Why are we always after fulfilling never-ending desires?
It is very rare that we take a step back and reflect on what we are doing and why we are doing it. Most of us are living on autopilot mode. We follow a typical structure of life. We take birth, we study, we find means to earn money, we expand our family, we get involved in some type of religion and we die. In between all of these, we strive to fulfill numerous desires in order to feel happy. We put all our energies into fulfilling one after another desires to have those moments of joy.
The current state — Have you ever noticed that when you purchased the desired object you felt very happy but it does not give you the same happiness afterwards? Many times it happens that as soon as we fulfill our desire, we start running after another one and we never stop. When we buy a 2 bedroom flat we are very happy and it feels like a dream come true. The next day we start dreaming about 3 bedroom flat and are not able to enjoy what we have achieved after so much hard work. Unfortunately, we accept this as how life works and this is what everyone is doing. We never question it and the one who goes deep into it starts a life-changing journey.
Why this happens — When the world was running after material advancement, sages in India spent their life in understanding the internal mechanism. Yogis realized that desire is a product of the mind and it will not allow you to settle down until you fulfill it. If the desire is deep-rooted then you will continuously get thoughts of fulfilling it and you will never be at peace. You believe that you are your thoughts and start associating with them. This gives you the feeling that you are incomplete without that object and you work hard to achieve that external object.
Once you fulfill your desire, your mind feels satisfied and stops the disturbance for some time. At this time when the mind is at peace, you feel happiness because that is our true nature. We live in ignorance that the object gave us happiness. If that would have been true, then the same object would give everyone the same level of happiness.
What Yogi realized — Yogis in their meditative state understood how we experience happiness. They started questioning, can we feel peace or happiness without being dependent on external objects? Is there any way we can find permanent happiness? They turned inward and realized that true and permanent happiness is within and can be achieved by calming the mind.
