Desire

Desire ( काम , कामना )

To those who get it , those who notice it , Further reading beyond this first paragraph is not needed. They are just elaboration on this point. – There are many many emotions but it is the handful of emotions that give birth to rest of all . If we get control over these handful of ones, we get control over every single possible emotions . And DESIRE काम , is One of the MOST of Basic Ones, Know it , See it bubble up , see it grow and learn to control it to your advantage. Learn to direct it to the benefit of the world. It is the काम ,that leads to Anger ( When Someone obstructs its fulfilment ) t is the काम again that causes sorrow , grief when it goes unfulfilled and we feel helpless , powerless . It is the काम that leads to Greed , restlessness .. It is the same काम , your desire to be respected and given importance , that fuels your ego , that leads to road rage when someone overtakes you . So if know काम , learn to handle it, We will NOT try to Control anger when it rises its head but rather go down to the root and deal with the काम that led to Anger. We will NOT then Turn to Grief and feel helpless but look at the Root cause of the grief, and if must grieve , let us do so , BUT Should we wish to get out of it, and yet feel powerless, Look at what we have been clinging to , what is that desire that is not being fulfilled, and address that – Can that desire be fulfilled , Should that be fulfilled – IF Yes – Focus on How to fulfil that and if you succeed , the sorrow will go . If NO – Learn the Develop the steel nerves, accept the truth , the reality , the limitation we have to fulfil that Desire, that काम , and Give up , become निष्काम . So while it might be too much to ask someone to be Desire-less निष्काम, so long as one can’t give up the various desires , rather then focus on fulfilling them till you transcend them. Always keeping in mind that Desire Can’t be fulfilled for eternity . it comes back again and again and fulfilling them is like putting Ghee in fire. fulfilling it inflames more than in satisfies. But Just like a child outgrows its toys . we will need to outgrow need to constantly inflame and fulfil the desires. We played with various toys and our sisters paid with dolls. Now we are all grown up , and have no desire to play with that Toy Sten gun or that doll which felt like our life depended on that. But does that mean that once we have grown in wisdom and age , we ask our sons and daughters to give them up as yet , preaching them to be useless and waste of time – citing our experience.

If we do so , we will snatch the childhood of our children. When times cones, when they grow up they will give up . Deprive them now and when they grow up , instead of the tobu cylle

Deny them These experiences in Childhood or let them Crave It But Not Get it

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And See how they Escalate to even More Dangerous Adrenaline fuelled Adventure & Fancy Gaudy Colourful Bikes

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We can create millions of stories and poems just using the 26 alphabets ; so with music just using the seven notes on the musical scale. This we do by the various permutations and combinations.

It seems that we can create a laundry list of emotions. Some basic , some mixed, and the various shades of them.

The Building Blocks of Emotions: They can be counted on FINGERS

E.g. If someone displays anger, it can be of wide range and variety – minor irritation , furious, extreme wrath , mad with anger , in rage, great ire, hot temper and so on.

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Similarly fear & its synonyms which are close terms but not always exactly the same : e.g being in dread, feel horror, jitters , being in panic, being anxious, being in terror of someone or something, feeling agitated, or feeling creepy, having a foreboding, faintheartedness, having jitters, trepidation , tremor, feeling timid, trembling in fear and then display wide range of symptoms varying from – cold feet, cold sweat, chickenheartedness , faintheartedness , trembling, horripilation ( erection of hairs on the skin due to fear ) , living in dread of something .

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Seeing that our behaviour and actions are guided by our reasons and coloured by our emotions, it therefore means that to be in fair control of our lives , we need to train our reason and have a grasp over our emotions. We all know when emotions get out of controls and make us helpless victims. The individual and the society become puppets of emotions –

When the emotions overtakes us , we loose control of them – what are the consequences ? We may as well ask – if the nuclear chain reaction gets out of control , what happens ? Hiroshima, Nagasaki.

The scuffles and bickering turning into wars ; the fear leading to suicides ; the cravings leading to looting, murders .. The list of unfortunate mishaps that happen when emotions get out of control is endless.

We tend to think in terms of friends and enemies. We imagine enemies outside of us. The enemy is within, the friend is also within. They are hidden in our emotions and they are caused by our intellect ( बुद्धि )

उद्धरेदात्मनात्मानं नात्मानमवसादयेत् ।आत्मैव ह्यात्मनो बन्धुरात्मैव रिपुरात्मनः ॥ Gita 6.5 ||

अपने द्वारा अपना उद्धार करें , अपना पतन न करें ; क्योंकि आप ही अपने मित्र हैं और आप ही अपने शत्रु हैं ।

One should save oneself by oneself; one should not lower oneself. For oneself is verily one’s own friend; oneself is verily one’s own enemy.

बन्धुरात्माऽऽत्मनस्तस्य येनात्मैवात्मना जितः।अनात्मनस्तु शत्रुत्वे वर्तेतात्मैव शत्रुवत्।।Gita 6.6।।

Of him, by whom has been conquered his very self by the self, his self is the friend of his self. But, for one who has not conquered his self, his self itself acts inimically like an enemy.

