It is well known that the driving force of the whole world is desire. If a person becomes free from desire, he becomes free from karma as there is no need to do any work due to lack of desire. As soon as one becomes karma-free, one can become pain-free, because karma itself produces fruit, that is, happiness or sorrow. Good deeds produce excellent fruit (happiness) and bad deeds have to suffer tragic consequences. In this way, in the cycle of desire and karma, the soul travels 84 lakh rounds of birth and death according to the scriptures. At the root of all is desire. Desire produces different wishes in the mind for the fulfillment of which a person becomes active. Success makes him happy and failure makes him frustrated, depressed, sad and stressed. His attachment, affection, love grows towards whom who helps him in fulfilling desires and dislike or hatred increases for the people who creates obstacles in his path. In this way liking-disliking is created and the intensity of such attachment and jealousy creates greed, anger, ego etc. which make human life poisonous. This vicious cycle continues unabated.
Thus desire is responsible for every situation in life. There is only one factor responsible behind every kind of situation like happiness and sorrow, joy and grief, likes-dislikes, convenience-adversity, success and failure. But it is very important to understand why desire occurs and to whom it occurs, only then can it be released with a deeper understanding. In fact, desire occurs when a defect appears in the self, an imperfection appears and a desire to fulfill it arises. Just like when we see someone healthy, we realize that we are unhealthy, that we have a defect, and that is how we want to be healthy. In the same way, when we see rich people, we try to remove our poverty and the desire for wealth is born. Seeing a wise influential knowledgeable person, seeing his prestige or respect in the society, one wants to get it. In short, when we see our shortcomings or imperfections, we have the desire to fulfill them. But the desire can never be fulfilled of anyone. Desire never arises in a true sage or a perfect person. If we are persecuted by many desires, it means that we are flawed, imperfect.
Defects and imperfections are responsible for the karma or constant efforts that keeps a person active for life. But we forget that all desires cannot be fulfilled. All the desires of sages, incarnations, dignitaries or even God can never be fulfilled. So how can it be possible for ordinary person like us? Every nobleman, saint, incarnation wants the world to prosper, all to be happy which can never happen. In the same way, God always has a desire for all living beings to be free from ignorance, ego and desires and return to God faster. That is why god creates the world, gives knowledge of the Vedas and gives everyone the same intellect needed to understand it. But even wish of God cannot be fulfilled, so how can it be possible for us?
Complete fulfillment of desires is not possible because the means of attaining what we want (power, beauty, knowledge, love, wealth) are limited and how can everyone get what is lacking. Moreover, the creation of desires takes place in ignorance, i.e. ignorance is the responsible factor behind innumerable desires. He who has true knowledge never feels any defect or imperfection in life which he desires to fulfill. He who knows his true divine form knows that he already has everything, he does not need to get anything. Man pursues seven things throughout his life, the seven main centres of his discovery are beauty, Power, Peace, Love, Joy, Knowledge and Immortality and the sage knows that this seven quality is the real form of the soul. The person who recognizes the soul attains these seven automatically. It does not require desire or karma because these seven are already available to us. But ignorance of it in the form of desire makes us run and get tired. Where can we find the thing that is in the house if we search for it outside the house? And in the end man gets tired of not getting it. It is natural for a person to get tired of such a rush of wish fulfillment. Furthermore, as we have seen, one’s all desires can never be fulfilled because desires are unlimited because ignorance is also unlimited.
If you constantly feel that something is missing in your life, that is, if you are dissatisfied permanently, then how is it possible to fulfill it? In the absence of contentment, a person is constantly miserable, that is why the Bhagavad Gita says that the true rich man is the one who has contentment in his life. Dissatisfaction makes a man run for life. He constantly feels that he is missing something and he runs with new desires to fulfill it and when one wish is fulfilled, he starts running again for another wish. Thus the race of life continues uninterrupted, life ends but desires do not end. In short, the desire always happens to ignorant and imperfect human beings and it is natural to want to fulfill it when one feels a defect in oneself. Such a defect is felt only by a person who does not have true knowledge. If we are driven by many desires, then at least we must admit that we are ignorant. The greatest misfortune of today’s age is that every person considers himself to be extremely intelligent, wise and knowledgeable that there is no one else in the society like him who is educated, sensible, intelligent and knowledgeable. Which is the basic sign of being ignorant. Actually all the invaluable things which we need to keep our-self happy are already given to us by God, such as an excellent, healthy, invaluable human body, a developed mind, pure air (oxygen), water, food, etc. By destroying all these invaluable things, what exactly we want to get I don’t understand. Do you think happiness or fulfillment of desire will be possible by destroying health, polluting air-water food in the name of development, breaking the power of mind? I do not understand how a person who considers himself smart, intelligent, knowledgeable and educated can do such things?
Well, my point here is just to tell why desire occurs and to whom it occurs, if it is understood then maybe man can be released from its clutches. I strongly believe that the complete end of all desires is possible only through one desire and that is the desire for attainment of God (God is infinite energy and eternal existence) by which all desires are fulfilled automatically. The desire for attainment of god is the only desirable desire because through it one experiences perfection, any defect or imperfection in oneself ceases to appear so that the question of its fulfilment is automatically solved. No desire or lust is born which does not raise the question of its fulfilment.
Shilpa shah, director in-charge, HKBBA College
