Don’t Fight Your Passions

“Desires are just things that you play with. Without desire, there is no game at all.” —Sadhguru

Sadhguru looks at how it is futile to fight our passions and desires. But what we can do is channelize them in the right direction.

Sadhguru: It is generally attributed to Gautama Buddha that he said “desirelessness.” When he said “desirelessness,” he is not stupid to think that people can exist here without desire. He knows that without desire there is no existence. You wanting to be desireless itself is a big desire.

What being desireless means is that you have no identification with your desires. Desires are just things that you play with. Without desire, there is no game at all. But now, the desires are not about you anymore. It is just the way it is needed for this moment, for this situation. Everything is there the way it is and you do whatever you can do about it. You can be deeply involved with everything but not be identified with it anymore.

Once that awareness is there, once you are desireless in that sense, there is no karmic bondage for that person. Whatever he does, even if he fights a war, there is no karma for him because he has no desire to do anything like that. It is not coming out of his love or hate for something. It is just coming because simply, that is the way.

This is the whole Gita. Krishna is constantly talking about nishkarma – not performing any karma – but insisting that Arjuna should act. He is talking about the same desirelessness in a different language and a different connotation, but nevertheless it is the same thing.

Channel Your Desires

So do not ever try to fight with your desires and passions. The more you fight the more they come up. In the puranas they say, if even one drop of blood falls on the ground while killing an asura, a thousand asuras come out of it. Desires and passions are like that. If you try and fight with them, if you chop them, they will spill blood and for every drop one thousand more desires and passions will come up. Fighting them will be futile, it will be a waste of life. You can never fight them. You should just educate your desires and passions to flow in the right direction.

Your desire, your passion and everything you go through is simply plain energy. It is you who makes it into desire or fear or anger or whatever else. Maybe these things are not in your hands right now. Maybe you are not conscious of them. But it is you who makes them what they are. Whatever the emotion, whatever the nature of your passion, it is only the effort of your life energies trying to find a deeper foothold into life. Life energies are only trying to enhance the experience of life. It is just that if it is focussed towards various things in the world, whenever some thing or someone obstructs its fulfilment you will go into misery. If it is focussed in one direction, the results are very quick.

So when you desire, desire for the highest in life. Let all your passions be directed to the highest. Maybe when you are angry you cannot be loving. You cannot suddenly make your anger into love, but you can direct anger itself. If you get angry, direct it towards what you hold as the highest. Let your passion increase. Channelizing them in one direction is in your hands.

Anger is tremendous energy. Lust is also tremendous energy. Direct it in the right direction. Every energy that you have, every passion you have, every emotion you have, every thought you have, if they are focussed in one direction, the results are very quick.