Suppression or Rejection of the Force of Desire

When an individual takes up religious or spiritual practices, he becomes aware of the force of desire and the need to curb it. In some cases, particularly in religious pursuits, there are a set of moral rules or monastic rules that provide set guidelines for the practitioner. Usually these things revolve around control of the impulse for sex in some manner, including potentially complete abstinence. In other cases, there are vows of silence, vows of poverty, reliance on divine providence through the practice of eating just what comes into the begging bowl that day, as well as in many cases rules about fasting, or taking meals only at certain times, under certain conditions, etc. Each religious order has its own unique set of rules for followers to carry out. In some cases, particularly in some of the more austere monastic orders, the ‘desires of the flesh’ lead to emotional and mental distress and various self-torture methods are used to discipline the body for its continued cravings. The general practice is to use will-power, mental control, or some kind of vital practice to suppress the desire. This can, however, lead to unintended and unexpected consequences, as suppression does not get to the true solution of the issue, but simply hides the issue for the time being. The sexual abuse scandals rocking so many churches are evidence that moral rules and suppression of desire simply do not work for most people.

When the seeker begins to understand the universal nature of the forces that provoke the rising of desire, and they see that the desires are external to them, simply being admitted and accepted by habit or by the normal and trained responses one gets in the society as one grows and develops, the issue becomes somewhat simpler to resolve, although serious effort must still be made to reject the desire as, or even before, it arises and begins to move the body, vital energy and mind to realise itself in an overt action.

One of the most effective methods turns out to be shifting the attention away from the energy center that is receiving the vibration that is interpreted as a desire. The individual takes the standpoint of the witness of the nature and rather than give in to the force that is trying to move him, he shifts his attention to his spiritual pursuits, or to his deepest aspiration.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “The rejection of desire is essentially the rejection of the element of craving, putting that out from the consciousness itself as a foreign element not belonging to the true self and the inner nature. But refusal to indulge the suggestions of desire is also a part of the rejection; to abstain from the action suggested, if it is not the right action, must be included in the Yogic discipline. It is only when this is done in the wrong way, by a mental ascetic principle or a hard moral rule, that it can be called suppression. The difference between suppression and an inward essential rejection is the difference between mental or moral control and a spiritual purification.”

“When one lives in the true consciousness one feels the desires outside oneself, entering from outside, from the universal lower Prakriti, into the mind and the vital parts. In the ordinary human condition this is not felt; men become aware of the desire only when it is there, when it has come inside and found a lodging or a habitual harbourage and so they think it is their own and a part of themselves. The first condition for getting rid of desire is, therefore, to become conscious with the true consciousness; for then it becomes much easier to dismiss it than when one has to struggle with it as if it were a constituent part of oneself to be thrown out from the being. It is easier to cast off an accretion than to excise what is felt as a parcel of our substance.”

“When the psychic being is in front, then also to get rid of desire becomes easy; for the psychic being has in itself no desires, it has only aspirations and a seeking and love for the Divine and all things that are or tend towards the Divine. The constant prominence of the psychic being tends of itself to bring out the true consciousness and set right almost automatically the movements of the nature.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 4, Desire — Food — Sex, pp. 61-62

Understanding and Addressing the Desire and Craving for Food

We have a fixation on food. We do not seek food just for nourishment and proper care of our bodies, generally; rather, we use food to provide us with comfort, emotional support, and fulfillment of desires for various tastes. We center many of our relationship rituals around food.

At some point, many individuals conclude that they need to adjust their eating habits, whether through dieting, or fasting. The disease conditions of anorexia and bulimia are extreme examples of our attempts to incorporate our manner of addressing food issues in relation to societal expectations and norms.

Spiritual seekers also have, at some point in their spiritual growth, frequently adopted various habits related to food, nutrition and taking care of the body. In many cases, when they try to control the impulse for food, they try to enforce a discipline on the body and work to suppress the response. This does not necessarily ‘solve’ the issue. The attention to the drive for food, or for particular types of food, remains, and at times this attention asserts itself and distracts the seeker from the spiritual effort. This can lead to a cycle of attention, suppression, and obsession that does not resolve the issue satisfactorily.

There is a need to get to the real root of the issue, which can be understood through a process of detailed observation. Most times the individual is focused elsewhere and thus, there is not a constant pressure. When the interruptions arise, the observational standpoint of the witness can engage to determine the actual causative factors, so that they can be removed, modified or transformed.

