Fulfilling your heart’s desire with yoga and meditation
Desire and its link to spirituality can be a bit of a tricky question in the yoga world. Many seem to be confused about the relationship between the two, believing that desire is antithetical to following a spiritual practice. Some yogis believe that the more a person desires, the less spiritual they become and that the more a person grows spiritually, the less they’ll naturally desire. Following this logic, those yogis who are dedicated and sincere should seek to remove all desire from their lives and want nothing from anyone or anything. However, is that what yoga is really asking of us?
How desire is linked to yoga: Those of us who practice yoga and meditation do so because we had an initial desire to do so. Whether it was to reduce pain or to learn relaxation techniques or for greater self-understanding – or something else entirely - desire played a part in our initial reasons for taking up yoga, just as it did for those who practiced it more than 2,000 years ago. So, in this case, desire actually acts as an incentive for us to initiate a yoga practice in the first place. The Bhagavad Gita is a revered and sacred text that highlights the four main reasons why people turn to yoga, and categorizes them:
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A desire to reduce pain or suffering A desire to feel contentment and joy A desire to gain power and mastery in our lives A desire to clarify our mental processes and enhance spiritual discernment
While some may seek to downplay the role of desire and claim that it is counter to pursuing a spiritual path, in practice that initial aspiration to change or achieve some goal is very natural and simply part of the process. What may cause some yogis to feel conflicted about desire?
Could classical teachings be responsible for giving yogis the wrong idea about desire and spirituality? Take Patanjali as an example. Being the respected father of classical yoga, he made it implicitly clear that ragas and dveshas (simplistically described, these can be thought of as strong likes and dislikes) are among the five kleshas – the fundamental restrictions that are responsible for causing suffering. These klesha stem from avidya – an ignorance or misapprehension of our true nature – and removing these obstacles leads to a greater clarity of our understanding. If you look in close detail at the Vedas, which are the source of yoga science and philosophy and an inspiration for Buddhist teachings, they stress that desire is
so deeply a part of who we are that if we didn’t have any desires, our life would simply end. The Vedas teach us that there are four types of desires; they are known as artha, kama, dharma and moksha. Artha refers to the desire for material comfort, such as the shelter and financial security that enable us to pursue other needs in life. Kama is all about pleasure, in the forms of sensory gratification, comfort, and sensual intimacy. Dharma talks about our purpose in life – our primary path and where we find meaning. Finally, moksha describes freedom or spiritual liberation – release from the constructs that bind us. This final desire underpins all others, but it is the combination of all four that makes us what we are. Each of these desires tugs at the strings of our soul, guiding our actions and reactions.
Harnessing these desires and focusing them for our own benefit – and that of others – is a crucial part of any spiritual path. Distinguishing between desires Simply put, some desires are less desirable, while others are perfectly appropriate and – indeed – part of the path. It may not be that you must give up all pleasures and desires in life to achieve enlightenment, or even to fulfill your heart, but oftentimes the choice can be a tricky one. How can you tell if a desire will help lead you down the right spiritual path, or whether it will increase your pain and suffering? Is each desire coming from the heart or from the ego?
While the answers to these questions may not always be clear, they give us an excellent starting point to discern whether a desire is guiding us on our spiritual journey or leading us astray. In the end, yoga is less focused on providing definitive philosophical answers to strictly intellectual questions, and more about achieving a certain quality of experience and freedom from suffering. In seeking self-understanding and liberation, we are inherently pursuing moksha, the ultimate desire of spiritual transcendence. Creating a false dichotomy between desire and spiritual evolution leads to unnecessary confusion, judgment, and self-doubt. These, in turn, inhibit our spiritual development.
Once desire is seen as part of the very fabric of nature however, it opens the opportunity to be more discerning about the quality and intention behind that desire. The full spectrum of yoga – which integrates multiple practices and techniques and includes an emphasis on mediation – provides a path toward clarity and wisdom where the desire of the soul is integrated rather than disparaged. Accepting that the soul has natural desires that lead us to a more complete expression of who we are is an important step toward realizing our entire spiritual potential.
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