadgets, materialism, etc) or people, does not give us real and lasting happiness. It only gives us momentary pleasure and that does not satisfy someone who wants to experience real joy. Hence we immediately start wishing for more things as we do not know any other method to keep ourselves happy. One desire leads to many other desires and yet we only become dependent but not happy. Isn't that an irony? Or is it our ignorance?

How can one live without any desires?

It is the quality of the desire that determines whether it will strengthen or weaken our inner core. One desire can lead to emotional strength and another one can lead to a deficiency. Spirituality (education of the spirit) teaches us to be smart and choose our desires wisely as our emotional well being heavily relies on it. A wish is selfish or limited in nature if it benefits only the self or its immediate relatives. The selfish desire becomes even more impure when it benefits the self at the cost of bringing loss to many. Many builders in India are making lot of money by making false promises. The builders are growing their bank balance with hard earned money of middle class people by selling them low quality homes for high prices. Builder's wish of having lot of money gets fulfilled temporarily, but it causes a huge loss in their emotional strength bank balance. Many deficiencies like dissatisfaction, greed, restlessness, and ego start emerging when the desires becomes impure, selfish, and limited.

What are the side effects of having selfish desires?

The biggest side effect of selfish desires is that it leads to all kinds of emotional deficiencies. Few other side effects:

1. Limited desires makes us work extra hard and do not gives us the attainment of being content. We might get called successful by others because of achieving name, fame, and wealth. Externally successful, but internally we feel empty, like a failure. The proof of internal success is contentment, but a person with many desires feels the opposite, greedy (wants more).
2. Selfish desires drive us in many directions and cause us to lose focus. One day our heart desires something, and the next moment it wants something else.
3. A person driven by so many expectations feels emotionally exhausted. Slowly, a feeling of hopelessness arises in them.
4. Many type of addictions (objects and habits) and obsessions (people) develop in a person who relies on external world to keep themselves happy

Which spiritual vitamins will finish the emotional deficiency of limited desires?

We put conditions to our happiness by creating desires, that we will be happy when they are met. In order to combat this deficiency the spiritual vitamin needed is to remember that we are the creators of happiness. Just like Sun can create light and warmth on its own, we can create happiness through our thoughts and right knowledge. Knowledge about the self  (spirit or soul) reveals that we are comfortable only when our feelings are pure and positive. Soul’s innate quality is happiness and its true religion is peace. Self realization slowly helps us in understanding that we have a choice to create happy thoughts, and when we chose the right thought, the soul automatically feels happy. How empowering is it to independently experience what our core desires? For example, I used to create irritating thoughts in the past when body would go through some discomfort. I used to blame the body that never cooperated and think that others are luckier because their body stayed healthy inspite of not taking care. I created irritation and hopelessness. I decided to correct that by creating acceptance instead. I could create acceptance by creating thoughts like, 'everyone has their share of good and bad moments in life; bad moments are also good because they help me develop more resilience and power; it is the body that is uncomfortable but I, the soul, is healthy;bodies job is to waver from good to bad health and my job is to be detached and watch its drama.'

A selfless desire that can finish all selfish desires

We, human beings, need goals, objectives, or desires to move forward. These goals help in bringing focus, are key to emerging our higher potential, and achieving self progress. I received a divine insight to keep only one angelic and empowering desire at Brahma Kumaris. Many of my selfish, limited, and impure desires have magically been burnt by keeping the flame of this one desire burning in my heart. I am confident that one day even the last traces of impure desires will be burnt when the intensity of this desire reaches its peak. I am so looking forward to that day. The noble desire is to keep ourselves engaged in fulfilling others’ pure desires, and this wish automatically enables every desire of ours to get fulfilled by the Supreme being as per the laws of the universe. The pure desire can be practically implemented when we keep an intent of giving a blessing (may this person be peaceful, happy, etc) to every person we meet, encourage and appreciate others through our kind words, and do everything to cooperate in others tasks. My experience is that whenever I have kept myself busy in this task, I have felt super sensuous joy that cannot be described in words. I highly recommend to experiment with this angelic desire, and see if your life gets filled with unlimited bliss.