Unchanging Satisfaction, Freedom From Desire

This podcast by Shree brings you to know the true Self or You that is unchanging. This comes when you are able to be free from the false belief that only fulfilling your desires will bring about your satisfaction and freedom in life. After you fulfill a desire for some time you feel contented, happy, or peaceful but it does not last, it's temporary. However, when you know your true Self as the peace that is forever present then you are already contented and peaceful.

Transcript

Unchanging Satisfaction, Freedom from Desire As long as you remain limited to a human system, You will never be completely satisfied and free from desire. The human system is based on fulfilling desires and then becoming satisfied. We can analyze this beginning as soon as you wake up in the morning. The bladder may be full after a whole night of being asleep and the system functions in a way that there's a sensation or a fullness in the bladder so that you will desire to relieve it. Once that desire is fulfilled, The next desire will come to the system. Then you will desire to quench your thirst, To drink something. Once your thirst is quenched, You may desire then to eat something. You'll feel a sensation now in the stomach that says there's nothing in the stomach from your night's sleep since your dinner and now a sensation of hunger arises. Then the system, After fulfilled with food, Will desire to do something. If the system isn't satisfied with just these desires, Then you'll desire to go somewhere, To go on a holiday, A vacation, To be with a friend, To be with a certain person that you feel good with, To take a walk, And on and on and on. So we have to understand that there's nothing wrong. This is how the system functions. And when one is just a victim to the system, To the senses that looks for desire fulfillment to be the cause of your satisfaction, This will be an unending human condition. And these cravings will keep arising in the system. If you're not comfortable, You'll crave to be comfortable. If you're not with someone that you love, You'll crave to be with someone that you love. If you're not enjoying your surroundings, You'll crave to be somewhere else, To go on a trip, To find someone that you can love. This again is the functioning of the human system, And it's based on survival, As we can see. You have to feed your body in order for it to survive. You have to relieve your bladder. You have to relieve yourself in order to eliminate. This is the human functioning, The human system. And when this human functioning is all that you have or all that you know, Then life becomes the struggle to have more satisfaction and ease and less pain, Suffering, Disease in the system. And this goes on until one day the system's no longer, And you say that you're dead. But for those that are aware, Those that are meditating, There's a higher awareness that dawns that there can be a sense of unchanging satisfaction that's not just based on fulfilling your desires. In fact, It's based on the opposite, To be free from the desires, To be in that ever-present pure existence, State of peace that is shining always. In this very moment, It is there, Regardless of what the system desires or needs, Because the system's desires and needs still go on to preserve it. But you are not limited to your system. The beginning of this practice happens if we look at the eight-limb ashtang yoga system begins with pratyahara, Which is the inner turning of attention. So now, Rather than all of your attention going out to fulfilling your desires, Rather than believing the mind that unless this desire or that desire is fulfilled, I can't feel good, I can't feel happy, I can't be free. This is what the mind will keep telling you. But rather than believing the mind, Now you as if transcend the mind, Because rather than the attention moving outward to the things to bring your satisfaction and fulfillment to acquiring more money, More relationships, More power, More success in the world, Now your attention moves inward to that state that is already pure success, Freedom from desires, Peace, Ease. So it's a reversal of the way the human system normally functions to always move outward towards the things in the forms to fill your desires, To achieve satisfaction, And to live in freedom. That type of freedom, Which is based on getting everything that you want and then you'll be free, Never works. There's no end to it. It's an infinite field of sometimes getting what you want and then feeling free, And other times not, And then feeling bound. So the yogi, The meditator, Realizes this conundrum of the physical system. The mind keeps believing and promising you that you can get it, You can have it, You can reach that ultimate goal only to after some time being discouraged, Disappointed, And trying to reach another goal. We see this very clearly with those that are famous actors, Actresses, Politicians, Even winners of Nobel Prizes, That there's such a great sense of achievement when you've won the award, The Oscar, And then the next year when you don't win again, There's that sense of defeat, That sense of what happened to that great high that I had when I won, When I got what I thought I wanted or needed. The meditator practicing pratyahara, Inward turning of attention, Now knows that the state that you achieved when you won the award, The Nobel Prize, The Oscar, The Grammy, Whatever it is, That state of consciousness that you experienced at that time, Which you thought happened only because of that external stimuli, Was really an experience of your own true nature because you needed to be there to experience it. No one else could experience it for you. You are the one who had that direct experience of that joy, Of that sense of achievement, Of that sense of greatness, Vastness that you are. Why is that? It's because inherent in you is already that potentiality to experience who you truly are. So those moments of that experience were not because the award was given, The achievement was made, Although wonderful and great, That the human capacity can have that excellence. It's great, But that excellence in terms of your own personal direct anubhav or experience is who you already are. So with pratyahara, With the inward turning of attention, You have the capacity to experience what you already are, That state of vastness and greatness and freedom that comes from your great achievement just by tuning in to that space of vastness and freedom and greatness that alone is everywhere. And from that everywares of your direct attention to you, You reside in that unchanging freedom and satisfaction. So now whenever the system says, I need something, Some uncomfortable feeling comes into your body, The mind again focusing on external, Because that's its job, Looks to satisfy that external craving, Whether it's some uncomfortable