Why our desires are ‘unquenchable’?
The beginning of the identification process within the human mind always starts with the idea of birth and ends with the idea of death. In between these two polar points naming birth and death, lays several concepts which indicate towards the fragility of the human mind. However the concept of desire can be identified quite easily among all of these, solely because of its imposing presence within our lives.
It feels amusing to even imagine such a life which has no desire in it; or better I would say that it is completely ‘impossible’ on all fronts of life. Hence, we can safely say that the concept of desire acts as the ‘essence of life. However, the abundance of various kinds of desire within our lives also acts as the only reason why it feels unquenchable, at times.
What is a desire?
It feels like an over-simplification to me when we say, ‘that someone wants to get few things in life’. We all know that the word, ‘want’ is synonymous with desire and nothing feels wrong with the idea of having certain wants, isn’t it?
Well, we can surely find an answer to this question if we dig deeper into the concept of desire. However, this concept is so vast in nature, that there is so much more to learn about it.
Only if we choose to look closely at it; we surely would find out that this unique concept of desire acts as both the motivation and the perfect distraction within our lives. That’s not all, though. Upon going through a deeper introspection, we shall soon face a much larger question altogether; which asks us, ‘what motivates people to desire anything at all’?
Desire is essential.
Desire, surely is the seed of the ‘tree of life’. Every motivation starts with a sense of desire. An individual might do not have any kind of idea about which course to pursue in the life, yet one never stays in an idle position. He always tries to move ahead in life to find a sense of happiness. He might go on, living instinctively or intuitively; but he feels always stays hopeful and tries hard to create suitable conditions in which he might feel a sense of happiness. I hope you can see it now, that the characteristic of hope, itself finds the motivation from nothing else but, desire.
Our every single act within our life is fueled by the concept of desire in one way or another. I would also wonder that don’t you ever feel amused at all, if you come to this realization that our every action is driven by the idea of desire?
Even wonderful is the fact that our desires are not limited within the realms of the mind. Just take a look towards our physical bodies. Our bodies work as a single unit. Every organ within our body is co-dependent over one another. However, to maintain the integrity of this single unit which we call as body; every organ has to perform certain actions. Obviously a vast amount of fuel is needed to perform these actions. To our great fortune the body gets its fuel in the form of nutrition present in the food we eat or the water we drink.
We now know this by looking at our own bodies; that the body also has desires for nutrition to maintain the state of well being at all the times. We can also say, that our whole idea of survival and sustainability to live a merry life, solely rely upon the desires, we own within the mind. Hence the realization is seemingly evident; that our whole concept of ‘self identity’ is devoted to the concept of desire.
The moment when desire cripples our own mind.
I would say that any sane man would know that an action is needed to expect some result. But look at ourselves; don’t you think that here in the very present moment, ‘we are living in the future’? Aren’t we always occupied with thinking about a dream home or a car or a fascinating partner?
I would suggest you to go ahead and learn about your mind and the ideas, which are there in your mind at this present moment.
Before we move ahead let me ask you,’ do you think that we have any control over our own lives’? Let me assure you, that we actually have none of it.
Realize this fact with your eyes open and your ears, all alert. We are continuously living in a state of fascination where we are dreaming about the fulfillment of our desires. This state of fascination is highly addictive in nature. It is imposing. It is toxic. It makes the mind fragile and judgmental. But even worse, it makes the mind loses the control over the present moment, which holds the only piece of reality in front of us.
For the sake of consolation, I would assure you that there is nothing wrong with having a desire; although, a major problem arises at the same time when we attain the desired result and starts to feel joyous in the process. Unfortunately, what happens next is surely undesirable. Although, we all know what happens next but I will explain it even further.
Instead of moving ahead without any kind of assumptions about the actions which we are going to perform into the future; we start to lose our senses and crave to repeat that moment of joy all over again and again, in a blinded fashion. That’s the moment when desire starts to change into a deform addiction; which eventually starts to cripple our own mind.
This occurrence is so common within our mind that one can easily introspect about this process, on their own. Even if we choose to look at our own past, we would always be able to find that there were many moments, when our actions found the motivation by the idea of achieving a ‘particular kind of pleasure’. That is how our fixation towards a result, is being born before any kind of action has taken place.
