The alchemy from desire to compassion🔗

We may wonder why we exist when there is no goal then to work for or look forward to. But, we have to understand an important thing: when desire disappears, the energy behind the desire still remains.

The first line of the Isa Vasya Upanishad is 'Isa vasyam idam sarvam' - All that exists is energy. Desire is also a form of energy. That is why you can turn one desire into another.

The desire energy at one point may be a manifestation of greed; in another the same energy may transform to anger. In another case, it may transform to depression.

Energy cannot be destroyed; it can only be transformed. This is what science also says. So, what happens when we transcend desire? It cannot now be manifested as greed or fear or anger which are all due to external causes. The whole energy manifests itself as pure causeless compassion. You cannot create compassion; it happens because the whole energy is just overflowing.

An important thing to understand: Desire can exist only in unconsciousness. Only when you are unaware can desire exist. Look inside yourself when you have a desire or when you are angry or depressed. Look clearly what is arising in you, what is happening inside you. The moment you look at the desire objectively, with awareness, you will see that the desire simply loses power; it just dissolves.

A fundamental law of Existence you need to understand is: you, your desires create the reality around you. Existence responds to what you desire. For example, if you are afraid, that very desire of having fear will invoke in the other the desire to frighten you. If you are not afraid, the desire in the other simply disappears.

Existence simply responds to what you ask for. Constantly, it is getting to you what you ask. Only we need to have the intelligence to know what to ask for.

Your thoughts and Energy directly affect your body, your cell structure, your decisions, your capacity to fulfill your decisions, the outer world incidents, even accidents. Currently, you are always centered in either greed or fear. Every action that you do is out of either desire or fear. It becomes very easy for others to exploit you because of this; you become very vulnerable. You create a mental setup that creates and attracts similar incidents to you. You also corrupt your Energy flow with this.

If you can change your mental setup from this type, to one of Bliss, or Ananda, then your Energy flow will start brimming and your thoughts will be much clearer and more in the present. When you do this, you have every power to control the outer world incidents because you and Existence have a very deep connection at the Energy level. This is the thread that you need to catch in order to understand that Bliss attracts fortune. When you are blissful, when your mental setup is not one of worry, fear and greed but one that is in the present, always joyful, you will automatically attract all good things to yourself.

It is not that desire is right or wrong. It is not the object of desire either that is of concern. Desire itself will be dropped when we get the maturity to realize that desire is never in the present and the only Truth is the present moment.

Figure 1: Time Shaft Another thing we need to know about desire: desire is always from the past. We cannot desire something absolutely new. Can we desire something we do not know something about already? So, desire is always from the past. You cannot ask for anything from the past or future because both don’t exist. The only thing that exists is the present. And in the present, you cannot desire. You can just be in it and enjoy it.

The Bhagavat Purana has a beautiful story: Once a crow was flying with a piece of meat in its beak. There were many crows pursuing it trying to grab a share of the meat. It tried flying higher and higher to escape them, became tired and suddenly, it dropped the meat. Immediately, the twenty crows simply followed the falling piece of meat.

Seeing this, the crow realized, ‘How nice it is to carry nothing! The whole sky belongs to me.’

The piece of meat he was carrying was creating all the trouble for the crow. The moment he dropped it, all the birds pursuing it simply disappeared.

Similarly, in our life also, once the meat of desire is dropped, the whole sky of enlightenment belongs to you.

Desire means you have moved away from reality, you have moved away from that which is. Desire means you have fallen into the trap of a dream. Desire means you are not here now, you have gone somewhere in the future.

Your desire means you are not satisfied with what you have. If you can accept the present moment, you will drop from the vicious cycle of desires. This is what is surrender. Surrendering is non-desiring.

When you light the candle of understanding, desire disappears. It is not a question of what you desire. If you desire you are in misery. When you are desireless, the ego disappears, so the misery disappears.

All desire must disappear. Only in a desireless moment, what you are asking happens. When we hear this, the next thing that happens is wanting to be desireless. But this is one more desire. You cannot desire desirelessness. You can simply understand the futility of desire. Understanding it, the desirelessness drops.

Watch every act that you do. Watch every thought, every desire that possesses you. As you watch, your chattering mind chatters less, because the energy that was becoming chattering is being transformed into watchfulness. Clarity arises from this and the confusion dissolves and desires drop.

When you watch your desire, you will be able to see two things: desire by its very nature cannot be fulfilled. When you realize this, the desire disappears. Only when you transcend desire do you reach fulfillment. When you realize the nature of the desire, you accept desiring is the nature of the mind. Please be very clear: acceptance is not the same as resignation. Resignation is defeat. One becomes resigned when one feels all is hopeless, nothing is possible. But it is not that the desire has dropped. You want to do, you want to become, but seeing that great mountains are on the way, you feel it is not possible. So you console yourself. But the desire is there, lurking behind.

No defeat can ever destroy desire. It will wait for the right season, and whenever you are feeling more energy again, are more positive, the desire will come back and the resignation will be gone.

Acceptance is a totally different thing. Acceptance does not mean that you have accepted defeat. It simply means that there is no defeat and no victory.