Desires

[Guest guest]

On p. 534 of the Gospels, the Master says: " No salvation is possible

for a man as long as be has desire, as long as he hankers for worldly

things. Therefore fulfil all your desires regarding food, clothes,

and sex. ... It is not good to cherish desires and hankerings. For

that reason I used to fulfil whatever desires came to my mind.... "

In the abridged edition, Swami N removed the second sentence

above, " Therefore fulfil all your desires... " just as he removed many

other passages that, I suppose, he thought might mislead the casual

reader. In any case, I see two things here. One is the suggestion

that " you " should fulfill all your desires. I take this to refer to

the fact that as long as there are unspent desires deposited in the

mind as seeds, they are bound to express themselves and have to be

exhuasted before one begins to seek God. The second thing is that

Ramakrishna is saying that he himself set about fulfilling various

whimsical desires--for sweets, fancy clothing, a hubble-bubble,and so

on. Then he renounced all those objects and spat on them.

If we take it for granted that Ramakrishna, being perfect, was in

actuality untouched by desire, how do you interpret this passage? Is

he merely acting the part of a " desirer " for some mysterious purpose

of his own?