All actions of the outer nature are driven by the action of the three Gunas, qualities of Nature, Tamas, Rajas and Sattwa. There are thus different factors involved depending on which Guna is predominant at any point in time. Cravings and desire for food that arise during the ascendency of Tamas include habits that are built up by repeated experiences, regardless of the actual needs of the body. Also, as a response to stress, as well as hormonal triggers based on despondency, feelings of weakness and alienation etc. A craving for sweet taste frequently arises during Tamasic events. Those that arise as a result of Rajas tend to include a drive for particular responses or tastes, such as a hankering for highly spiced or salted foods. Rajas also responds easily to energies that the individual is exposed to in daily interactions. Engagement with individuals who are filled with desires or ambitions, or pressures that arise due to societal tendencies and expectations frequently translate internally into a sense of hunger. There are even responses of hunger associated with the predominance of Sattwa, for instance when one undertakes to focus intensely on the body, its nutritional needs, a scientific way of eating, or some particular dietary preference, and thus, the fixation on eating is translated into a process justified as having a rational and necessary basis.

Whichever causative factor may be involved, the physiological response includes the release of hormones, neurotransmitters and signals that spur a response to food or a particular food. Feedback loops are created by repeated, habitual activities, such that the body expects food at certain times and will send signals around that time to remind the being that it is “time to eat”.

Once we can begin to understand and identify the mechanism, the next step is to specifically unravel these varying motive forces and apply a suitable corrective. In some cases, simply denying the impulse repeatedly will work if the basis is a habitual response that the body has cultivated. In other cases, recognising the influence of external pressures or the force of rajasic desire, a conscious shift of attention to a higher level focus and callilng forth sattwic support can aid the process. In some instances, we can actually recognise the need for a particular nutritional element and satisfy that, noting then that the craving is resolved and does not return once the underlying missing element has been provided. In modern day life, processed foods are actually made with tastes and chemicals to enhance the ‘addictive’ nature of the foods, and thus, avoidance of highly processed foods can yield fast and highly advantageous results, both to help resolve cravings and for the individual’s overall health and well-being over time.

Some paths try to solve the issue by asking the practitioner to simply accept whatever comes into the begging bowl that day. Others try to enforce the body through discipline and in some cases elements of torture. Still others counsel a specific dietary regimen to follow such that the scope of craving and desire is held back.

The issue then is to understand and solve rather than to put a lot of energy obsessing about food, the craving for food, or the suppression of the craving. In the end, the energy spent in the obsession is energy that could be better directed to the spiritual pursuits.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “Perhaps with regard to the greed for food, your attitude has not been quite correct. Greed for food has to be overcome, but it has not to be given too much thought. The proper attitude to food is a certain equality. Food is for the maintenance of the body and one should take enough for that — what the body needs; if one gives less the body feels the need and hankers; if you give more, then that is indulging the vital. As for particular foods the palate likes, the attitude of the mind and vital should be, ‘If I get, I take; if I don’t get, I shall not mind.’ One should not think too much of food either to indulge or unduly to repress — that is the best.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 5, Attitudes on the Path, pg. 166

Understanding Desire and the Absence of Desire

When seekers take up the spiritual path, they try to follow the guideline to reject desire. They will frequently say “I don’t desire anything”. In many cases, however, this is an obfuscation by the vital nature manipulating the mind to accept something which is not entirely accurate. Let’s break this down:

One thing that may occur is that the individual actually is having his needs met, one way or the other, and need not seek out or choose anything as it is already there for him. The desire, in such a case, could only be seen if the circumstances would be changed and the various items or people providing the support were removed from the picture. Would the individual still say they have no desires when the ‘abundance’ is no longer there providing it to them without a lot of thought or effort?

Another thing that occurs is that the seeker tries to “offload” the desire and its fulfillment to someone else and, knowing how things generally work out, he is able to accept the result.

Another is simply that the desire is there, but the vital nature is telling the mind that it is not ‘really’ a desire, but something else! As long as the mind is willing to go along with that, things continue as they were and the vital has its desires met.

Even our prayers reveal the desires lurking in our being. When the prayers are “conditional” such that our love, support and action are based on having our wishes met, we are projecting desires onto our relationship to the Divine. When we pray for a specific wish to be fulfilled, money, relationship, recognition, etc. we are expressing desires, albeit in a prayerful way!

When the psychic being comes forward, it changes from a ‘demand’ type of prayer to a ‘self-giving’ type of prayer. ‘Thy will be done’ aligns more with the psychic approach, than any request for a specific result. Similarly when the separation of the witness consciousness from the external nature occurs, the seeker who identifies with that witness consciousness will find that he harbors no desires, he observes, as the bird who acts as the observer, the external nature which “eats the sweet fruit of the tree” in the colorful language of the Upanishad.

