Desire Management : Part - 1 Desires and their kinds

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdO58cEPdnk

[Music]

[Music] pure experiences

welcome to the pure experiences podcast

[Music]

desired management is a new term probably for many of the listeners because it is not something which is

mainstream you can think of it as a meta subject under which many many subjects

not covered and also I just made up in order to discuss this bigger subject of

desires what are they how many kinds how to manage them and what are the

consequences of desires so I've spoken about desires a lot you can find it

scattered here and there on many different talks on this podcast or this

channel you last time in the send a Q&A this topic came up and I can kind of

gave introduction to the desire what it means and how every action every event

can be seen as a desire desire is something that the mind does so if you

need a little bit of detailed discussion on that aspect of desires a phenomena in

the mind then I recommend listening to the last episode which is the Sunday Q&A

number 7 today we are going to take that subject forward a more structured manner

the last time we saw them as a automated mechanism in the mind and cause of

suffering especially the unfulfilled desires they are the cause of the

suffering nothing else causes suffering so desire management is a meta subject

it includes many things in it it won't be possible to talk about it in detail

but I am going to cover a little bit an overview of the subject

so my definition of this word desire is an event in the mind that motivates an

action an event that causes an action that is the desire it is seen it can be

perceived and actually we perceive the immediate effects of the desire rather

than the desire itself but it is possible to see that an event happened

in the mind that caused some kind of actions some kind of perception internal

perception to happen the desire as we discussed comes from the memory which is

the storehouse of all the experiences that the person has gone through it is

impossible to desire something the desire happens and then the responsibility of the desire is taken up

by the imaginary person these are all events that follow the event of desire

and after that the action follows which is again owned or the responsibility is

taken by the imaginary person or the individual or the identity or the eye in

the actions can be of three kinds thoughts speech and actions that happen

moments that happen through the body there are only three kinds of actions

but they can be further divided the thoughts can be of language images

sounds and so on and the speech can be of many kinds good speech bad speech

speech made to accomplish something and so on and the body actions are also of

many kinds it looks like but body is actually only operating the muscles when

we say that I am doing this through my hands I am doing this through my legs or

my eyes are moving and so on it is only the muscles that are moving the mind through the brain through the nervous

system interfaces with this lower layer of itself in the body and causes changes in the body

babies are seen as actions of the body actually all the actions of any kind can

be thought of as being caused by some kind of desire whenever there is an action we can associate it with a cause

which will be seen as a desire in the mind all actions are then followed by

consequences which are again of many kinds this is a kind of law that memory

desire action consequence consequences are then again impressed on the memory

and the cycle repeats this is one of the laws of the desires it is very important

and essential that these events are going to happen in this sequence always

there are other laws regarding the desires such such that just now I said

desires originate from memory automatically nobody desires anything

the individual is not free to desire anything the individual is a consequence

of ownership of a desire there's all and individual is the desire is also called

as will and many philosophers have correctly identified the will as the

cause for all the actions including the natural occurrences that happen in the

world rain thunder days and nights plants growing and so on natural calamities

disasters they are all can be thought of as will or desire of that happens in the

universal mind so nothing here no part of our experience is devoid of desire or

devoid of will since there is no individual the will is always

while the desire is always universal this is another law so we can discover a

few more laws if you are interested regarding desires but today I am NOT going to do that kind of exploration it

is sufficient to know that these events we are calling as desires they follow

certain regularities which we are going to call them as laws for the purpose of

study we can classify them and I have classified desires in four ways based on

time duration repetitions or frequency of the desires consequences and fourth

is necessity so there bees I know of these four ways to classify the desires

there can be some more ways but today we are going to study only these four ways

to classify the desires the classification helps in the study helps

in the understanding of this event of desire if you want to classify the

desires based on time duration then according to my experience there are six kind of desires based on how long they

last the first one is control systems second is reactions

third is impulses fourth is intention viscous wish and sixth is sense cars or

impressions latent impressions so in the increasing order of time duration you

can say that the desires are of these kinds control systems are something

which we do not usually take ownership of although we do say that I did that

but we know that it was it happened it happened automatically so for example if

you are about to fall down you very quickly balance yourself hold something

and if you touch something hot very quickly you remove your hand these are

all due to the control systems the control mechanisms that are in the

nervous system they are built-in in the nervous system they happen without even our knowledge

