Question: First, I would like to express my gratitude for this opportunity to join the Zoom sessions. I find it very powerful. I think there’s really transmission occurring, so the energy is quite strong. I have a question about desire. Can I see desire as a creative energy such as Shakti or love itself? And then, desire is not the problem, but the moment it focuses on sense objects it becomes a problem. Is that correct?

Answer: Even that is not the problem. The problem is pursuing the desire. Desire arising is never the problem, even if it is sense desires. The sage witnesses that desire arising, and whether the desire is fulfilled or not is also witnessed. The ordinary person pursues the desire, which creates suffering for them and others. That involvement in pursuing the desire does not occur for the sage. In a sense, we would be dead without desires. Even the great master Ramakrishna, if I’m not mistaken, told this to his wife. He was very fond of mangoes, and she commented about the fact that someone as elevated as a paramhans, the highest of the high, had such a strong desire for mangoes. He looked at her and said, “Be careful, this desire is there to keep me in the body; the day I stop eating mangoes I will be gone in three days.” And that is what happened. Desire is never the problem. The problem is that pursuing the desire disturbs our peace.

Question: Yes, the involvement, the engagement, or the attachment with the desire. If the desire does not get involved, it seems to become finer, or allow a finer mind, and this becomes the witnessing mind, right? So witnessing can occur in the finer mind.

Answer: It’s not the desire that gets involved, it’s you that don’t get involved in the desire. A lot of desires are already inbuilt, you can say they come as part of the prarabdha karma (or similar concept). It is the desires and tendencies that cause us to continuously reincarnate ourselves in this life. We continuously cycle through that loop of desires, tendencies, desires, tendencies, desires, tendencies, samskaras and vasanas, and this is where we get trapped. It is the witnessing that breaks this cycle of maya. The sage witnesses this cycle and becomes free of it.