There is an apocryphal tale that bears repeating. The divine singer Narada is traveling through the world and comes across a yogi practicing austere penances for many years. The yogi asks Narada how much longer until he obtains liberation. Narada replies ‘4 more lifetimes’. The yogi is disconsolate that after all that effort, he has to undergo such a long additional period of austerity to fulfill his desire for liberation. His expectation for early liberation and the desire that fueled his efforts have been frustrated. Narada continues on his way and comes across a devotee singing and dancing with ecstatic abandon under a tree. This devotee asks the same question, ‘when will i achieve liberation’. Narada replies, ‘as many leaves as there are on this tree, that is how many lifetimes you will have to undergo before achieving liberation’. Hearing this, the devotee sheds tears of joy and in an ecstatic feeling declares that he is blessed to have the Divine near him as he works through the process for however long it takes. A voice comes down out of heaven and advises him, ‘You are liberated this moment.” We see here the difference between desire and absence of desire.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “Everything which it hankers after is desirable to the vital — but the desire has to be rejected. ‘I won’t desire’ is quite the right thing to say, even if ‘I don’t desire’ cannot yet be said by the vital. Still there is something in the being that can even say ‘I don’t desire’ and refuse to recognise the vital desire as part of the true being. It is that consciousness which the peace and power bring that has to be recognised as the true ‘I’ and made permanent in front.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 5, Attitudes on the Path, pg. 155

Overcoming the Force of Desire

If we reflect on the course of human life, it is easy to determine that we fixate upon different things at different stages of life. As a child, our desires tend to be centered around physical and vital satisfactions. We may desire a specific food, or a specific toy, or a specific form of entertainment. As we grow into later stages, the form our desires take will tend to change, and we may be interested in various types of games, competitive sports, intellectual pursuits of various sorts, etc. Post-puberty we may fixate our desires for a time on experiencing and fulfilling our sexual desires, or in succeeding in our education, experiencing more of the world directly through travel or planning for a career. We may later adjust our desires to include a successful life as a householder including possibly marriage, career, children, etc. Health becomes a focus of desire at certain stages. This change in focus takes place succcessively across our consecutive stages of life, and with each change in focus comes a change in the nature of the things we choose to desire or crave.

While the specifics of our desires may change, what does not tend to change is the existence of desires, in and of themselves, regardless of the object at any point in time. It is this force of desire that drives us along and captivates our vital nature to such an extent that we tend to be consumed by desire. The vital nature is able to convince the mind of the need and ‘rightness’ of the desired object or objective, and thus, we become distracted by what the sages have called the illusion of the external world, maya or samsara.

Several questions then arise. First, if desire is a distraction from our ability to understand and live the truth of our existence, is there a different motive force that can direct our vital energies to achieve the actual fulfillment of the meaning of our lives? Second, is the issue the force of desire, or the element of craving which can drive the focus far beyond a simple desire? Third, how do we go about accomplishing this change of motive force, given the pervasiveness and power of the force of desire?

We can see one possible line of approach in the changing object of desire over time. When the psychic being becomes conscious and comes to the forefront, it changes its focus to aspiration for the Divine and, just as we see with the different objects of desire through our stages of life, this change can redirect us away from external satisfaction of desires to a burning aspiration for the Divine. We hear Krishna’s flute and forget about all our worldly goals and objectives.

Another line of approach is for the witness consciousness, the Purusha, to remove its sanction from the play of desire in the vital, and over time, redirect the focus toward the spiritual realisation.

We observe instances, for example, where an individual is raised in a non-vegetarian family and society but eventually concludes he wants to become vegetarian. He first removes the ‘sanction’ to eat non-vegetarian foods. He substitutes vegetarian options into his diet. He may occasionally experience a ‘craving’. If he denies the momentary craving, he continues on his way along the lines of vegetarian lifestyle. If the craving is extremely powerful, he may indulge it one time, without, however, giving it sanction. The food may, by that time, make him feel unwell, and it reinforces his intention to reject it in future. This sequence happens frequently as the ranks of vegetarians and vegans continue to expand across the world. We see here a potential model for addressing various sorts of desires with conscious intention to change.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “The rejection of desire is essentially the rejection of the element of craving, putting that out from the consciousness itself as a foreign element not belonging to the true self and the inner nature. But refusal to indulge the suggestions of desire is also a part of the rejection; to abstain from the action suggested, if it is not the right action, must be included in the yogic discipline. It is only when this is done in the wrong way, by a mental ascetic principle or a hard moral rule, that it can be called suppression. The difference between suppression and an inward essential rejection is the difference between mental or moral control and a spiritual purification.”

“When one lives in the true consciousness one feels the desires outside oneself, entering from outside, from the universal lower Prakriti, into the mind and the vital parts. In the ordinary human condition this is not felt; men become aware of the desire only when it is there, when it has come inside and found a lodging or a habitual harbourage and so they think it is their own and a part of themselves. The first condition for getting rid of desire is, therefore, to become conscious with the true consciousness; for then it becomes much easier to dismiss it than when one has to struggle with it as if it were a constituent part of oneself to be thrown out from the being. It is easier to cast off an accretion than to excise what is felt as a parcel of our substance.”

“When the psychic being is in front, then also to get rid of desire becomes easy; for the psychic being has in itself no desires, it has only aspirations and a seeking and love for the Divine and all things that are or tend towards the Divine. The constant prominence of the psychic being tends of itself to bring out the true consciousness and set right almost automatically the movements of the nature.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 5, Attitudes on the Path, pp. 152-153