DESIRE

Desire is a psychological movement, and it can attach itself to a “true need” as well as to things that are not true needs. One must approach even true needs without desire.If one does not get them, one must feel nothing.

The lower vital has its place, it is not to be crushed or killed; but it has to be changed, “caught hold of by both ends,” at the upper end a mastery and control, at the lower end a right use.
The rejection of desire is essentially the rejection of the element of craving, putting that out from the consciousness itself as a foreign element not belonging to the true self and the inner nature... It is only when this done in a wrong way, by a mental ascetic principle or hard moral rule, that it can be called suppression...

It is quite true that ‘‘in our path the attitude is not one of forceful suppression, nigraha’’; it is not coercion according to a mental rule or principle on an unpersuaded vital being. But that does not mean either that the vital has to go its own way and do according to its fancy. It is not coercion that is the way, but an inner change in which the lower vital is led, enlightened and transformed by a higher consciousness which is detached from the objects of vital desire.

The spiritual life will draw its sustenance not from desire but from a pure and selfless spiritual delight of essential existence.

Then lest a human cry should spoil the Truth
He tore desire up from its bleeding roots
And offered to the gods the vacant place.
Thus could he bear the touch immaculate.