without even knowing that they are happening they are so automatic and

there are bodily processes that are happening which can be seen as control

systems like the breathing heart beating decision cellular activities and so on

why are their desires because there is a mechanism behind them which causes that

action and by the definition of the word it is a desire that is responsible for

that action if I touch something hot and I withdraw my hand I say I did not want

to touch that hot thing there is a memory imprint there there is a control

system there which is evoked and the action happens actually it happens so

fast and is involuntary actually all actions are involuntary but this we can

clearly see that it is involuntary and we say that I did not desire it it

simply happened but there was a desire just like I said all the actions including the actions of inanimate

non-sentient things can be said to have an intention there because there is a

cause of that kind of action the control systems they produce a desired action

that lasts for few milliseconds not more than a second the next kind of desire is

reactions reactions are just like the word says an action that is produced as

a reaction to some situation you see a wild animal or you see an angry dog and

you run away this is a reaction you see your enemy and their anger arises

this is the reaction you can say that I did not desire it but usually there is a

memory imprint there and event is produced in the mind which causes reaction you are hungry and you see food

and your reaction is to eat the food so we do not need a very long-term

discussion and planning to execute that action although it happens very very

quickly and we do not generally say that I desired that there is a desire to do

it and it happens very quickly we do take responsibility of reactions also

just like control systems and the reactions they usually do not last more

than a few minutes you react and then you become aware and then somewhere the

desired actions happen the reactions can come in the category of undesired

actions also but really there is no action that sanghas ID only that

involuntary desires are causing them another kind of desire that can be seen

based on the time duration is impulse and impulse is also a reaction to a

situation but is clearly seen as a desire and usually there is a little bit

of delay there is a delay a few seconds to few minutes and it is it comes like a

very very powerful is a very powerful event which cannot be controlled this is

the difference between well thought and well planned desire in its execution and

an embarrassment the impulse usually cannot be controlled it is beyond our control so a little bit middle ground

here between the desire as it is understood by an ordinary person and our

meaning of a definition of desire so the impulse is again produced out of a

memory there is a little bit of delay although it is totally it happens

totally in an awareness it happens without any control and so it

deserves its own category very common experience for everybody I think as soon

as you see something which you like there is impulse to get it you are shopping and you see something which you

need impulsively you get it you take it and into your shopping basket you

dislike somebody and there is impulse to insult that person or to attack that person many habitual actions are

impulsive in nature because of repetitions frequent repetitions it has

become a habit so use your driving car you see somebody in front of the car and there is impulse

to stop the car you can also say that it is also a kind of reaction the impulse

is desired reaction you do not usually say that oh that I did not really want

that thing to happen you always say I wanted that action to happen and it happens very very quickly

that is the difference between ordinary reaction and an impulse that we want it

we desire it sexual impulses very common thing the characteristic of the impulse

is they are mostly automated habitual and there is no intelligence or planning

behind an impulse it simply happens so impulses can last for a few minutes to

an hour something like that and then they are forgotten sometimes they come and go they do not even give you time to

act the next kind of time-based desire is intention this can be properly called

as desire in ordinary words intention is clearly seen as something which I desire

and I want it to happen I am for it and I can see it appearing I can see in the

corresponding thoughts I can see speech if any if it produces any speech

or any preparatory actions through the body like writing down your shopping

list writing down what do you what do you need to do purchasing the tickets for your next trip and so on these

actions they are well thought of and can be seen as intentional which means there

is an intelligence behind that action so there is something which is very

important that is a characteristic of an intention or a well-thought desire is

that it is under our control under the conscious control it is

voluntary you can suspend it you can delay it you can cancel it you can choose not to act on it this is what

gives us an illusion of free will that I've willed it but if you look at it

deeply if you investigate their seed desire that happens without willing the

willing happens without willing it is not possible to will a will it is not possible to desire a desire the desire

comes first and then their planning and their mental activity that is triggered

by it that we call is voluntary but it is also not voluntary it is totally

governed by our own experiences our own knowledge wisdom and intelligence that's

itself is a big subject you can see that's why I called it intention now

probably there are many meanings of the intent the word intention but the basic

meaning is it is a kind of desire this is what I intend to do that means that

is what is what is my desire to but it is a well thought desire there is a

possibility to not act here if it is an intention usually for an ordinary person

who does not observe their mind so much the intention is as good as an impulse

they may say that I thought about it they may say that I planned and I

did my due diligence I thought of the consequences and all but actually it is

nothing more than a delayed impulse the impulse is there and there is a fake

kind of behavior by the unusual that I am doing it intentionally but being

governed by the impulse really it gets delayed and so takes on that appearance

of an intention so you can see intentions can be also of many kinds

that can be good intentions bad intentions very wise intentions not so

wise and so on but the characteristic the intention is that there is

intelligence behind it there is proper planning decision-making and weighing likes and dislikes and all these many