feeling in the body and you think I must get a massage, Whether it's certain company and you try to do your best to be in that company, Whether it's changing a profession, Getting an education, When all of those desires come, You just know them for what they are. The body needs to have those desires to move it towards that excellence, So nothing's wrong. But you are the one who's knowing you're not limited to this physical system that you've believed yourself to be. Because as soon as you believe yourself to be this physical system, As soon as that infant takes its first cry and begins to suffer as a human incarnation, As soon as that first cry happens, You become a body, You become a mind, And there's no hope for unchanging satisfaction because the body and the mind doesn't have that unchanging satisfaction. The body and the mind only has temporary or changing satisfaction, Temporary freedom from suffering. And as long as you remain born as a baby that cried, Then there's no hope for that unchanging satisfaction. But when you begin to meditate and know that your self-realization of pure satisfaction, Of pure free forever, Of immortality and bliss that was never born as a body, As a baby that cried but was always free, When you come to know that freedom that you are, Then you have hope to remain in unchanging satisfaction. So now when you observe the body waking up in the morning and thoughts sometimes comfortable, Sometimes uncomfortable, Sometimes powerful, Sometimes frustrating, You can, As that master of your own experience, See that for what it is, Just like the dream. It's moving you in all these directions. But you can remember at that time, Pratyahara, Inward turning of attention. So rather than believing the mind that says, I will be free when I get this or when I get that, Now you're turning your attention to your ever-present freedom, Your pure attention that you are right now. And the practice of meditation every day will strengthen your ability to know that pure attention, That pure freedom, That pure satisfaction that you forever are. So when these cravings and desires come in the system that can't be fulfilled and they just drive you and drive you and drive you to try to get fulfillment that never actually comes, You don't have to believe it. You don't have to believe your mind that that's what you need. The mind will say, If I have this or if I'm with this person or if I can go on this trip or if I can get out of this particular situation, Then I'll be free, Then I'll be satisfied. So you no longer believe that mind because the mind you now know is just rotten matter that keeps bringing you to pain and suffering and some joy and satisfaction. And now rather than going for that maya, That illusory mind that to the self is just its extension, Just like seeing the rays of the sun and saying that they're the sun, The mind is not the self that shines. It's an instrument that the self uses, Like the rays or the instrument of the sun to light up the world. So now knowing this reality, Knowing who you truly are, After practicing pratyahara, Turning inward of the senses, The next three angas or limbs come about because that darna, That full focus on you, Already free, Already the one who's won the Oscar or the Nobel Prize, That state of pure experience of who you are is there. And it's so great, It's so amazing that nothing can compare to it because everything else is just a piece of it. Any other success, Any other fulfillment of desire is just a part of that whole. But the whole, The vastness of who you are, When you meditate on that or when you start by attending it in darna, Putting your attention on that vastness that you are, Then the meditation becomes who you are and that's the satisfied awareness of the pure being, Of the ever-present reality that's not limited as a human being. Because as was said before, As soon as you limit yourself as a human being, Then the result is you'll keep desiring, You'll keep wanting, You'll keep craving. The human system does that, But when you turn the attention inward, You don't believe the human system anymore that that achievement of desire or fulfillment will bring your satisfaction. Now you remind your mind, You say, My dear mind, I am already all that I need, So all that I want is the realization of that, The acceptance of I am pure, I am free, I am forever, Rather than the belief in the mind which says I will be pure, Free for forever when I have this or when my desire is fulfilled. No. We say no to that mind that keeps craving and desiring and we say right now is my opportunity to tune into who I truly am, Pure, Free forever, Amaram ham madhuram ham, Amaram ham madhuram ham, That pure existence that's no longer even conscious of anything other than existence pure, Ever-present reality, Pure satisfaction, Pure freedom not based on anything else. That is meditation and that meditation leads to samadhi where the intellect is now di or the intellect di is now sam is now completely absorbed in that space of ever-present reality which is not based on having to find something outside of you to bring that to you and then you'll have that experience. You're going right to the source, Right to the sun. That source is you. That sun is the power that you are and when you tune into that power then you have the greatest wealth, The greatest prosperity because you experience yourself alone everywhere as the whole. Nobody is separate from you so there's nobody to be jealous of, There's nobody to hate, There's nobody to love. You are pure love itself. There's no greed because you experience that you have everything that you need. You have you and that you alone is everywhere the same and if you're not experiencing this vastness of who you are you just know that you're believing the mind and the only thing you need to do is close your eyes, Know that the mind is changing, Transitory, Will never bring your satisfaction and allow that mind to be dissolved into you, That pure free forever being and watch the miracle unfold as the life now moves from your highest attention, Your highest awareness, Your highest self rather than from the limitations of the human mind, Motion and nervous system. So when the nervous system craves or desires you remind yourself I am already pure free forever, Everything I need is now here with me and I don't have to believe this desire and try to fulfill it. I have a choice if I want to fulfill the desire certainly I can and if it will preserve my body so that I can do this work definitely I will fulfill that desire to be healthy, To be happy but ultimately I know that I am the source of all health, Of all happiness and when I am established in that source then unchanging satisfaction is who I am. Om Shanti Om Peace.

Reviews

I have listened to the last few minutes of this talk a few times and it resonates with my deepest truth.
Namaste 🙏 Thank you