just a glimpse – desire

DESIRE

“It is greedy desire and wrath, born of passion, the great evil, the sum of destruction: this is the enemy of the soul.  All is clouded by desire: as fire by smoke, as a mirror by dust, as an unborn babe by its covering.  Wisdom is clouded by desire, the ever-present enemy of the wise, desire in its innumerable forms, which like a fire cannot find satisfaction.  Desire has found a place in man’s senses and mind and reason.  Through these it blinds the soul, after having overclouded wisdom.”  Krishna, BHAGAVAD GITA

With the beginning words in this excerpt from the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna laments the soul’s destruction through greedy desire and the wrath of passion.  This deadly duo of greed and anger are reproved in Hindu writings.   Greedy longing and craving coupled with extreme anger born of obsession and yearning are the sum of destruction.  With ageless wisdom, the most ancient of wisdom’s revealers, Krishna, says that soul is perishable.   

Buddha attributed suffering to desire.  Humanity is not content with what it has and thereby desires what it does not have.  When health, wealth, fame, fortune, peace, excitement, popularity, solitude, possessions, become the objects of man’s unfulfilled desires, suffering is the result.

Can we agree that much of mankind’s suffering in this life can be attributed to man’s covetousness, the desire for something not owned or controlled? The fathers of  Judaism made this one of the commandments of the Decalogue as a means of preserving social order in the desert. “Thou shalt not covet.”

In today’s jargon, “Don’t covet your neighbor’s ass or his wife or his house or his servants or any of his stuff.”  Pretty simple, right?

Desire for acceptance and social status drives most  of contemporary society to keep up with the Joneses, working a second job to the detriment of family obligations in order to facilitate buying  things not truly necessary to impress neighbors not necessarily neighborly.  Desire for prestige drives many to sometimes boast, maybe lie, and possibly commit fraud to cover failings and inadequacies.  That tangled web of desire, deceit, corruption and anger is indeed a soul-killer.

Just a glimpse – How’s your good heart today?  Namaste!