“Want” Is a Four Letter Word: Living Life Beyond Desire

The word “want” is arguably the most negative word in the English language.

What if someone told you that everything you thought you knew about how you must “increase your desire” in order to achieve your goals was 100% backwards and will lead you to untold pain and suffering instead of to the abundance and happiness you were promised?

When seemingly every self-help “guru” is shouting at us that the reason we are not happier and more successful is because we don’t have enough desire for the things we want, it is hard to avoid being programmed into thinking this way. However, there are very good reasons why you shouldn’t buy into this kind of thinking.

Desire is the number one enemy of abundance, freedom and happiness. Anything we “want” we are telling our subconscious mind that we lack it, and so it gives us more lack.

Some of the definitions of the word “want” illustrate this:

Want:

• To needn • A state of being destituten • To be needyn • The condition or lackn • A state of extreme poverty

And yet we think having more of this will bring us abundance?

The Buddha understood the nature of desire when he stated:

1. Life is suffering
2. Suffering is caused by desire
3. To rid oneself of suffering, one must rid oneself of desire

Even the Bible says, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

Yet, we all seem to worship desire as a god, when it is really the greatest enemy of our freedom, joy, abundance and peace of mind. Desire is the only real demon in this world.

Some things to keep in mind regarding desire:

• There is nothing wrong with *having*. There is nothing wrong with being totally abundant. What’s off is *wanting*, which is the feeling of lack that attracts more lack. This explains the saying, “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” The reason the rich get richer is because they don’t “want” money, they feel they already “have” money which attracts more. Whereas, those who are poor feel they are lacking and thus attract more lack with their feelings of lack.

• The only way you ever got anything in life was by letting go of wanting it and moving into the feeling of already having it. So, why even bother wanting it? Why not go right for the feeling of being totally happy, healthy, abundant, and fulfilled? Why not simply make the decision to *be* happy, healthy, abundant and fulfilled right now, instead of getting stuck in wanting these things? Your wanting them has pushed them away.

• When we have no desires, anything we could ask for comes to us for the mere effortless thought of it. And, this is a much better way to achieve our goals than through mental effort, struggle and hard work, which are always ego-based. A good motto to keep in mind is, “If it’s effort, it is ego.” The two are basically synonymous. Desirelessness is a state of total freedom, happiness and fulfillment. Outer fulfillment is the result of an inner feeling of fulfillment, which comes naturally as desire is released.

• If you really “want” to achieve your goals and have a happy and fulfilled life, then pull up all of your suppressed desires and let them go. Otherwise, they will forever seek to express themselves—and as they do, they will attract more lack and disturb your mind 24/7 leaving you no peace or happiness whatsoever.

• Keep your *intention* to have, be or do whatever you will, and let go of the painful desire for it. An intention is just a decision.

• Desires stir up the mind and generate all negative emotions. Without desires, there is peace, clarity and awareness. Where there are desires, there is apathy, grief, fear, lust, anger and/or pride.

• What you call happiness is really just you being your real Self with no thoughts or desires in the way. It is a delightful space of pure and simple Being—a resting in who and what you are. Yet, we seek to permanently rest in this state by creating endless desires, which is totally backwards. Seeking fulfillment through desires is like banging ourselves on the head with a hammer all day because it feels good when we stop. If desire brought satisfaction and peace, then we’d all have it by now, as we have all had plenty of very intense desires.

Look to see where you are unhappy in life and you will always find a desire—a lacking feeling—behind it. Isn’t that enough reason to start eliminating desire?

To many of us, sex is one of our greatest pleasures. Yet, what's really happening is that we feel good as we temporarily quiet a painful lacking feeling inside called desire. An orgasm quiets the mind for a moment and we feel our naturally joyful Being and then falsely attribute this happy and thought-free state to the sex or to the orgasm, which it never is. You can feel that joy continuously if you just release your desires and “be your Beingness.”

Desires, like clouds that block out the sun, cover over our happiness. What we are each doing is creating a desire, satisfying it, and then falsely assuming it was the thing we achieved that made us happy—when it never is. What made us feel happy (temporarily) was the ending of the painful desire and the glimpse of our very own Being, whose very nature is happiness.

One can never satisfy a desire. It only fuels the desire for more. Have you ever seen a desire for sex satisfied? I haven’t. The only way to satisfy any desire is to drop it completely. When this is done, we move into a feeling of *having* or *being* that which we previously desired.

Here is a quick exercise to show you how wanting keeps you from having:

1. Grab a pen and pape
2. Make a list of all the things you want in life
3. Make a list of all the things you have
4. Look at the two lists. You will notice that all the things you want are all the things you don’t have!

If you had no desires, then everything would fall into place perfectly and without effort. There is an underlying harmony and abundance to all of creation, if we just get out of the way and “let it be.”

Ever look at some of the amazing pictures sent back by the Hubble telescope? Ever see such majestic beauty and harmony as those images of galaxies and nebulae? They are in perfect harmony, and they required no human intervention to make them that way. Look at nature here on earth. It is a perfect and beautiful display of balance and harmony until mankind disrupts this harmony with out-of-harmony thinking fueled by endless desires and feelings of lack.

Why take the long, painful road to happiness and fulfillment? Why not make a beeline straight for the totally peaceful and satisfied feeling that attracts more happiness and abundance? You do this simply by pulling up and letting go of the painful lacking and limiting desires that have been making you miserable.