many mechanisms logical and rational abilities they are all behind an

intention so the word intention and intelligence they most probably have the

same root which is toluse hopefully I'm pronouncing it correctly

phileas means end goal a purpose a meaning when you put in in front of it

it means internal end goal internal goal internal purpose from their word

intention comes and now you can see the meaning becomes very very clear that it

is an event in the mind which is goal directed it tries to achieve a purpose tries to achieve something the word

intelligence also comes from there an action that is goal directed a behavior

that is intentional starts from a desire a meaningful desire that is called

intelligence we say that I see science of intelligence in this kind of behavior

when we perceive the desire and intention and planning decision making

logical rational thought evaluation and so on behind that behavior so we say

this animal looks very intelligent because we see all these events happening there

we can guess at least when we say this machine is very intelligent smart machine because these these kinds of

events are programmed in the machine the activity of that computer or the Machine looks intelligence is looks intentional

it looks like it is desiring and doing so although it is all a series of

programs same for this machine which we call human mind it's all a series of

programs memories but a well-structured program the seed is always something

which is not intended which happens by its own totally automated totally

deterministic intention can last for many hours to many many days also so if

it takes a long time to do something to achieve a goal to fulfill a purpose or

that activity is planned it steps it can take a long time and so the desire lasts

for many hours to many days sometimes months and that is how it takes on the

appearance of intention the next kind of desire is a wish I am calling it a wish

because wish is a synonym for will and desire but I am using this word to

denote desire that lasts for many years

tens of years decades or sometimes for a full lifetime such as your desire to

become an artist your desire to do certain kind of job your desire to get

money and power your desire to raise a family these lasts for so long that we don't

even call them desire we call them as my life my life goal so it is an intention

that is prolonged lasts for many many years lifetime so I'm calling them as wish

because usually we say this word wish I wish to become such and such I wish to

do this in my life so on that's why it is a fitting word it

is nothing but a desire only that it takes a very long time to fulfill it or

to let go of it or it ends after a very long time and and the person keeps doing

efforts there is a continuous effort to fulfill the wish you can say the desire

to marry someone or desire to buy something big and expensive like a car

or a house can come under this category of wish because takes a long time usually there is another kind of desire

which is not well known and is spiritual in nature you can say it is metaphysical

kind and I am calling it a sense car or the latent impressions last time that we

are discussing desires I said well the sense cárcel are not really desires

because you cannot see them you can only see the effects of the latent impressions that's why we are called

latent because not yet manifested these are the memories that are not destroyed

when the person or the body dies all the kind all the desires that we discussed

just now the rest of the five skeins they get destroyed as soon as the body

is destroyed because mostly based on body but the latent impressions they are

immortal we cannot be destroyed they live as long

as the mind lives which is who knows it lives for many many lifetimes these

latent impressions and scars are also called the karmic impression because you see the desire produces the action karma

means nothing but an action so it is it has the same root there's these all

these concepts they have the same root same meaning actually so the latent

impressions they are formed during our life time they survived the death of the

individual and that's why we call we can call them as the desire of the jeev or the desire of this entity that survives

death and is reborn why why does it take a rebirth because of these latent

impressions because of these desires it takes on another form and tries to

fulfill those desires so the karmic kind

of desires they are also of a few kinds about which we have discussed before

when I was talking about rebirth and the structure of the universal mind but

there are no English words for them so you must have heard about in

different kinds of Karma's like the power of the sonship and a few more

kinds so the individual is born with these latent desires to fulfill these

latent desires actually birth his birth of the individual the individual does

not take birth the individual is born the desires take birth desires are the

root of the individual this like I said the individual is made up of desires

an individual is defined by what I say is what it thinks what it does and the

kind of desires or the character he has because the character is fully determined by the desires only nothing

else what kind of things you desire it reminds your character individual takes

on a proper body according to the latent desires body is consequence of desires

the body does not have desires or control systems or anything they are produced by the latent desires so you