Let me give you an example. Assume if a person feels great pleasure after buying a car. Can you guess, what happens next? I can guarantee you this that he would always choose to further move ahead in life with the intention to repeat that ‘same sensations of excitement’ by holding onto the ‘same motivation’, which he has used earlier into buying a car. What I am saying here is that the product to be bought might be of different nature, but the motivation always remains the same. That is how our life is stuck within the loop of ‘desire and its fulfillment’, which seems like a never ending story.
Unfortunately, we possess a mind which is full of infinite desires. Every single desire is potent enough to corrupt the sanity of the mind. I would often wonder, that one can only imagine what happens to the mind which is the home to the endless amount of desires. As the counts and intensity of the desires increases; an already overwhelmed mind starts to fail under the pressure of these countless desires within it. That is how, our independent mind slowly becomes frail as air and our own desires take complete control over the sense of an ‘independent mind’.
The symbiotic nature of the desire.
Before we move ahead, we need to evaluate this loss of the ‘sense of a free mind’. To do this evaluation all we need to do is to look at our own thought process, to realize how this process is happening. So stop thinking further and start looking at your own thoughts. Soon you will realize that a desire is born inside your mind. Learn to be aware and acknowledge that moment when it happens.
We can also witness the quick changes from within; after the desire has been born within the mind. As the desire spreads around the deepest corners of the mind; one slowly starts to show the symptoms of growing desperation and cravings. Sense these cravings closely as these are the symptoms of our mind, losing the battle.
I hope you would agree with me that similar to every other kind of human emotion ; desires are also symbiotic in nature. Although, they don’t exist on their own; they still are able to suck away great amount of energy of the host, which in this case, is ‘the mind’.
Unfortunately, while looking at our own minds we can safely say that the host has completely given up in the battle to the symbiote ; which in this case is called as ‘the desire’.
That single fact, solely acts as the perfect reason why one might feel disheartened at times and starts to feel like, ‘there seems to be no end to these desires’. Of course, we know that there is an end by bringing the fulfillment of a single desire, but nothing can be done in the case when there are countless desires are waiting in the queue to for their turn to be fulfilled.
Why the desire is 'un-quenchable' in nature?
It is an oversimplification to say that we have a lot of desires in our mind. I have already mentioned the power of a single desire and how it overpowers the sanity of a person. However, can you imagine, what happens next when the mind becomes home to the seemingly infinite amount of desires?
The answer is, ‘the desires become unquenchable’.
The reason behind this is quite simple though. It is not something like, that we can’t fulfill a single desire. Of course we can. On the contrary, it is the ‘desire to have multiple desires’, which makes it impossible to bring a state of lasting fulfillment.
It is a fact which needs to be witnessed by the individual himself; that the potential of the human mind knows no bounds at all. However, many people would argue against this; to which, I would also nod in favor of the counter argument.
You know, although I do believe that the human mind is potentially infinite in nature; I also would agree to the fact that under the normal circumstances, the mind of a human being acts under various kinds of limits .
But now, we are left with a question here that, what puts that limit to the unlimited potential of the human mind? Let’s put it straight; it is the seemingly infinite number of desires which drains the unlimited potential of mind.
One may ask now, ‘how does a single desire is able to control the unlimited potential of the human mind’?
Well, it only becomes possible by keeping the mind always focused on a single thing; which in this case, are the fulfillment of the desires. It is much similar to the blinkers, which are used as the partial cover over the eyes of an horse. For those of who doesn’t know how the blinkers work; well it does so by restricting the vision of the horse to only one point at the forward.
Similarly, our desires also restrict the unlimited vision of our mind to maintain the focus over one single point. Guess what? This single point in the forward direction, always sits as the perfect answer of that desire, which is controlling the mind at a given time.
However, if you ask me, is it really unquenchable? I would say NO to it. Nothing in the world is permanent then how can our own desires stay forever in our minds, till eternity?
An accumulation of a concept naming desire, cannot stay within our minds till infinite times.
Especially, when we have realized the truth, that our every single desire within, is always dependent upon the mind for its survival.
