THE JOY OF DESIRE...paradox of divinity and humanity

It's not wrong to want. 

Spiritual awakening, enlightenment, liberation, is often framed as the total annihilation of human wants, desires, needs.
This is a terrible misunderstanding that keeps so many people stuck, numb, bored, disconnected, at war with their bodies.

You'll be free from desire when you are a corpse.

The Buddha tried annihilating his desires, remember. It didn't work. Eventually he gave up and embraced them instead. This is the Middle Way.

Wants do not disappear in awakening. In fact, no thought or feeling does. It's your relationship with them that radically shifts. 

Now, you recognise yourself as the ever-present vastness in which ALL wants, urges, impulses, thoughts, sensations, feelings, sounds, can come and go; the unending sky in which the weather doesn't need to 'disappear', but can flourish. Come rain, come shine, come desire, come sorrow, come joy, come despair, you remain, as the wide open space that holds it all.

No more numbing wants, or denying them in order to appear 'spiritual'; yet no need to rush towards their fulfilment either, always running towards the future, fleeing a sense of lack. There is a deeper fulfilment, rooted in your own presence, that notices wants, bows to them, listens to them, yet is not their slave.

You see, you are the paradox of divinity and humanity, absolute and relative, formless and form:
You want nothing but can deeply honour your wants.
You need nothing but can learn to bow to your needs, see their sacredness.
You desire nothing but can hold desire, play with it, see its beauty, its intelligence; and know that all desire, deep down, is really the desire for Self.

As a little one, it was healthy to want food, to need love, to desire objects, to explore your own boundaries, test your limits, feel thwarted, then vindicated, then frustrated, then relieved, taste your own power, learn to honour your powerlessness, touch your freedom and your physical limitations. 

Desirelessness is a numb state, a state where you are afraid of desire and become its slave; it is not freedom.

And wanting the end of wanting is the biggest want of all.

You deserve love, little one. You deserve all the spiritual riches of life. You are precious, and all the mountains and trees and oceans and stars bow to you as you walk, for they recognise themselves in you, share your power, feel your heart.

Jeff Foster