What is Desire?

[Winter]

Is desire nothing but dislike of the present experience, associated to an imagined "better" experience?

 

How do I know what I desire? How could you distinguish between what you desire and what you don't, what you like and what you dislike?

 

Am I free to not desire?

Can I let go of desire for sex?

Can I let go of desire for human relationships?

Can I let go of desire for food?

Can I let go of desire to keep the body alive?

 

Desire and Want are the same thing, their definitions are circular in the dictionary. @Phil says focus on what you want. Why would one ever do that instead of just "not wanting"?

[Mandy]

23 minutes ago, Winter said:

Is desire nothing but dislike of the present experience, associated to an imagined "better" experience?

Pure desire is love, when there is desire we are not aligned with (because we may be adding beliefs about possession, separate selves and time to them) we know because there is the guidance of negative emotion. 

23 minutes ago, Winter said:

How do I know what I desire? How could you distinguish between what you desire and what you don't, what you like and what you dislike?

If you feel jealousy you desire something you aren't believing in. If you feel love you desire something you do believe in. You distinguish by how it feels. What you don't desire doesn't come into your awareness. What you have an emotional response to is what you desire in some way. It might not be initially apparent exactly what we want or the fact that we do want something if we have thoughts and identification clouding it. For example if I watch the news and get upset about violence, I want peace. I can't have peace or work toward peace until I define that I do desire peace and stop being upset by my focus on thoughts of violence and insecurity. 

23 minutes ago, Winter said:

Am I free to not desire?

Yeah, but this is sorta what you came for. 

23 minutes ago, Winter said:

Can I let go of desire for sex?

You do all the time. If you are very hungry and desiring food you are usually not desiring sex. 

23 minutes ago, Winter said:

Can I let go of desire for human relationships?

When you desire to be alone, you do let go of it. Everyone does. Every thought you think is a letting go of every other possible thought you could be focused on. 

23 minutes ago, Winter said:

Can I let go of desire for food?

If there's a naked girl in your bed you probably aren't thinking about food. Your focus is on her. 

23 minutes ago, Winter said:

Can I let go of desire to keep the body alive?

 

Of course. But your body is love. It is beyond survival, it has intelligence and a "will" (if you will) beyond what we can conceptualize as the mind and body split. There is no such split and therefore also no connection. Desire in its fullness is love. 

23 minutes ago, Winter said:

@Phil says focus on what you want. Why would one ever do that instead of just "not wanting"?

In the example of watching the news and being horrified by world happenings, the choosing to focus on what I want is peace, the essence of peace. I can and do GET what I want as soon as I want it as long as I don't try to assert thought, separate selves and time into the equation. Most people keep on thinking thoughts of horror, and they call that desire for peace. Allowing oneself the peace of shutting off the news (or the thoughts) whether we later take some action to help the situation or create peace in the world or not, is getting what you want. Focusing on what I want is allowing myself peace, not continuing to watch the news program... think the thoughts of the food or sex or whatever, I don't have. Everything I want is because I want to feel good, I want to feel love, and I can always have that now. I can always zoom in on specifics of what I want or zoom back out to that peace love that is my being. 

[Winter]

14 minutes ago, Mandy said:

Pure desire is love, when there is desire we are not aligned with (because we may be adding beliefs about possession, separate selves and time to them) we know because there is the guidance of negative emotion. 

How can there be a desire "I'm aligned with" if there is no "I"?

 

There is no "guidance", that is a thought, assuming "somewhere to go" or "somewhere to be guided to". What you call "guidance" is here and now, or the lack of desire that is pointing to somewhere else.

18 minutes ago, Mandy said:

If you feel jealousy you desire something you aren't believing in. If you feel love you desire something you do believe in. You distinguish by how it feels. What you don't desire doesn't come into your awareness. What you have an emotional response to is what you desire in some way. It might not be initially apparent exactly what we want or the fact that we do want something if we have thoughts and identification clouding it. For example if I watch the news and get upset about violence, I want peace. I can't have peace or work toward peace until I define that I do desire peace and stop being upset by my focus on thoughts of violence and insecurity. 

