When we are born, the first pure desire we have is the desire to eat. The infant does not think about food, feels hungry and wants to eat. He then smells the mother’s milk on her breast and moves toward the food source. Desire preceded thought.
Over time, a bottle replaces the breast and the child then thinks of food when he sees the bottle (bottle-view sensory perception). Desire preceded thought, but then thought preceded desire.
This is the identification process. We identify an object, the bottle in this example, with the pleasure of food. When we see the bottle, it reminds us of the pleasure of eating and then we feel hungry and desire is born.
Parents often tell young children that they like something, perhaps a certain item of clothing or food. “You love this food,” says the father. “Do?” the boy says. “If you can.” “Okay, give me more.”
And so it goes, a habit or pattern develops, thought precedes desire.
Eventually, the thought has become so ingrained in our adult minds that we no longer know whether we want or just think we want. Every wish begins with the thought when we see an advertisement or something that another person has.
You may have noticed that you didn’t want a coffee until you saw the Starbucks. Then she “realized” that he would like a cup of coffee. This is, of course, an example that she can apply to dozens of wishes that she has every day.
This identification rules your life. You identify an item through one of your five senses and then it registers in your brain with a memory of what that thing does or how you feel about it, and AFTER that process, a desire is created. So you THINK you desire, but in fact your desire is not pure, it is created by thought and not by nature.
Most desires are not pure and natural, they are created and polluted by thought. This is why you get so confused as to why you want something that is not good for you, or that you don’t need.
You certainly have some pure desires. There are times when you are hungry and that is pure desire. The goal of this article is to make you realize how much of what you think are wants are actually not things that you need or really want, even though you think they are.
The reason this is so important to discover and correct is that desire is the cause of suffering. When you want something you can’t have, you suffer, at least to some degree. Also, he may go out of his way to make you suffer in pursuit of your desires.
If you can learn the difference between a real desire and a thought-based desire, you can reduce the number of things you want and thus totally change your life.
Let’s list some of the effects of thought-based wishes.
* If you want a lot of things, you will have to work harder to earn money to get them, and when you spend your money to get them, they sit on the shelf or don’t give you real satisfaction, so your money is wasted.
* With your wasted money, you have wasted the time to earn that money, so the time was wasted.
* So you have less money to do the things you really like.
* You have less money to invest or save for retirement.
* So you have to work harder and longer instead of enjoying your life more.
* You’ll buy a lot of things you don’t need and you’ll have a closet or garage full of things you used once and now just store. This takes up space and is a burden on your life, having to move, store and secure it.
* You can eat, drink or smoke things that are not good for your health. This wastes money, which is also time, and is self-destructive.
* Many desires will remain unsatisfied, which will cause you suffering.
* Pursuing desires that are not pure desires takes time and effort away from acquiring the things you really want, leaving you unsatisfied in life.
* Pursuing desires based on thoughts will cause conflict in relationships.
* Pursuing desires based on thoughts causes inner conflict when you want something you know you really don’t want, but you just want it and don’t know why. Eventually, enough inner conflict will destroy self-confidence through self-doubt.
Desire is the cause of suffering. That’s because unfulfilled desires cause pain, the pain of desire. One of the reasons for bread is that the desire is for something you don’t really want, but just think you do. That confusion causes pain.
If you can eliminate thought-based desires and only have pure desires, then there is no confusion and you will be able to focus on your pure desires without scattering life energy towards desires that you don’t really want or need. Then you will have enough energy and positive thinking to acquire your true desires and achieve them. This is the reason why many people have unfulfilled desires, because they pursue thought desires instead of pure desires, and therefore the pure desires remain with them but unfulfilled. This causes endless frustration in life.
Learning to differentiate between pure and thought-based desires ends suffering in two ways; first by removing the confusion of wanting what you really don’t want or need, and second by leaving you with the energy to get what you really want.
This is the way to happiness.
My goal in publishing my articles is to show you how to feel pure desire again, that is, a desire that is not tainted or confused with thoughts born of identification.
When you can cleanse your mind and heart in this way, you will find that your emotions are purer, your love is stronger, and your relationships are much closer and deeper.
Start questioning all your desires. Find the reason why you want it, just like trying to justify your want to someone who can give it to you, explain why you want it.
This little exercise will help you discover the difference between a pure natural desire and a desire based on acquired thought. As you identify the different desires, you must have the strength and ability to ignore and eventually dissolve the thought-based desires in order to become a focused person who achieves all of your natural goals.
I run a forum that is designed to bring people from all over the world together in a unified and harmonious effort to build the strength to make these changes. I invite you to visit the site and participate. See my signature for the link to LawOfAttractionForum.net