Overcoming the Force of Desire

If we reflect on the course of human life, it is easy to determine that we fixate upon different things at different stages of life. As a child, our desires tend to be centered around physical and vital satisfactions. We may desire a specific food, or a specific toy, or a specific form of entertainment. As we grow into later stages, the form our desires take will tend to change, and we may be interested in various types of games, competitive sports, intellectual pursuits of various sorts, etc. Post-puberty we may fixate our desires for a time on experiencing and fulfilling our sexual desires, or in succeeding in our education, experiencing more of the world directly through travel or planning for a career. We may later adjust our desires to include a successful life as a householder including possibly marriage, career, children, etc. Health becomes a focus of desire at certain stages. This change in focus takes place succcessively across our consecutive stages of life, and with each change in focus comes a change in the nature of the things we choose to desire or crave.

While the specifics of our desires may change, what does not tend to change is the existence of desires, in and of themselves, regardless of the object at any point in time. It is this force of desire that drives us along and captivates our vital nature to such an extent that we tend to be consumed by desire. The vital nature is able to convince the mind of the need and ‘rightness’ of the desired object or objective, and thus, we become distracted by what the sages have called the illusion of the exte
al world, maya or samsara.

Several questions then arise. First, if desire is a distraction from our ability to understand and live the truth of our existence, is there a different motive force that can direct our vital energies to achieve the actual fulfillment of the meaning of our lives? Second, is the issue the force of desire, or the element of craving which can drive the focus far beyond a simple desire? Third, how do we go about accomplishing this change of motive force, given the pervasiveness and power of the force of desire?

We can see one possible line of approach in the changing object of desire over time. When the psychic being becomes conscious and comes to the forefront, it changes its focus to aspiration for the Divine and, just as we see with the different objects of desire through our stages of life, this change can redirect us away from exte
al satisfaction of desires to a burning aspiration for the Divine. We hear Krishna’s flute and forget about all our worldly goals and objectives.

Another line of approach is for the witness consciousness, the Purusha, to remove its sanction from the play of desire in the vital, and over time, redirect the focus toward the spiritual realisation.

We observe instances, for example, where an individual is raised in a non-vegetarian family and society but eventually concludes he wants to become vegetarian. He first removes the ‘sanction’ to eat non-vegetarian foods. He substitutes vegetarian options into his diet. He may occasionally experience a ‘craving’. If he denies the momentary craving, he continues on his way along the lines of vegetarian lifestyle. If the craving is extremely powerful, he may indulge it one time, without, however, giving it sanction. The food may, by that time, make him feel unwell, and it reinforces his intention to reject it in future. This sequence happens frequently as the ranks of vegetarians and vegans continue to expand across the world. We see here a potential model for addressing various sorts of desires with conscious intention to change.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “The rejection of desire is essentially the rejection of the element of craving, putting that out from the consciousness itself as a foreign element not belonging to the true self and the inner nature. But refusal to indulge the suggestions of desire is also a part of the rejection; to abstain from the action suggested, if it is not the right action, must be included in the yogic discipline. It is only when this is done in the wrong way, but a mental ascetic principle or a hard moral rule, that it can be called suppression. The difference between suppression and an inward essential rejection is the difference between mental or moral control and a spiritual purification.”

“When one lives in the true consciousness one feels the desires outside oneself, entering from outside, from the universal lower Prakriti, into the mind and the vital parts. In the ordinary human condition this is not felt; men become aware of the desire only when it is there, when it has come inside and found a lodging or a habitual harbourage and so they think it is their own and a part of themselves. The first condition for getting rid of desire is, therefore, to become conscious with the true consciousness; for then it becomes much easier to dismiss it than when one has to struggle with it as if it were a constituent part of oneself to be thrown out from the being. It is easier to cast off an accretion than to excise what is felt as a parcel of our substance.”

“When the psychic being is in front, then also to get rid of desire becomes easy; for the psychic being has in itself no desires, it has only aspirations and a seeking and love for the Divine and all things that are or tend towards the Divine. The constant prominence of the psychic being tends of itself to bring out the true consciousness and set right almost automatically the movements of the nature.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 5, Attitudes on the Path, pp. 152-153