see this science of desire is very deep I don't think anybody thinks about

desires like this nothing I am describing you can see it is never talked to anybody this subject the

desire management or the science of desires is missing from your curriculum and probably that is the most

important subject that one needs to know it is all that is you see all of my life

is nothing but a consequence of desires a play of desires all the activities of

the individual in the mind the body the jeev the universal mind the whole

existence is nothing but a play of desires now if you don't want to study this then what else would you like to

study because that is all there is and unfortunately it doesn't never talk to anybody

nobody knows this these things nobody knows these classifications nobody knows the definition of desires what do they

know they know that if a desire is there I must fulfill it it's all darkness here

so these were the six kind of desires that are based on a classification

depending on the time duration there can be a second kind of classification which

is based on the frequency or repetitions of the desires so as you can guess there

are recurring desires they repeat often then there can be one-time desires and

there can be randomly repeating desires sometimes they come sometimes they're

gone and then come again randomly so we know what repeating or recurring desire

is every day we wake up and there is a desire to eat there is a desire to

excrete there is a desire to go here and there and watch TV and so on these are

repeating desires sexual desires repeat desire to go to some places that is a

habitual thing it repeats if you don't do this if you don't repeat that action it feels like my desires are not being

satisfied and the characteristic of this desire is as soon as it is then for the

time being it is gone you don't want to do it again for example The Hunger the

hunger is nothing but a desire it is communicated by the body so as soon as

just like pain is desire is communicated by the body scan the control systems of the body just like

hunger it happens again in a game as soon as there is a need the desire arises the action is performed and the

desire goes away and then whenever there is a need again it happens again usually

we do not say that I desired this we call it my habit or a basic thing

basically basic behavior that is how I behave usually I go to this place I go

to club I go to pub I go to office these are recurring desires nothing else

smoking for example or drinking overeating these are recurring kinds of

desires and the characteristic of such desire is that there is very little

intelligence behind that no thought is involved most of the time mostly automated autonomous some are

involuntary also or have a little bit of control very little control some are

impulsive also then there can be one-time desires I want to go to this

place I want to go to this hill station mountains I want to go and watch this movie once you've done that it goes away

never comes because it's fulfilled so I want to buy a big house it's probably

going to be one time only and there are sometimes randomly repeating desires you

take a project finish the project and it never comes you think that it's not

going to come down but some but randomly due to some situation it repeats for

example you want to buy some kind of clothes or jewelry or TV and that you

think will be one-time desire but a new thing that I'm not going to do that again but sometimes it comes back

because there is a need probably or there is a impulse again all the situations have changed or you made an

intention to do it it can be anything so these this is the classification based on repetition usually the one-time

desire is an intentional thing there is a intelligence behind the one-time desire the random repeating thing

and be habitual or something which has no cause looks like there is no cause

for it the third way to classify the desires is based on consequences so

everybody knows this kind of classification there can be three kinds of consequences good bad a neutral there

can be fourth kind which I did not include which is you know the consequence is not for you the

consequence happens for the other but I think that is an error so when we act

when we desire something and think that it's not going to affect me that can be called as the fourth kind but usually it

is my experience that most of the time there is a consequence of some kind

probably the consequence gets delayed so much sometimes many many years many

lifetimes then we do not notice it that's all there is always a consequence

all actions have consequence this is the law famous law of karma the

the seed of action is a desire what is good desire a good desire is obviously

that which produces a good action and what is a good action good action is

that which produces a good consequence and what is a good consequence and good

consequence is that which helps in survival which is helpful in sustaining

the mind and body the desire that leads to survival of others also is a good

desire and anything that is opposite of good is bad that which is not helpful

for survival now all the actions oriented in towards

survival an individual will not act if it is not about survival all desires are

about survival you can say that no such in such actions such as such desire who was not need

for survival for example I wanted to take a photo of a beautiful flower but I

wanted to paint a beautiful painting it is not me really needed for survival I

can survive nicely without doing these actions or without desiring these things

now our examples can be that I want to derive an equation I want to find a

mathematical solution these things are purely amusement for pure knowledge do

not lead to anything as simple as survival but if you take a deeper look

if you investigate it thoroughly you will find that at the root of these

superficial desires he is also survival to create to express to find solutions

to problems these are all survival needs they have been refined to an extent in

humans in some humans that we do not perceive them as related to survival

their founding processes are same as that of survival there can be a third

type of desire based on kind of consequence which is a neutral desire a

desire which does not produce any good consequence or bad consequence also and

it may look like that this is kind of unnecessary category because the consequences are

