Dealing with Desires
Excerpt from The Fire of Freedom
Satsang with Papaji
Edited by David Godman
Desires will only be a problem when they leave an impression in the mind. It is the impressions that are dangerous, not the desires themselves. When a bird flies, it doesn’t leave a mark in the air. When a fish swims it doesn’t leave any trace on the surface of the water. If we could move through life without leaving any impressions, any footprints, on the mind, we would have no problems at all. These footprints are the problem, not the desires themselves. You store up thoughts in your mind: ‘I should have done this; I should not have done that,’ and so on. These are the footprints that bring you back again and again to engage with this world process.
There was a teacher who was travelling with his student in the forest. There had been some heavy rain and a small, shallow stream had swollen into a much deeper river. The two of them put their robes on their shoulders and prepared to ford the river. On the bank of the river there was a prostitute who had to reach the other side of the river because she had been booked to dance at a wedding. She was in her full dancing regalia and couldn’t cross because it was neck deep. The teacher put her on his shoulders, carried her across the river and put her down on the other side. She went off to her function and the student and the teacher continued their journey. The student was very concerned about what his teacher had done.
He thought to himself, ‘My teacher says I must never touch a woman, yet he has lifted a prostitute and carried her across this river’. For quite some time these thoughts were bothering him.
Eventually, ten miles down the road, he turned to his teacher and asked, ‘Sir, may I ask a question?’ and the teacher said ‘Yes’.
‘Didn’t you tell me never to touch a woman?’ ‘Yes, I did.’
‘Well, what about this woman you helped across the river. She was a prostitute, yet you helped her to cross the river by putting her on your shoulders.’
The teacher replied, ‘She wanted and needed help. She needed to cross the river to go to work. She would not have been able to cross the river without our help. I put her on my shoulders and carried her across. I did my job, put her down, and then forgot all about it. Why are you still carrying her? I put her down miles ago.’
The prostitute here denotes desire. The teacher did what was necessary, and then forgot all about it. The student had thoughts about the incident – footprints – in his head, and these caused him to suffer for ten miles of walking. If something needs to be done, do it and forget about it. Don’t carry thoughts about it afterwards. These lingering thoughts will bring you back into samsara, back into the endless round of birth and death. Whenever there is a desire that leaves footprints, there is samsara. Where there is desire of this kind, there is bondage. When there is no desire at all, there is freedom. The desire-free state is nirvana, the pure state of nirvana. Nirvana means ‘no desire’.