जिसने अपने-आपसे अपने-आपको जीत लिया है, उसके लिये आप ही अपना बन्धु है और जिसने अपने-आपको नहीं जीता है, ऐसे अनात्माका आत्मा ही शत्रुतामें शत्रुकी तरह बर्ताव करता है।

It is them imperative that we learn to control our emotions . To control the emotions we need to understand them. See through their plays and interplays in various settings, situations. Observe their genesis and manifestations in ourselves in various situations in the various phases of our lives. Soon we will notice that they belong not just to us , we share the same kind of emotions across human species and many times across the animal , plant kingdom.

A child that curls up in FEAR

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Mimosa pudica that Also Curls UP

So One great hope is that should we be able to understand deeply our own emotions, and how it effects us, we need not go about struggling to read and understand each individual , group, species. We will be better able to read through their emotions if we know how to read our own, well. If we learn to control our emotions, we will learn to face their emotions and since emotions control us , it controls them as well. He who controls has the power. So we gain power over ourselves and can even exercise control and power over others .

If we have evil intent , we can wreak havoc on the world with that intent , power already in hand ; and vice versa.

So we gain immense power to Harm or Do Good; and they who understand the power of emotions and know how to manipulate it can in turn do immense harm or good to us.

Its then No Brainer that WE MUST Know these emotions . We must learn to control and direct them. We must know them to keep under check . We must know how to restrain them and we must know how to Unleash them when needed. In Nutshell we must learn to be the स्वामी ( master ) not a दास ( slave ) , स्वाधीन( Liberated ) Not पराधीन ( bonded) .

Given that there are so many emotions , it becomes a laundry list of emotions and too overwhelming to be able to be known fully . Controlling them then becomes an immense task and a rather complex one.

Yet is that true ? Is it not that in nursery we learnt the 26 alphabets. The very first music class was on sa, re, ga.. . then the colour of rainbows. In digital images we have the RGB as enough .

So is it with emotions. The saving grace is that we if notice carefully, there are just a couple of emotions that build up in various permutations and combinations to give us wide array of emotions.

Desire ( काम , कामना ) is one of them .

Fear is another.

Child is inside womb of mother. Getting its food through blood , excreting all waste through the same blood coming to it from umbilical cord. It is part and parcel of its mother , and is like an organ , amongst the various ones like heart, kidney, lungs etc.

If the mother feels the fear – the kidney , heart, lungs all feel it and respond in their own ways. (Is it just hormones like adrenaline and cortisol at work ! What are those forces of consciousness , of “life” that caused the rush of hormones in the first place ? ) . So whatever the claims of Modern Biology , So called Modern Science based on study of matter & energy can’t explain it because the origin of ” life” is NOT in matter though it is embedded in it, animates it . So these so called men of science Give certain names and assume they know . And When Life Leaves the Body – these same Seem to explain all & pretend-know -all , prove to be clueless as to what went missing.

So with Emotions – Its origin is in Life itself which those who have mastered it have tried to give it the name of Sat – Chit – Anand : Existence – Knowledge ( Consciousness) – Bliss .

So There is ” THAT’ ( tat ) which Exists always.

It is Of the NATURE OF Consciousness ..

and It has Only ONLY Nature _ Anand , Unalloyed Bliss …

Happiness is NOT necessarly anand, ( You are Thirsty , You are in agony pain, You get water to drink , Quench your thirst You feel satisfied , happy, But this is NOT anand,

This is relief from pain and that pain had caused a shadow over our real nature ANAND so when that is out of way – Ananda manifests again , Not that we gain ananda , as When cloud get blown away , SUN is not created or gained but just revealed.

Coming back to the baby in womb.

It shares in the emotions of mother.

Once it is born. It is ushered into an outside world. In an unfamiliar strange world .

How do we respond when we faced with Uncertainty .

So when it is born with it is Born the Emotion of Fear. Even in womb it would have moments of fear for example perhaps when Ultrasound waves had disturbed its peace.

But even before fear there was attachment, Attachment to the umbilical cord. and that was giving comfort. A sense of security. All needs fulfilled. So When there is attachment, ( , sangatvam ) there is RAAG ( anuraag) and that leads to KAAM . Desire to be in cosy palce, desire to have bodily needs met ( food, hunger , thirst etc )

That desire is now quite thwarted when it is ushered in the open world amid strangers, light, sound, noise, cold , hot , various smells , new kind of sensations of touch etc.

If it had NOT attachment, it would have no desire , and thus no fear.

So

First comes Desire , next comes Fear . Then comes Pain and sadness , Hungry as umbilical cord is cut so no blood to feed upon and need for energy through food the fuel and air .

So while doctors say it cries because lungs open up for the first time and that claim may be true , it could also cry because of the LIFE which needs to Sustain and can’t in absence of oxygen and fuel .