always either good or bad so I'm using this not so obvious category just to put

all those desires and actions and consequences which are below the limit

of our perception they look like as if they're neutral but eventually the

consequence is there I will end up as being good or bad if they are only

slightly good or if they're only slightly bad we do not generally perceive them as good or bad we say okay

things happened and we continue the fourth kind of classification is based

on necessity so here also three kinds of desires are positive according to my own experience and they

are the desires that are basic also known as basic needs

because in need is felt it is not merely a wishy-washy desire if it is not

fulfilled it has very serious consequences probably harm to the organism or death

also the second kind of desire based on necessity is feel good desire I don't

have very sophisticated words for this so I call it feel good generally we want

to do things which feel good that is what we think is necessary for us so a

desire to listen to a song probably not going to contribute to survival probably

it is beyond our threshold so we don't see it like in that way probably it is

not going to do anything good it is not going to produce anything bad also but feels good and so if we do it so we

support the desire and the Third Kind is a positive feel-good and opposite of

basic made which is unnecessary desire it desire that does not feel good and is

not my basic need is categorized and under unnecessary desire so there can be

a desire to let us say collect all the rocks from the nearby area and pile them

up now it is totally unnecessary it's not going to contribute to survival it

surely does not feel good it's not the basic need the rocks are not going to be of any use for me if instead of rocks it

were seeds or fruits then obviously that comes under necessary desire it also

feels good and the fruit is supporting the survival so these are the three

kinds of desires categorized on the basis of necessity so to just summarize

and there are four ways to classify the desires based on time duration based on

how often it repeats means dark winces and based on the necessity now I

don't say that there is no fifth way or sixth we're probably there is it is for

you to find them out if you find a desire that does not fit and under any

of these categories there are almost 15 times now you can always invent a

category why do we need to classify the desires obviously the classification

makes it easier to study why do we want to study the desires because our whole

life is based on desires and actions they stem from desires the roots of all

actions as desired the our actions beside our quality of life the actions

decide the consequences and therefore it is necessary to know what desire is

going to produce what kind of consequence because that ultimately decides the total quality of the life

life is this series of experiences of the waking state that we are going

through right now what is our desire to have a good experience of the life you

always want good consequences you always want to feel good we always want to do

that is necessary to fulfill basic needs basic wants basic desires and we want to

avoid that which is unnecessary that which repeats and necessarily that which

repeats randomly that which is impulsive that which is reactive that which is an

intentional net which is automated so on so behind all these millions of desires

are the basic kinds of desires and behind these kinds of desires is one big

mother of all desires which is to have a very good life a positive experience of

the human life so if you value your life if you have this kind of big desire the

underlying desire you can say then it becomes necessary to know what a desire

is it becomes necessary to study it one of the strategy to study and control which

is necessary to know what desires are the classification makes it very very convenient and easy so next time a

desire comes in your mind do this little exercise try to classify it see what

kind of desire it is do not go ahead and act on it as if it is my desire do not

call it my desire it is our desire now this use the stool the intelligence and

knowledge to classify it that will give you a third-person perspective of the

desire once you see the desire is something other than yourself it becomes

possible to control it a little bit at least those desires that do not feel

good that they are probably going to result in a very bad consequence there

are totally unnecessary useless a waste of time you can avoid that kind of

desires and that kind of actions avoid making them your habit because desiring

again and again something is also an automatic process it's also a habit so

this kind of knowledge this kind of classification gives rise to an

awareness of the desire as soon as you are aware there is a little bit of control there the intelligence gets a

bit of time to act on that to process the desire before acting and as you can

see this is very helpful in achieving and good quality of life which is happy

and free life that's all we want from the life we want all the experience to be of a certain kind which is of

happiness and freedom so it is all tied very nicely now and we will continue

with the ways to manage the desire how to fulfill the desire if cannot be

fulfilled what to do how to avoid the suffering that happens when the desires

are not fulfilled it is a really big subject now so we'll

continue the discussion in next part of this series on desire management

[Music] pure experiences

[Music]

you were listening to pure experiences by the room Pradhan

[Music]