Desire and Liberation
Bhagavad Gita
Important masters like the Buddha, Swami Sivananda, Sankaracharya, Nisargadatta and sacred texts like the Bhagavad Gita make it clear that the root-cause of our bondage and suffering is desire (this is also my experience) and that its dissolution leads to liberation.
The more you attenuate your desires, the happier you will become. In proportion to the thinning of the desires, the mind also is proportionately thinned out. Mind is nothing but a bundle of desires. Mind is no other than the desires which generate an endless series of rebirths. The true nature of the mind is the desires.
~ Swami Sivananda
Pain and suffering are born of desire
~ Nisargadatta
From desire arises pain, from desire arises fear.
For the one who is free from desire there is neither pain nor fear.
~ Buddha
Excerpts from the Bhagavad Gita on Desire and Liberation
Bhagavad Gita, Ch.III
Arjuna said:
36. But what is it that impels a man to commit a sin, even unwillingly, as if he were doing it forcibly?
Lord Krishna said:
37. This is desire, this is anger, which is born of the quality (guna) rajas, the great all-devouring evil. Learn that desire is the enemy here.
38. As fire is covered by smoke, and the mirror by dust, as the embryo is covered by the amnion (the membrane surrounding the embryo), so the Atman (Consciousness, our divine Self) is covered by desire.
39. From this eternal enemy of the wise, the insatiable fire of desire, O Arjuna, is the knowledge of Atman covered!
Bhagavad Gita, Ch. II
The blessed Lord (Krishna) said:
62. When man thinks of objects, attachment to them is born. From attachment is born desire and from (unsatisfied) desire is born anger*.
Atman Comment:
*from desire anger is born: as water turns to ice when it is put in the refrigerator, so desire turns to anger when it cannot be satisfied by some obstacle (person, event, or whatever). Anger is just a modification of desire. In my experience all selfish tendencies and lower emotions originate directly or indirectly from desire.
63. From anger comes confusion, from confusion comes amnesia (loss of memory) and loss of discernment (and reason) and from loss of discernment man loses himself (falls back into the material pool).
64. But the self-controlled man, who moves among sense objects with disciplined senses, free from attraction and aversion (to sense objects) attains serenity (peace of mind).
65. In this serenity, all sadness or suffering ends because the mind (intellect, -Buddhi) of a person with a serene mind soon becomes stable (becomes stable in the Self, Atman).
71. The man who, having abandoned all desires, moves without longing, free from the sensation of ‘I’ and ‘mine’, attains peace.
72. That is the state of Brahman (the state of eternal peace and bliss), O Arjuna. Attaining it one is no longer deluded. As long as he is established in it even in the last moment of his life, he attains oneness with Brahman.
Bhagavad Gita Ch. V
26. Those who have controlled themselves, who have controlled their thoughts, who are free from desire and anger, and who have realized the Self (Atman, Consciousness), experience the all-pervading peace and Bliss of God (the Nirvana of Brahman).
28. Con los sentidos, la mente y el intelecto siempre controlados, teniendo la liberación como su meta suprema, libre del deseo, el miedo y la ira, el sabio está verdaderamente liberado para siempre.
Bhagavad Gita Ch. XV
5. Free from pride and delusion, victorious over the evil of attachment, dwelling constantly in the Self, their desires having completely turned away, freed from the pairs of opposites known as pleasure and pain, the undeluded reach the eternal goal.
Bhagavad Gita Ch. IV
10. Freed from attachment, fear and anger, absorbed in Me, taking refuge in Me, purified by the fire of knowledge, many have attained to My Being.
5.26. Those who have controlled themselves, who have controlled their thoughts, who are free from desire and anger, and who have realized the Self (Atman, Consciousness), experience the all-pervading peace and Bliss of God (the Nirvana of Brahman).
🌺 Peace, Love, Harmony
atmannityanada 