Difference Between Desire And Longing

Arjuna raises a question: “O Krishna, I don’t want to do bad, but something is forcing me to do it. Therefore, what is that force which propels a person to do something even though he does not desire it to happen?

Krishna repies: “You may say, I do not desire it but I am doing it, but deep within your unconscious you are desiring it.” Like lot of smokers will say, “I don’t want to smoke Swamiji”. This is so often a spoken value, it is not a cherished value. Therefore, what Krishna answers is, ‘understand Arjuna, it is nothing but desire. There is a desire and that desire is propelling you, and if that desire is not fulfilled the kama itself becomes krodha, anger.’

There are two types of desires – desire out of happiness and desire for happiness. Desire for happiness leads you to samsara. But the desire out of happiness is different. If you have desire for happiness that means you have come to a conclusion that you are not happy. When you have formed this conclusion, you are never looking into yourself.

Nagarjuna, a great master of Buddhism, says very clearly that desire for enlightenment is also an obstacle for enlightenment. That is why in Buddhist teachings, at the end of the whole teaching – and I have never found a more meaningful statement than this – in one section of the Buddhists, they say, ‘if you come across a Buddha, kill him’ – in the sense, let not Buddha become an ideal which you start imitating and so destroy your uniqueness.

And if you see the great masters, each one was great in his own time. If enlightenment is going to happen, it is going to happen here. And therefore, you should be available here. Understand the paradox. That is why Nagarjuna says, “Have a longing but not a desire.” And he makes a distinction between longing and desire. Longing is being in the here, you have thirst. Desire is what J Krishnamurti called ‘future psychological time’. Therefore, longing is being here. The whole process is in the here and now and not in the future. Krishnamurti used to say, negative psychological time and just be in the here and now. And if you are here and now, you will find a different quality of receptivity opens up. The moment you are happy with what is, then you have a desire which is out happiness. You have to be receptive to the happiness which is always bubbling here.
Desire is always an enemy. What is desire? “I am going to become happy” – that is always an enemy. He calls desire fire, and if you add ghee to fire, it becomes more, it never says enough, therefore, desire also goes on increasing. For a stupid man nothing is an enemy. But for a man of understanding this is an enemy. Where does this great rascal exist? It exists in yourself only. Its abode is in your sense organs, mind and your intellect.

The sense organs are superior to sense objects; mind is superior to the sense organs – they are running according to the mind, so the mind is superior. And compared to the mind, your buddhi is superior. Because of the conviction, your mind is running; because of the value, the mind is running; therefore, superior to even the buddhi, he says, is that atma, that chaitanya, which cannot be defined, which can be only experienced.

~speakingtree.in