How to Annihilate Desire
Sometimes there is something which we know to be wholesome for us and conducive to our good; if we still disregard it, evidently it is highly improper; nay, it is a veritable sin. We are told that the desire that stands uppermost in the mind at the moment when life quits the body, determines what the person will become in the next birth. We are thus born in desire, and die in desire, while during life, all our actions are prompted by desire. Desire thus dominates and pervades our entire life. How then can we free ourselves from its clutches, when it is part and parcel of our very being?
What distinguishes man from all other classes of being is the faculty of discrimination between good and bad, wholesome and harmful. That we disregard the judgment of this faculty and continue to yield to the dictates of ego and desire, is where we go wrong. The ego permeates our thought so thoroughly that we treat everything as made for us, belonging to us; and we continually talk of 'my' wife, 'my' children, 'my' home, and so on without end. We pamper the ego so much that we expect everything/and everybody to exist only to please us; which of course, just cannot be. We expect all pleasure and only pleasure, no pain and no displeasure. We do this despite our knowledge and experience to the contrary, and do not hesitate to use fair means and foul to that end. This in turn fosters more and more desire, that is pride, and ego. We must break this vicious circle by annihilating ego. This ego has so thoroughly diffused into our being and is so subtle in form that it needs an equally subtle and penetrating remedy. Nama is that remedy, peerless in subtlety and efficacy. It is closest to God. And yet we do not take to it with love and steadfastness. Not that we do not know it, but we seem to have an innate aversion for it. Let us bear in mind that God is the sole doer; this ceaseless awareness is sure to eradicate ego. Therefore, let us take to nama with determination and love. One who lives in nama succeeds in annihilating desire and its consequences.
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