Every Desire Ends In Tears

Because desire means desire for more; how can you quench it? By the time you have arrived, it asks for more. You wanted ten thousand rupees; by the time you have ten thousand, the desire has moved ahead of you - it is asking for one hundred thousand. By the time you achieve that, the desire has moved. It always moves ahead of you; the distance between you and your desire always remains the same.

Desires are unending what we see in the hierarchy of needs. Desires are automatically translated in to needs. To meet needs one has to strive to achieve. By the time you achieve the previous desire, the higher need creeps in and you get entangled in the vicious cycle which continues till death. Real contentment is not related with the desires or needs. Real satisfaction is the state of mind which gives the person divine pleasure in whatever he possesses. I do not say that one should be contented with the available resources and never attempt to get more. One should do his best to gain the maximum as per his ability and potentials honestly.

We have seen in the recent London Olympics that we could not get a single Gold and had to conclude with six Silver and Bronze medals only. Although we accepted the fact that we did our best but could not make more. We will strive to get more in the next Olympics but we know our limits and potentials and have to accept the facts gracefully.

Saint Kabir says

"Sai itna dijiye jame kutumb samaye,

Mai bhi bhukha na rahu, sadhu bhi na bhukha jaye.”

Means I should have that much which would be enough so that I should eat with my family, and the guest also is fed. Kabir is contented with the minimum requirement whereas Tata and Ambani will not. Thus the level and degree of contentment varies from person to person.

The distance between a beggar and his desire, and the distance between Alexander the Great and his desire is the same. Both are poor in the same way. Alexander may have much that does not make much difference — he is not satisfied with what he has.

It is said that Diogenes once said to Alexander the Great, “Have you ever thought about one thing? — meditate over it: you want to conquer the whole world, but are you aware that once you have conquered the whole world, then what? There is no other world. Then what will you do?”

Diogenes And Alexander-And it is said, just by Diogenes saying it, Alexander became very sad, and he said, “Please don’t mention such sad things — let me first conquer the whole world, and then we will see. But don’t talk about such sad things to me; it makes me feel very sad.”

He had not conquered the whole world yet, but the very idea that if you conquer the whole world, and then what are you going to do? There is no other world, and you will feel stuck. The mind will ask for more.

The mind lives through more, and the more cannot be fulfilled; that is impossible. Every desire ends in frustration, because every expectation is the beginning of frustration. Why does every desire end in frustration? There are only two alternatives: either you achieve your object of desire or you don’t achieve it, but in both cases, it will end in tears. If you achieve it, you will see the utter futility of it all.

The rich man sees the futility of his riches - how much he has laboured, and how much he has worked for it! And now, whatsoever he has attained is absolutely useless, it fulfils nothing. You can have several houses, but you are the same person, as empty as before. You can live in a palace, but how can you change your inner meaninglessness?

Make Life Meaningful-In fact, you will be more meaningless in a palace, because while you are in a hut you can still hope that one day when you have managed to get into a palace, everything will be okay. You can hope, but the man, who is in the palace, has no hope, he feels utterly hopeless. And he cannot say it to others either, because that will be stupid of him. 

Just think of Alexander the Great; he devoted his whole life to conquering the world. And when he had conquered it, if he had said to the world, ‘It was useless. I wasted my time and my life’, people would have laughed at him. Could he not see it before?

You go on following others, although you see them living in misery. You go on following the powerful, the rich, and the wealthy, although you see their faces are sad, their eyes are dull. They don’t seem to be intelligent either; they don’t have any grace, any joy, and any beauty.

If you succeed, you will be in pain, because your success will bring the truth home: that your whole life has been sacrificed for nothing. If you fail, you will be frustrated, because you will see that you have failed, you are not worthy. You will become self-condemnatory.

And no desire simply ends; before it ends, it gives birth to other desires. So it remains a continuum: one goes on from one desire to another desire, life after life.

The three W's- Wait-Witness-Watch- the only solution to contentment. Either you will be consumed by your desires or you have to consume your desires. And consuming means: witness, watch... The intelligent person lives joyfully, contentedly, whatsoever situation he is in, whatsoever he has got.