Michael James about Self Investigation and self-Surrender based on teachings of Ramana Maharshi - Part2

[Guest guest]

If we are perfectly honest with ourself, we will have to admit that we act

'unselfishly' for our own satisfaction. We feel good in ourself when we act

'unselfishly', and therefore acting in this way makes us feel happy. Hence

our desire to be happy is what ultimately and truly motivates us to act

'unselfishly. There is therefore truly no such thing as an absolutely

'unselfish' desire, because underlying even the most unselfish desire is our

fundamental desire to be happy.

 

We all desire to be happy. However, because we each have our own personal

understanding of what makes us happy, we each seek happiness in our own

individual way. All our actions, whether good or bad, moral or immoral,

virtuous or sinful, saintly or evil, are motivated only by our desire for

happiness. Whatever we may do, and whatever effort we may make, we cannot

avoid having the desire to be happy, because that desire is inherent in our

very being. Is it then impossible for us to be completely free of all

desire?

 

Yes, it is, or at least in a certain sense it is. If by the word �desire� we

mean our basic liking to be happy, then yes, it is impossible for us ever to

be free from it. However, our liking to be happy exists in two forms, one of

which is correctly called 'love' and the other of which is correctly called

'desire'. What then is the difference between our love to be happy and our

desire to be happy?

 

We all love ourself, but we cannot say that we desire ourself.Desire is

always for something other than ourself. We desire things that are other

than ourself because we wrongly imagine that we can derive happiness from

them. We can therefore use the word �love� to describe our liking to be

happy when we do not seek happiness in anything outside ourself, but when we

seek happiness outside ourself, our natural love to be happy takes the form

of desire.

 

Therefore we can be completely free of desire only when our natural love of

happiness is directed towards nothing other than our own essential being. We

will never be able to free ourself from the bondage of desire until we

replace all our desire to acquire happiness from other things with an

all-consuming love to experience happiness only in ourself. In other words,

we can transform all our finite desires into pure and infinite love only by

diverting our liking for happiness away from all other things towards our

own essential being.

 

The obstacle that prevents us from surrendering ourself entirely is our

desire to obtain happiness from anything other than ourself. But how does

such desire arise in the first place? If our love just to be is our real

nature, how have we forgotten such love and fallen a prey to the vultures of

our desires?

 

So long as we remain as our infinite consciousness of being,which is what we

truly always are, we can experience nothing other than ourself. In such a

state nothing exists for us to desire, and therefore we are perfectly

peaceful and happy in ourself. But as soon as we rise as the finite

body-bound consciousness that we call our 'mind' or 'individual self', we

separate ourself seemingly from the happiness that we truly are, and we

experience things that seem to be other than ourself. Having separated

ourself from our own real self, which is infinite happiness and for which we

therefore naturally have infinite love, we are overwhelmed by desire to

regain that happiness.

 

However, because we have forgotten what we really are, and because we see

our own self as the many objects of this world, we are confused and imagine

that we can obtain the happiness we desire from those objects. Due to the

illusory appearance of duality or otherness, we experience both our natural

happiness and our natural love for that happiness as two pairs of opposites,

pleasure and pain, and desire and aversion. That is, we imagine that certain

things give us pleasure or happiness, and that other things cause us pain or

suffering, and therefore we feel desire for those things that seem to give

us happiness, and aversion for those things that seem to make us unhappy.

 

Thus the root cause of all our desire is our forgetfulness or ignorance of

our own real self. When we ignore our true and infinite being, we imagine

ourself to be a false and finite individual, and therefore we experience

things that seem to be other than ourself,and feel desire for them, thinking

that they can give us the happiness that we seem to have lost. Since our

imaginary self-ignorance is the sole cause of all our desires, we can free

ourself from them only by regaining our natural state of true

self-knowledge.

 

Until we regain our true self-knowledge, we cannot remain free of desire. We

may be able to replace our �bad� desires by �good� desires, but by doing

so

we will only be replacing our iron chains with golden ones. Whether the

chains that bind us are made of iron or of gold, we will still be bound by

them. Therefore, in order to experience true and perfect freedom, we must

give up all our desires, both our base desires and our noble desires, which

we can do only by knowing ourself as we really are.

 

.... To Be Continued

 

--

Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram