Dealing With Desires

Question : What is the best way of dealing with desires, with a view to getting rid of them — satisfying them or suppressing them? 

Bhagavan: If a desire can be got rid of by satisfying it, there will be no harm in satisfying such a desire. But desires generally are not eradicated by satisfaction. Trying to root them out that way is like pouring spirits to quench fire. At the same time, the proper remedy is not forcible suppression, since such repression is bound to react sooner or later into forceful surging up with undesirable consequences. The proper way to get rid of a desire is to find out “Who gets the desire? What is its source?” When this is found, the desire is rooted out and it will never again emerge or grow. Small desires such as the desire to eat, drink and sleep and attend to calls of nature, though these may also be classed among desires, you can safely satisfy. They will not implant vasanas in your mind, necessitating further birth. Those activities are just necessary to carry on life and are not likely to develop or leave behind vasanas or tendencies. As a general rule, therefore, there is no harm in satisfying a desire where the satisfaction will not lead to further desires by creating vasanas in the mind.

If you can hold on to this knowledge 'I am Self' at all times, no further practice is necessary.

Meditation must be continuous. The current of meditation must be present in all your activities. With practice, meditation and work can go on simultaneously

Continuous attentiveness will only come with long practice. If you are truly watchful, each thought will dissolve at the moment that it appears. But to reach this level of disassociation you must have no attachments at all. If you have the slightest interest in any particular thought, it will evade your attentiveness, connect with other thoughts, and take over your mind for a few seconds; and this will happen even more if you are accustomed to reacting emotionally to a particular thought

In every moment you only have one real choice: to be aware of the Self or to identify with the body and the mind

You have to keep up the enquiry, 'To whom is this happening?' all the time. If you are having trouble remind yourself, 'This is just happening on the surface of my mind. I am not this mind or the wandering thoughts.' Then go back into enquiry 'Who am I?'. By doing this you will penetrate deeper and deeper and become detached from the mind. This will only come about after you have made an intense effort

There are so many thoughts in the mind. Thought after thought after thought. But there is one thought that is continuous, though it is mostly sub-conscious: 'I am the body'. This is the string on which all other thoughts are threaded. Once we identify ourselves with the body by thinking this thought, maya follows. It also follows that if we cease to identify with the body, maya will not affect us anymore

The obstructing vasanas [mental habits and tendencies] may look like a large mountain which obstructs your progress. Don't be intimidated by the size. It is not a mountain of rock, it is a mountain of camphor. If you light one corner of it with the flame of discriminative attention, it will all burn to nothing. Stand back from the mountain of problems, refuse to acknowledge that they are yours, and they will dissolve and disappear before your eyes

Give up your life-long habit of inventing an 'I' which claims all thoughts as 'mine'. Be conscious of yourself as consciousness alone, watch all the thoughts come and go

Watch the thoughts come and go without identifying with them in any way. If you can resist the impulse to claim each and every thought as your own, you will come to a startling conclusion: you will discover that you are the consciousness in which the thoughts appear and disappear. You will discover that this thing called mind only exists when thoughts are allowed to run free

The Self is always attained, it is always realised, it is not something that you have to seek, reach or discover. Your vasanas, the mental habits and tendencies, and all the wrong ideas you have about yourself, are blocking and hiding the experience of the real Self. If you don't identify with the wrong ideas, your Self-nature will not be hidden from you

Stop identifying with the 'ego'. If you can convince yourself: "This 'little self' is not really me", it will just disappear. The 'ego' is something which only appears to be real. If you can understand that it has no real existence, it will disappear, leaving behind it the experience of the real and only Self. If you can understand that this 'ego' never at any time had any existence outside your imagination, you will not be concerned about ways and means of getting rid of it

When the rejection of mental activities becomes continuous and automatic, you will begin to have the experience of the Self.

Bhagavan's famous instruction 'summa iru' [be still] is often misunderstood. It does not mean that you should be physically still, it means that you should always abide in the Self. In sattva guna [a state of mental quietness and clarity] there is stillness and harmony. If mental activity is necessary while one is in sattva guna it takes place. But for the rest of the time there is stillness. If sattva guna predominates one experiences peace, bliss, clarity and an absence of wandering thoughts. That is the stillness that Bhagavan was prescribing

Surrender to Him and abide by His will whether he appears or vanishes; await His pleasure. If you ask Him to do as you please, it is not surrender but command to Him. You cannot have Him obey you and yet think that you have surrendered. He knows what is best and when and how to do it. Leave everything entirely to Him. His is the burden: you have no longer any cares. All your cares are His. Such is surrender. This is bhakti.

Ulladhu Narpadhu - Verse 40

If it is said, so as to suit (the maturity of) the mind, that the liberation which one will attain is (of) three (kinds), with form, without form, or with or without form, I will say that liberation is (in truth only) the destruction of the form of the ego which distinguishes (liberation as being of three kinds), with form, without form, or with or without form. Know thus.

Ulladhu Narpadhu - Verse 28

Just as one would dive (restraining one’s speech and breath) in order to find a thing which has fallen into the water, one should dive within (oneself) restraining speech and breath with a keen mind (that is, with a keen and
penetrating attention fixed on the feeling ‘I’), and know (the real Self, which is) the rising-place (or source) of the ego, which rises first. Know thus.

Ulladhu Narpadhu - Verse 19

The dispute as to which prevails, fate or freewill, is only for those who do not have correct knowledge of the root of fate and freewill, which are different (from each other). (That is, this dispute arises only for those who do not know that the ego, who is the experiencer of fate and the wielder of freewill, is truly non-existent). Those who have known the (non-existence of the individual) self (the ego), who is the one (and only) base of fate and freewill, have discarded them. (that is, they have discarded fate and free will along with their root and base, the ego). Say, will they again become entangled in them (in fate and free will, or in the dispute about them)?

Ulladhu Narpadhu - Verse 11

Knowing other things without knowing oneself (the mind or ego), who knows the objects known, is (only) ignorance; can it instead be (true) knowledge? When (through the enquiry ‘Who am I’, the individual who knows the objects known) one knows (the non-existence of) oneself (the knowing ego) the base for knowledge and the other (that is, the base of knowledge and ignorance about objects) will cease to exist.

Ulladhu Narpadhu - Verse 8

Whoever worships (the nameless and formless Reality) in whatever form giving (it) whatever name, that is the way to see that (nameless and formless) Reality in (that) name and form, (because) it is possible (to see it thus). However, becoming one (with the Reality), having known one’s own
truth (that is, having known the truth that one is not the ego, the individual who worships and sees names and forms, but only the real Self, who never sees names and forms) and having (thereby) subsided in the (nameless and
formless) truth of that Reality, alone is seeing in truth (in other words, being the Reality is alone truly seeing the Reality). Know thus.

Ulladhu Narpadhu - Verse 37

Even the argument which says, “Duality (dvaita) during practice (sadhana) – which one undertakes (due to) not knowing (the truth that one is always Brahman) – and nonduality (advaita) after attainment (that is, duality is true during the time of practice and non-duality becomes true only after the attainment of Self-realization)”, is not true. Who else is one except the tenth man, both when one is anxiously searching (for the tenth man) and when one finds oneself (to be the tenth man).

Ulladhu Narpadhu - Verse 37

Even the argument which says, “Duality (dvaita) during practice (sadhana) – which one undertakes (due to) not knowing (the truth that one is always Brahman) – and nonduality (advaita) after attainment (that is, duality is true during the time of practice and non-duality becomes true only after the attainment of Self-realization)”, is not true. Who else is one except the tenth man, both when one is anxiously searching (for the tenth man) and when one finds oneself (to be the tenth man).

Ulladhu Narpadhu - Verse 36

If we think, having delusion, that we are the body, thinking, ‘No (we are not this body), we are That (the Reality)’, will be a good aid for (reminding and encouraging) us to abide as That. (However) since we (in truth ever) abide
as That, why to think always, ‘We are That’? Does one (always) think, ‘I am a man’? (That is, in order to be a man, does a man always need to meditate, I am a man, I am a man?)

Ulladhu Narpadhu - Verse 32

When the holy scriptures proclaim, “You are That, which is declared to be the Supreme”, instead of oneself knowing and being oneself (by scrutinizing) ‘What (am I)?’, thinking, “I am That (the supreme) and not this (the body composed of five sheaths)”, is due to the absence of strength (that is, due to the absence of maturity of mind), because That indeed always exists as oneself (one’s own Reality).