When we are born, the first pure desire we have is a desire to eat. The infant does not think about food, it feels hunger and wants to eat. It then smells the mothers milk in her breast and moves towards the food source. Desire preceded thought.
In time, a bottle replaces the breast and the child then thinks about food when it sees the bottle (sense perception of sight to bottle). Desire preceded thought, but later thought precedes desire.
This is the process of identification. We identify an object, the bottle in this example, with the pleasure of food. When we see the bottle, it reminds us of the pleasure of eating and we then get hungry and desire is born.
Young children are often told that they like something by their parents, perhaps a certain piece of clothing or some food. “You love this food”, says the parent. “I do?” says the child. “Yes you do.” “OK, give me more.”
And so it goes, a habit or pattern is developed, thought precedes desire.
Eventually, thought has been placed in our adult minds so much that we no longer know if we desire or just think we desire. Every desire starts with thought when we see an advertisement or something someone else has.
You may have noticed that you did not want a coffee until you saw the Starbucks. Then you ‘realized’ you would like a cup of coffee. This is of course an example you can apply to dozens of desires you have each day.
This identification rules your life. You identify an item through one of your five senses and then it registers in your brain with a memory of what that thing does or how you feel about it, and AFTER that process, a desire is created. You then THINK you desire, but in fact your desire is not pure, it is created by thought rather than nature.
Most desires are not pure and natural, they are created and tainted by thought. This is why you get so confused at why you want something that is not good for you, or what you do not need.
Certainly you have some pure desires. There are times when you are hungry and that is a pure desire. The point of this article is to realize how much of what you think are desires are actually not things you need or really desire, even though you think you do.
The reason this is so important to discover and correct is that desire is the cause of suffering. When you desire something that you cannot have, you suffer, at least to some degree. As well, you may put yourself through efforts that cause you to suffer in the pursuit of your desires.
If you can learn the difference between a real desire and a thought based desire, you can reduce the number of things you desire and by that totally change your life.
Let us list out some of the effects of thought based desires.
- If you desire many things, you will have to work harder to make the money to get them, and when you spend your money to get them, they sit on the shelf or do not give real satisfaction, so your money is wasted.
- With your wasted money, you have wasted the time to make that money, so time was wasted.
- You then have less money to do the things you really like.
- You have less money to invest or save for retirement.
- So you have to work harder and longer rather than enjoy more of your life.
- You will purchase many things that you do not need and have a closet or garage full of stuff that you used once and now just store. This takes up space and is a weight on your life, having to move it, store it and insure it.
- You may eat, drink or smoke things that are not good for your health. This wastes money, which is also time, and is self-destructive.
- Many desires will be unfulfilled, which will cause you suffering.
- Chasing desires that are not pure desires takes time and effort away from acquiring the things that you really desire, leaving you unfulfilled in life.
- Chasing thought based desires will cause conflicts in relationships.
- Chasing thought based desires cause inner conflicts when you want something that you know you really do not want, but you just want it and do not know why. Eventually enough inner conflicts will destroy self confidence through self doubt.
Desire is the cause of suffering. That is because desires that are unfulfilled cause pain, the pain of desire. One of the reasons for the pain is that the desire is for something you do not really want, but only think you want. That confusion causes pain.
If you can remove the thought based desires and only have pure desires, then there is no confusion and you will be able to focus on your pure desires without dispersing vital energy towards desires you do not really want or need. Then you will have enough energy and positive thought to acquire your true desires, and achieve them. This is why many people have unfulfilled desires, because they chase thought desires rather than pure desires and so the pure desires remain with them but unfulfilled. This causes endless frustration in life.
Learning to differentiate between pure and thought based desires ends suffering in two ways; first by eliminating the confusion of wanting what you do not really want or need, and second by leaving you the energy to get what you really desire.
This is the path to happiness.
My goal of publishing my articles is to show you how to feel pure desire again, meaning a desire that is not tainted and confused with thoughts born of identification.
When you can clean your mind and heart in this way, you will find that your emotions are more pure, your love is stronger and your relationships are much closer and deeper.
Start to question all your desires. Find the reason you desire it, just like trying to justify your desire to someone who can deliver it to you, explain why you want it.
This little exercise will help you discover the difference between a pure natural desire and an acquired thought based desire. As you identify the different desires, you should have the strength and ability to ignore and eventually dissolve thought based desires so you will become a focused person who achieves all your natural goals.
I run a forum that is designed to bring people around the world into a harmonious unified effort towards building the strength to make these changes. I invite you to visit the site and participate. Lawofattractionforum.net
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