Futility Of Desire – In Gita Verse 17.1 Arjuna inquired: O Kṛṣṇa, what is the situation of those who do not follow the principles of scripture but worship according to their own imagination? Are they in goodness, in passion or in ignorance?
Why this question for Arjuna? Because he didn’t want to move towards his being. He wanted to act from his identity. He is stuck in his own identity. So this question.
Also remember Awareness is never lost. Being is never lost with such questions.
The Step Is Only One: That Is Turning In
Awareness is never lost. It simply becomes entangled with the other, with objects. So the first thing to be remembered: it is never lost, it is your nature, but you can focus it on anything you want. When you get tired of focusing on money, on power, on prestige, and that great moment comes in your life when you want to close your eyes and focus your awareness on its own source, on where it is coming from, on the roots – in a split second your life is transformed.
And don’t ask what the steps are; there is only one step. The process is very simple. The step is only one: that is turning in.
In my Bhagavad Gita Verse 4.8, blog I wrote – Once the energy is not moving anywhere… Remember, I repeat again, turning in is not moving in. When the energy is not moving at all, when there is no movement, when everything is still, when all has stopped – because seeing the futility of desire you cannot move anywhere, there is nowhere to go – stillness descends.
Right now this question has arisen, to Arjuna from his desire and identity.
A mind full of desires can only understand desire. Hence the desire for God. It is absurd, you cannot desire God. God comes to you when desire leaves. The cessation of desire is the coming of God to you. Again, I am using the word ‘coming’, which is not true. Because God is already there – you only recognize when the desire has ceased. Nothing ever comes, nothing ever goes, all is as it is. That’s what Buddha means when he says: yatha bhuta – things are as they are. Nothing has gone wrong, nothing needs to be put right. Things are as they are, and they always remain as they are. The trees are green and the roses are red and the clouds float in the sky. Everything is where it has always been, the way it has always been. That is the meaning of the word ‘nature’ – yatha bhuta.
But man has a capacity to dream, to desire. That capacity to dream is the problem. Then you start moving into the future, then you start planning for the future. You remain here, but your mind can move into the future. It is like a dream. You fall asleep in your bed but you can dream of Calcutta or Chicago or Washington or Moscow. You are in your bed the whole night – in the morning you will not wake up in Moscow or Chicago, you will wake up in your bed. And then you will laugh, ‘I have been roaming too much.’ While you are dreaming of Moscow you have not reached there, you remain here.
You always remain here. Here and now is the only reality, there is no other. But desire can create a dream. And in desire you go on moving outwards.
Now, what does it mean to turn inwards? Tao’s question is significant, it is very relevant. What does it mean to turn inwards? It means seeing the futility of desire, seeing the futility of dreaming, seeing the illusoriness of dreaming. In that very seeing, desire disappears. In that clarity, desire cannot exist. And when you are with no desire, you are in. Not that you have to turn in. Not that first you have to stop desiring, then you have to turn in. The cessation of desire is the turning, the transformation – what Jesus calls ‘metanoia’, the conversion. Suddenly another gestalt opens. It was there, but you were not aware of it because you were too much; obsessed with the desire. The desire for money, the desire for power, the desire for prestige, does not allow your meditation to bloom. Because the whole energy goes down the drain in desires.
You have a choice where you want your energy to use. In awareness or in desire? Become alert when such a question arises in you that you are draining your energy.
According to the people who have become enlightened, the whole world becomes almost like a dream. I say “almost like a dream;” I have to give you the exact definition.
A dream is something that goes on changing, and the real is that which remains always the same.
Your consciousness is a reality, an eternity. Everything else around you is of the same stuff dreams are made of.
When you are asleep, the dreams look so real – I don’t think anybody in the world has ever suspected while dreaming that a dream might be a dream. While you are asleep and dreaming, the dream becomes such a total reality that not even a doubt arises. And when you wake up in the morning you suddenly find that you were running after non-existential fragments of your imagination.
To the awakened man, to the buddha, the whole world and all its objects become almost like dreams.
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