Chapter 2 Nature & Transcendence of Desire

You cannot desire liberation; that's impossible, it's a contradiction. You can become without desire, and then liberation will occur, but that's not the result of your desire; rather, it's the result of not having desire. Yesterday you said that the motivation towards liberation or samadhi is also a kind of tension and an obstacle, but perhaps it's not a desire, but a yearning, an inherent hunger within man, isn't it? No, you must see clearly that it is still desire. Try to understand what desire is. Desire means that you are not good now, you are not at ease; right now, you are not at peace with yourself, but thinking about something else in the future. If that thing is satisfied, it will bring happiness. But that satisfaction is always in the future; it is never here and now. This tension of the mind about the future is desire. Desire means that you are not in the present moment. And all that exists is the present moment. You are somewhere in the future, but the future does not exist; it has never existed, and it never will. All that exists is the present, this moment.

The anticipation of future fulfillment is desire. What that future fulfillment is, is irrelevant. It could be the kingdom of God, heaven, Nirvana, or anything else, but if it's in the future, it's desire. If you live in the present, you cannot desire; you cannot possibly desire. Remember this. Living in the present, you can only exist; you cannot desire. How can you desire in the present? Desire will lead you to the future, into fantasy and dreams. That's why the Buddha so insisted on "no desire," because only in the absence of desire can you enter into true existence; with desire, you enter into a dream. The future is a dream.

When you project your thoughts into the future, you will inevitably encounter setbacks. You destroy your present reality in pursuit of future dreams, and this mental habit will follow you, being reinforced every day. So when your future arrives, it will arrive in the present form, while your mind will wander to some other future. Even if you attained godhood, you wouldn't be satisfied. With your current mindset, that's impossible. Even if divinity manifested, you would walk away and run to the future. Your mind is always entering the future, and this mind's operation in the future is desire.

So try to understand me: I say every desire is worldly, because desire is the world. Therefore, the issue isn't about changing the goal. That's a matter of mutation, a revolutionary question of changing from desire to no desire. It's about changing from desire to no desire, not from old desires to new desires, from worldly desires to otherworldly desires, from material desires to spiritual desires. No! The revolution is changing from desire to no desire!