Whether something feels good or bad is a judgement, an opinion and it is based on desire. Right now my body is pretty empty of nutrients, I can feel it. Is it bad? Isn't that just the opinion of one who would want to survive? If you want to "distinguish" whether a feeling is good or bad, don't you need some sort of goal to measure it against, a desire? 

 

That injuring your body "feels bad", isn't that an opinion of one who would want to preserve the body? Is there no objective way of determining what "I" want or what feels good?

Or should I just assume the body has a desire of self preservation and base whether something feels good or bad on that? Isn't that just what everyone else is doing? Everybody claims they don't want to live forever, but we rarely sumble upon old folks who want to die.

[Mandy]

24 minutes ago, Winter said:

How can there be a desire "I'm aligned with" if there is no "I"?

Because aligning with it and getting thy conceptual arse out of the way of it is the very same thing. It's two ways of saying the same thing. Another way is the "take me away Calgon", when you're so lost in the throes of satisfaction/clarity that there isn't a you there anymore. A conceptual one anyway. 

24 minutes ago, Winter said:

There is no "guidance", that is a thought, assuming "somewhere to go" or "somewhere to be guided to". What you call "guidance" is here and now, or the lack of desire that is pointing to somewhere else.

Right, but if you feel bad, you desire to feel good, right? Feeling itself is the "no where to go" and also the call home. "Come heeeeere. Come here."

24 minutes ago, Winter said:

 

Whether something feels good or bad is a judgement, an opinion and it is based on desire. 

The report of whether something feels good or bad is a judgement or an opinion. I'm talking about the direct feeling, which is not. That's why when you go to the doctor with a broken something or other and they bring out the pain scale before treating you, you might want to stuff it up their arse because in that moment a scale of frowny faces ranked 1-10 is not even in the ballpark of what's experienced. Likewise love clearly felt cannot be ranked, or judged or thought, in that love, it's laughable to think so and the laughing is just more love.

24 minutes ago, Winter said:

That injuring your body "feels bad", isn't that an opinion of one who would want to preserve the body?

No. And it's less black and white than you think but abundantly more clear in the moment. You have your own intuition that is prior to what you have learned be good or bad. 

 

24 minutes ago, Winter said:

Is there no objective way of determining what "I" want or what feels good?

You know how we say you aren't a separate self? Objective is the supposed absence of the separate self, assuming there is a separate self that can be excluded. There is not. Therefore the separate self cannot be excluded. Therefore your Dad's desire for your Mom, and your Mom's desire for you to be happy, healthy and loved is your desire, "God's" desire, my desire, is love itself. You are loved. You are love. Period. 

24 minutes ago, Winter said:

Or should I just assume the body has a desire of self preservation and base whether something feels good or bad on that? 

The best self preservation is the understanding that there isn't one, but there is Self Love as described above. 

 

[Winter]

 

14 minutes ago, Mandy said:

Right, but if you feel bad, you desire to feel good, right?

Yeah so saying something feels bad = judging feeling = desiring. 

 

14 minutes ago, Mandy said:

Feeling itself is the "no where to go" and also the call home. "Come heeeeere. Come here."

That "feeling is a call home" or that it means anything, such as "come here" is judgement/interpretation. 

 

16 minutes ago, Mandy said:

The best self preservation is the understanding that there isn't one, but there is Self Love as described above. 

An understanding doesn't describe "what should be done". Self preservation however, requires things to be done, such as eating.

If I let go of all desires, why would I eat? Why would I judge the experience of starving to death "lesser" than the experience of being healthy? Wouldn't that imply a desire for self preservation?

No desire doesn't mean letting oneself to starve necessarily but doesn't it equate to full indifference regarding all aspects of reality? Good or bad, life or death, pleasure or pain? 

[Mandy]

10 hours ago, Winter said:

Yeah so saying something feels bad = judging feeling = desiring. 

