We are always hearing how one has to give up desire before one can awaken. The logic all sounds good. After all, it has been taught for thousands of years, so it must be true. Or is it? As with everything you will find written in this book, I can only speak from my own experience. I had desire when my first Satori happened. I had no knowledge of any teaching about desire, yet the Heart/Mind became apparent and the state of being awake was clear.
I understand all the teachings about desire and I can see why they are taught. It is only the ego that feels it needs to be free, so if it is still in a state of desire, it is still functioning as ego. However, if one does not desire to be out of that state of mind the ego creates, and then no one would ever try to understand.
Desire also is in time. Not the direct need for something to live, food, water, etc., but desire that creates an image in the mind. The ego only seems to live in time, psychological time, and the awakening can only come about in this moment. Therefore, it would seem clear that if we have no desire then we have a better opportunity to awaken. It all makes sense, it is all-logical and that is why it has been taught this way for so long.
Yet, in the case of this fellow it was not true. For one thing, desire being in time, it can be gone one moment and back the next. For a moment we can be so aware, that time does not exist. In that moment, one can Awaken. When that Awakening takes place you see and understand the very same thing as one who has been desireless for a hundred years. It seems to me that the idea of not having desire is just another ideal some people think you need to live by. Ideals are another mental projection of the ego.
When one awakens, many things one desired before just fall away. They don't fall away because of some ideal. They are just seen for what they are and become unimportant to us.
Please don't get so caught up in trying to end your desire that you find yourself stressed out, which just keeps the ego going. Lighten up, live a normal life. The ego is just a very small part of life, and, of course, has no real existence at all. Yet, it causes all sorts of problems, not because it is real, but because we take it as real and cannot see beyond it. Find out what that whole process is and it will bring the mind to a state of ripeness where it can be let go of and the truth be seen and understood. Of course, you can't let go of it, the ego; the truth lets go of you, as ego.
Please keep in mind what is said here is not a put down to other teachers. As I said above, I can only speak from my own experience. If they found their way to awakening by stopping desire, then more power to them. Teach what you know. I wish them all well.
The Buddha taught that the root of all suffering is desire, I do not agree with that. Certainly, if we desire and our desires are not fulfilled then there is suffering. That is a very low level of suffering. The real suffering comes not from desire but by misidentifying with an idea that has no reality, the ego. The state of insecurity caused by the ego is the real suffering and the cause of most suffering in the world.
Doubt all teachers, including me. Find out for yourselves. Just because someone in the past said it is this way or that, does not make it true. The only way you will know the truth is when it is your truth, and you become Truth Itself. Too many so-called spiritual teachers have their heads in the clouds and miss the very simple fact that the ego is just a byproduct of the evolution of the brain and that this world as we see it is reality. It is a full, rich, and joyful awareness. Smell it, taste it, dance in it, eat it, play in it and deeply enjoy it.
