Love and Happiness: Desire Management For a Full Life

By SWAMI TEJOMAYANANDA

There are some people who do little, but make others do a lot. Brahman, the pure Consciousness, too, is actionless - but in Its presence, everything else works.

Observe an infant. It does little other than kick about, cry and laugh but it spurs everybody into willing action. The mere presence of an infant brings joy. What makes a baby so lovable, a source of joy for all?

The answer is simple but profound - a baby is free of desires. It has biological needs like hunger and thirst, but, other than that, a baby has no desires. Its eyes reflect its state of freedom from desires. The great scriptural texts have exalted the state of desirelessness as the ultimate state. Besides babies, only one other kind of being has eyes that reflect total desirelessness: The realised person.

Man begins his life without desire (as an infant), goes through life's tribulations, and eventually, through spiritual evolution, once again becomes free of desires as a man of realisation. Every now and then, new (limited) aspects of life are brought under the purview of 'management'.

However, all these areas, though individually useful, are not the whole of it. Study of the limited aspects without an understanding of the whole is not enough. A man who was stressed out at work attended a time management seminar. It proved effective, he got his work done much faster and found he had free time... but he didn't know what to do with it. Holistic life management is important to make the particular aspects more meaningful and fruitful.

The first aspect of life management is desire management. Desire per se is neither trouble nor a cause of bondage. But when it increases in quantity and decreases in quality to unmanageable levels, it can destroy us. The scriptures divide life into four stages and at each stage there are specific rules to be followed.

The foundation for brahmacharya ashrama or student life is discipline. Without discipline, neither study nor a successful life is possible. Discipline in this stage prepares you for living that knowledge later.

The cornerstone of grihastha ashrama or householder's life is the spirit of service. We have a limited or distorted view of service - we think only of 'acts' of service, not the 'spirit'.

Service is not an 'act' but an 'attitude'. Mahatma Gandhi said that there is not a single moment in life when one cannot serve. We can serve even with just a loving look or a consoling pat. The readiness to serve at all times, just for the joy of giving, should be the hallmark of a grihastha.

Vanaprastha ashrama or spiritual life signifies retirement from worldly things but commitment to deeper spiritual pursuits. Self-enquiry is the foundation of this stage in an atmosphere of tapas or austerity.

Sanyasa ashrama or renunciation is the giving up of all likes, dislikes, desires and ego. One can be totally free of desires only when one is full within. You might have noticed an interesting connection between one's heart and stomach.

When the heart is full, so seems the stomach too. When people are very happy or thrilled about something, they don't notice hunger - often even for hours. Complete freedom from desire adorns a sanyasi only because of his constant abidance in the Self. His is a life of total renunciation, other than the bare needs for survival.

If each stage of life is lived by its founding principle, desire management will be spontaneous. We move through discipline, spirit of service and self-enquiry to abidance in the Self, and achieve the transcending of desire to reach the state of desirelessness.

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See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul

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