I want everything
A sufi master, Dr. Syed Hussein Nasr during the 2013 festival of faiths in Louisville said why is it that horses do not overeat nor do most animals, but we do? Even after your belly is full, the craving for the next tasty morsel persists. Even after you can barely see, you want another drink. It doesn't take long before your heart is after another lover.
His answer was that something propels us to want everything, the point he made was that within us is a desire for the infinite.
Where does this desire for the infinite come from? Surely it can't be the organs like a mouth, a stomach or even our sexual body- none of these have a will. They serve a bigger master. Is it the brain or its representative, the mind? When we look we find no mind, no brain, just thoughts coming and going like wisps of clouds; sometimes arbitrary and other times evolved out of a stimulus.
For a moment just imagine an engine behind all desires in the world including yours. This engine has no name but same attribute-less profile as pointed to by masters from the very beginning. This energy or force for lack of a better tag, takes on your body as its consciousness. And as soon as that happens, the body's senses and its accumulated memory becomes the person you experience. This process repeats itself billions of times a day for billions of entities. One residual quality of this latent force is its infinite nature, expressed as an unlimited appetite for all there is.
The body mind is feeble compared to your infinite nature which frustrates you when you assume the identity of this body, hence you suffer. Realization of this false identity relieves the suffering.
For a moment step back from your personhood and see if you really are what you appear to be? How does it feel?
His answer was that something propels us to want everything, the point he made was that within us is a desire for the infinite.
Where does this desire for the infinite come from? Surely it can't be the organs like a mouth, a stomach or even our sexual body- none of these have a will. They serve a bigger master. Is it the brain or its representative, the mind? When we look we find no mind, no brain, just thoughts coming and going like wisps of clouds; sometimes arbitrary and other times evolved out of a stimulus.
For a moment just imagine an engine behind all desires in the world including yours. This engine has no name but same attribute-less profile as pointed to by masters from the very beginning. This energy or force for lack of a better tag, takes on your body as its consciousness. And as soon as that happens, the body's senses and its accumulated memory becomes the person you experience. This process repeats itself billions of times a day for billions of entities. One residual quality of this latent force is its infinite nature, expressed as an unlimited appetite for all there is.
The body mind is feeble compared to your infinite nature which frustrates you when you assume the identity of this body, hence you suffer. Realization of this false identity relieves the suffering.
For a moment step back from your personhood and see if you really are what you appear to be? How does it feel?
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