Desiring is wanting what is not presently true, or real. If it were true, or real, you wouldn’t need to desire it. Inherent in desiring is a feeling of lack—of something missing. Also inherent in it is the feeling, or belief, that if that were not lacking, you would be happy.
We long for what we don’t have because we believe that having it will finally bring us peace and happiness. We don’t realize that the lack of peace and happiness we are feeling is actually a result of desiring what we don’t have. The desire is the cause of our unhappiness, not the fact that the desire is unfulfilled.
When we examine this, this seems so obvious. Desire is painful. We suffer because we believe we are lacking something necessary for our happiness. That is a very sad (and untrue!) story, but it is essentially everyone’s story. Everyone feels this way because the mind is programmed to be unhappy with whatever is happening. No matter what is happening, the mind comes up with complaints about it or ways to improve on it. That is its job. That is what it is programmed to do, and it does it very well.
This situation is painful for two reasons: It is painful to not have what you want, but it is also painful to discover that there is no end to wanting, even after you do get what you want. What we really want is the peace that comes from no longer wanting. We hope to experience peace and happiness once and for all by getting what we want. However, peace and happiness are not achieved by getting but by loving what is, just the way it is. We are so afraid that if we love what is we will never get what we want, when that has been the secret to happiness all along!
Loving what is would seem to be the simplest thing possible. It involves no effort, no struggle, no longing, and no disappointment. But loving what is goes against our programming, so it is difficult. It requires vigilance to counteract the egoic mind’s automatic rejection and resistance to whatever is happening. To experience the peace and happiness that exist in this moment, it is necessary to stop listening to the egoic mind, which undermines this peace and happiness with complaints and judgments. These are the tactics it uses to take us out of the present and into its world of desires, hopes, and dreams. It woos us with fantasies of a more perfect world, a more perfect mate, a more perfect experience, and a more perfect you, all of which are unreal
and will never be real.
Your fantasies, dreams, and desires don’t create reality or even reflect reality accurately, although they do affect your experience of it. When you are focused on your desires, dreams, and fantasies, you are not experiencing this moment, and you are missing out on the real richness, peace, and happiness that are right here, right now.
By Gina Lake