👍

10 hours ago, Winter said:

That "feeling is a call home" or that it means anything, such as "come here" is judgement/interpretation. 

Yup, but a very useful understanding to quickly snap out of suffering and do so in my opinion. 

10 hours ago, Winter said:

An understanding doesn't describe "what should be done". Self preservation however, requires things to be done, such as eating.

If I let go of all desires, why would I eat? Why would I judge the experience of starving to death "lesser" than the experience of being healthy? Wouldn't that imply a desire for self preservation?

You are getting ahead of yourself. You have only lived now. In the past when you lived, it was now, recalling the past now, it is now, intelligent planning and thinking of a good future it is now. In your now, find out what survival and desire is. Outside of past and future, what is desire? What is survival? What is life? What is it made of? 

10 hours ago, Winter said:

No desire doesn't mean letting oneself to starve necessarily but doesn't it equate to full indifference regarding all aspects of reality? Good or bad, life or death, pleasure or pain? 

Not indifference. No duality. There is no line between these opposites. What seeing is, is prior to "what" sees differences. You think yourself to be a body that must survive, but from the POV of Awareness (Now) you are always aware of the body. The body does not posses awareness.  "What" sees differences (body mind) believes it can be indifferent. However what is prior to the seeing of differences is seeing itself. 

[Phil]

19 hours ago, Winter said:

Is desire nothing but dislike of the present experience, associated to an imagined "better" experience?

No, that’s aversion, judgement, and desire. 

19 hours ago, Winter said:

How do I know what I desire?

Resonating thoughts. 

Also, it’s on The Dreamboard. 

19 hours ago, Winter said:

How could you distinguish between what you desire and what you don't, what you like and what you dislike?

Feeling and preference (arising thoughts). 

Aligning Thought With Feeling ( = conscious creation / manifestation of the change desired.) 

19 hours ago, Winter said:

Am I free to not desire?

Can I let go of desire for sex?

Can I let go of desire for human relationships?

Can I let go of desire for food?

Can I let go of desire to keep the body alive?

Why though? 

Who has ‘it’ presently which could let go of ‘it’?

 

Not two. 

Self Inquiry.

Inspect assumptions. 

19 hours ago, Winter said:

Desire and Want are the same thing, their definitions are circular in the dictionary. @Phil says focus on what you want. Why would one ever do that instead of just "not wanting"?

…annnddd…you want to know the answer to this…?

Desire & want aren’t things, thus their definitions aren’t circular in the dictionary. 

 

Circular:

Of or relating to a circle.

Shaped like or nearly like a circle; round.

Moving in or forming a circle.

 

Thought Loop

 

Me:

Used as the direct object of a verb.

Used as the indirect object of a verb.

Used as the object of a preposition.

 

A dictionary doesn’t define anything. 

How is dictionary defined?

🙂

[Winter]

7 hours ago, Mandy said:

 

Yup, but a very useful understanding to quickly snap out of suffering and do so in my opinion. 

This duality is SO POWERFUL it will get you to nonduality in SECONDS! Buy now! Money back guarantee!

7 hours ago, Mandy said:

"What" sees differences (body mind) believes it can be indifferent.

Good point.

 

Ultimately the writting of this post was done under the assumption that there are desires which differ from the judgement of feeling. Thank you for the nice discussion!

[Winter]

7 hours ago, Phil said:

Desire & want aren’t things, thus their definitions aren’t circular in the dictionary. 

 

Circular:

Of or relating to a circle.

Shaped like or nearly like a circle; round.

Moving in or forming a circle.

A circular definition is a definition that uses the term being defined as a part of the definition or assumes a prior understanding of the term being defined.

 

7 hours ago, Phil said:

A dictionary doesn’t define anything. 

How is dictionary defined?

A dictionary is defined as the set of all words in a language. Of course those definitions are not actual, but required to communicate. 
 

About the other stuff : Yes, correct. Thank you.

[Phil]

@Winter

Right, like knowing what a thing is to be able to define another thing. (Assumption.)