A litter of rats , or puppies and a human baby need not be taught to suckle breast milk of mother . It is spontaneous , instinctive.

Its desire for Clinging to Life through food ( milk) is getting fulfilled and it no more wails.

So

Kaam ( Desire to cling to life through umbilical cord , the through breast milk )

Grief ( When that desired is denied )

Fear ( That Life May get extinguished )

Baby cries when hungry or wet , or stung by mosquito or in cold or too hot , handled rough , loud nosies, etc. . Out of Fear

Then Feels helpless and cries .

Soon it grows up . Learns to manipulate things and starts to get sense of people around it.

Now there are times it does not feel helpless , It knows mother can give milk but is NOT permitting. She can cradle it but is NOT doing so . So it is NOW turn of Anger. It throws tantrums, gets irritated, throws thing away expressing its anger.

So

From Love for Life – to Kaam – to Fear – To Sadness – to Anger

Now Comes the turn of Jealousy

Jealousy = Kaam + Fear + Anger + Sadness

The Mother is taking a sibling on lap

He wants that Cosiness ( KAAMNA )

He is AFRAID ( Fear ) He will NOT get it as mother has given to someone else

He Feels sad because of NON FULFILMENT of Desire

He feels Anger , if he has enough energy to express, because of NON FULFILMENT of Desire

Then if mother is wise , she will ” ASSURE the child : cajole it.

Over time the child learns that EVEN if SOMETHING is denied to him, HIS KAAM remains unfulfilled , it will later be fulfilled

This creates trust

The CHILD develops FAITH .

You DESIRE – Desire Is NOT FULFILLED – yet

Child Learns to Get over , transcend FEAR and ANGER

replaced out by the ENTRY of FAITH

( this is what Kathsopnsidad speaks of in case of नचिकेता in whom श्रद्धा enters. )

Thus

When KAAM enters either Subdue it and set it aside or fulfil it , get over it and thus and buy time till it strikes again or if you are NOT able to fulfill KAAM

Then Have श्रद्धा , do your karma , try to fulfill KAAMA through that then also KEEP the faith that श्रद्धा that Your desires would be fulfilled ( DEEP’s Assurance )

श्रद्धा in Child Tells it that काम will be fulfilled, though not now.

SO sense of TIME enters, KAAL

And Thus Gaap of KAAL between काम to Fulfilled KAAM reach NISHKAAM is met with NEW emotion

DHAIRYA , Dheeraj

So CHild learns to Develop Patience

When We loose patience with people , we mean to say we are angry with them

But Suppose we have श्रद्धा , Then Dhairya MUST be born . and If Shraddha is ANGER , FEAR SADness are In control or gone

So

When KAAM IS not there or in proper control , ANGER FEAR SADNESS won’t take birth or will be in proper control

When KAAM takes birth

Bring on ASSURANCE bring in FAITH

then KAM _ FAITH _ KARMA – Fulfilled Kaam

So from KAAM to NISHKAAM stage is reached

and

Once NISHKAAM then NO further Emotions.

So Shiv is Doing NO Out ward KARMA , In dhyaan , On Divine.

Then KAAM DEV Comes.

It Obstructs the only real nature SAT CHIT ANANDNA Divinity

So Shiva OPENS Third eye It has fire, Shiva has energy , SO he will NOT Be sad

HE WILL BE ANGRY .

And In anger he attacks the VERY ROOT of trouble THE KAAAM

ANd BURNS it down

Kaam is GONE , Spare Energy is NOW doing TANDAV .

So Even if Our desires are GONE , We keep running in auto mode like automatons in CEASELESS work

Then Goddess Comes and calms him

VISION of DIVINE

In upnaishad one word has been repeated again and again MAA BHIH BE FEARLESS

If you control desire , You become FEARLESS

KILL all DESIRES – The NO FEAR

Control All desires – Control all fear

Those who LOOSE LOVE for LIFE Loose Fear of Losing life even and are not afraid of DEATH even

Those who KNOW the ATMA which Never Dies

Will HAVE FAITH that he will not die

And WHEN He knows HE WILL NOT die

Where is the FEAR of Death

So Knower of ATMA becomes FEARLESS

In Conclusion

Basic EMOTION is KAAM

Learn to master this emotion

and Then These are the Emotions that Get Under control

Anger, Fear , Sadness,grief, Dhairya , Shraddha , Hatred Disgust, Jealousy , Greed, ( Lobh) MADA is Dambh , Inebriated born of EGO , So when You have NO KAAM for Preserving you ego knowing it to be TEMPORAL , You no more have MADA and No jealusy ( matsrya )

Kam Krodha Lobha Moh mad Matsrya

काम , कामना

अपने मित्र हैं और आप ही अपने शत्रु हैं ।

सात सुरों के संगम से बने मधुर संगीत , कौमों के ह्रदय संगम से बने मानवता के गीत

#Emotions #Shadripus