Life goes on. Every individual is subjected to time and space, this calls for movement of his thoughts, feelings and actions. Much of what we think, feel and act out is based on our desire for things, persons or tempting situations. We all have exorbitant desires, wants and needs, and somehow this is what keeps us on track with a sane life. But what is a sane life?
Isn’t sanity a state of being where we are satisfied with what is and may become of our lives? And when we say satisfied we mean at peace with life, not compromise or complacency. To many of us, life is about achieving our dreams and having our desires fulfilled. Typically, we wish for more wealth, power, name, fame, love, sensory pleasures, possessions and things that make our life secure and comfortable. This is so for most people, to acquire important things and experience them.
Many a times have we been in situations where we have pursued a thing like a leopard pursuing its prey and not been able to obtain the object of our pursuit. Depending on our attachment and craziness for it, our failure damages our emotional, mental and psychological well-being. This in turn wreaks havoc in our relationships with others and ourselves. Most of us cannot tolerate being apart from objects of desire. This calls for much trouble in the world. Yes, at the root of the world’s problems is most definitely man’s selfishness, greed and desire.
But here’s an insight - we don’t really desire the things we desire. We want nothing. We only want to end the want for a particular object of desire. All that we seek in life is because we want to achieve the state of not having to seek it anymore, not because we really want what is sought. All our conditioning, influences and hard-wiring have come to push us into seeking, into wanting, into desiring. But when we go deeper into our psyche we discover that in truth, apart from the conditioning, all along we have been seeking the end of our seeking.
Let’s say that you have always wanted a sports car and you are consumed by that want, you dream it, sleep on it and go crazy at the prospect of owning it. But what happens when you get it, there is some excitement and in time, it dies down, and you find yourself wanting other things, now that this object of your desire has been achieved. You can’t go crazy anymore, you want to move on. Society has made us into machines seduced by all kinds of temptations. The end of desire and this whirlpool of being enamoured by something that’s separate from ourselves is seen by understanding this fallacy of seeking and desiring. What we seek is not the object of desire but the end of desire.