Desire.

“When all the desires that surge in the heart are renounced,
The mortal becomes immortal.
When all the knots that strangle the heart are loosened,
The mortal becomes immortal.”

“You are what your deep, driving desire is.
As your desire is, so is your will.
As your will is, so is your deed.
As your deed is, so is your DESTINY.”

– Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I have never had great desires. No, I am not subnormal, more like practical. I grew up with very sound conditioning that taught me and my siblings to accept our lot and do the best that we could under whatever circumstances that came our way. It is to my complete satisfaction that by and large we have lived like that and many material things have come our way. I think that my three siblings will agree with me that, the things that have come our way have come without great desiring for them or striving towards obtaining them.

If I could replace the word ‘Desire’ with ‘ambition’ my thoughts would still be the same. My regular readers would remember the post ‘Ambition’ which more or less reflects the contents of this post too.

From about the end of the year 2001, however I developed a great desire and prayed for it with all my heart and soul. That was that I outlive my wife to provide her the best possible care that she could get. My prayers were answered and as I write this, I have outlived her by over a year.

I now have a desire. It is not a burning, all consuming desire, but one I hope comes true, and if it does not, so be it. It will not make me unhappy if it does not come true. That desire is to travel again to the UK, the USA, Australia and New Zealand to meet up with relatives and some old friends and to meet face to face, some new ones made via the blogworld.

Not much to desire for is it?