Having no Personal
Desire is the Real Path to Bliss
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
It is very easy to have expectations
that the circumstances before us will
improve. More difficult, and more
efficient, is to take steps to improve our
own attitude in the face of circumstances.
* There are reasons to keep silent regarding various topics in different moments, and never to talk too much. Silence invites a contemplative attitude. It stimulates serenity and full attention. It expands perception as well as detachment. But suppose you want to help improve the world and fight falsehood. Then you must consider that no one can unmask significant forms of fraud and falsehood while invariably preserving a comfortable silence.
* It is more effective – if more difficult – to build authentic structures than to fight old and rotten bureaucracies, to put one simple example. And building is much more silent than destroying or fighting. That is not to say you should not challenge the windmills of collective ignorance. It simply means you should put more energy in building correct practices than in unmasking mistakes. You can always speak through your positive actions. In fact, constructive work often speaks louder than brilliant words.
* In a civilization controlled by propaganda, stimulating personal desire is almost a law. Desire is presented as the path to a happy life. In fact, the undue growth of personal desire leads to frustration, to envy, unfair competition, suffering, desperation, and, in some cases, crime.
* The intense bliss to which sages have access does not occur because they have their desires fulfilled, but because they have no personal desires. Their aspirations are altruistic, and are permeated with detachment and universality. The feelings of wise people tend to be impersonal. As a result, the sages have access here and now to the blessed substance of Devachan, the “place of the gods”. Yet Devachan is no location – it is a level of consciousness.
* The most pleasant kind of noiselessness is the silence that follows an intense effort made towards a noble goal – while at the same time we recognize that the world is moving in the right direction. The right direction is the path along which we all learn the science of spiritual ethics and practical justice.
* Some people want to command others, but are not even capable of commanding themselves or putting into practice their own decisions. When the pilgrim has self-respect and fulfills what he has decided, the childish desire to dominate or manipulate others disappears.
* Suffering brings lessons in modesty. The fragility of our plans, which is shown every day by the reality of facts, allows us to keep our feet on the ground and teaches us a little realism. Thus, the pains that we must face in life temper us so that our victory becomes better and more durable. We then realize that our victory does not need to be seen, or recognized, or approved by anyone, except our own conscience.
* The process of pain often becomes a habit: many people have a strong personal attachment to their favorite forms of frustration and dissatisfaction. Three factors are present in the healing of such an emotional disease. The first is to expand one’s affinity with the ideas of victory and contentment. The second is to use one’s willpower to think the best, from the point of view of goodwill. The third is to practice the art of seeing the positive opportunities that surround us night and day. [1]
* It is very easy to have expectations that the circumstances before us will improve. More difficult, and more efficient, is to take steps to improve our own attitude in the face of circumstances. Each time someone improves his actions and reactions, the practical situations in which he lives tend to improve, too.
* A Master of the Wisdom wrote:
* “Those of you who would know yourselves in the spirit of truth, learn to live alone even amidst the great crowds which may sometimes surround you. Seek communion and intercourse only with the God within your own soul; heed only the praise or blame of that deity which can never be separated from your true self, as it is verily that God itself: called the HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS.” [2]
NOTES:
[1] Click to read the articles “The Opportunities Ahead of Us” and “Obstacles and Opportunities”.
[2] From the article “Some Words on Daily Life”.
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“Thoughts Along the Road – 79” was published on the websites of the Independent Lodge of Theosophists on 20 November 2024. An initial and smaller version of it is part of the February 2022 edition of “The Aquarian Theosophist”, pp. 14-15.
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Read more:
* Give Your Higher Self a Chance (by Donald J. Trump).
* Other writings of Carlos Cardoso Aveline.
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Print the texts you study from the websites of the Independent Lodge. Reading on paper helps us attain a deeper view of philosophical texts. When studying a printed text, the reader can underline sentences and make handwritten comments in the margins that link the ideas to his personal reality.
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Helena Blavatsky (photo) wrote these words: “Deserve, then desire”.
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