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Desire-less, 28+

A yoga student asked me to please clarify why desire is bad — wasn’t desiring to be better at what you do or wanting hunger to end a good thing? The distinction is two-fold. First, desire pulls you out of the moment; being out of the moment makes it impossible to achieve a state of samadhi, or the union of all aspects of yourself to experience things as they are. Second, when you tune in to that state, and do what you intuit or decide is a good action — like working to be a good musician or to end world hunger — the intuition and the action are in the moment and are done without concern for the outcome. Desire is an add on, the want of what is not, and perhaps, for all you know, what should not be what you do or get. To be without desire is to work without attachment to the results. (p.s., this is not easy ;-)

28. I do not desire a large screen, nor do I desire an LCD projector.
29. I do not desire new clothes or boots.
30. I do not desire a vintage auto.
31. I do not desire a large turnout.
32. I do not desire recognition of my [talent/wisdom/accomplishments].
33. I do not desire agreement with my point of view.
34. I do not desire to win in the competition of the market.
35. I do not desire that more people read my book.
Wally and Kali

This is part of a 40-day practice to notice and sidestep desires.

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Desire-less, 21 and over

21. I do not desire [name removed to protect the innocent and guilty].
22. I do not desire as much knowledge as John Schaefer has.
23. I do not desire to be right.
24. I do not desire to be able to accomplish [insert challenging yoga pose].
25. I do not desire an easy answer to this problem.
26. I do not desire a day off.
27. I do not desire that this part is over.

This is part of a 40-day practice to notice and sidestep desires.

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karma yoga, from the boss

“The Karma Yogi, having abandoned the fruit of action, obtains eternal peace or release which comes of wisdom, while, he who, being prompted by desire, is attached to them, becomes bound.” Gita: Chapter V-12.

see more — much more — from Sivananda on how all the yoga paths support each other, starting, and ending, with karma yoga.

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Desire-less, 11 and on

On day 11, I realized that because I was posting this practice of identifying and sidestepping desires, I was actually judging my desires and found them to be getting boring. That gave me day 11’s desire to avoid:
I do not desire more interesting desires.

I figured I would augment the interest factor by grouping, so here are the following several days and letting go of the results from a symmetry point-of-view.

Desire-less, 12
I do not desire a Vespa.

Desire-less, 13
I found myself frustrated Saturday by the number of big things I was trying to fit in. I reached the point of crapping out and heard myself saying, ‘I never have enough hours in a day to do all the things I want.’

I do not desire more hours in the day.


(p.s. after I said this to myself, I went and did all the things I was planning, including Daria Fain’s project at DNA.)

Desire-less, 14
Yesterday, I saw someone who reminded me of a long-ago crush that was unrequited. I was swept into a minute-long reminiscence of the longing and the behavior it let me to. Then it took me into a future where I mentioned the crush to the object and imagined how her response would feel.

I do not desire the requiting of long-ago crushes.

Desire-less, 15
I devote a lot of attention to issues of utopia, and my yoga pursuits combine a call to groundedness with a recognition of the malleability of the physical realm through working at the energetic level. Sometimes my desires for money to have less influence over people’s actions takes on truly Sisyphusian levels, ruining days at a time.

I do not desire a world without market incentive.