Fulfilling your heart’s desire with yoga and meditation

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Fulfilling your hearts desire with yoga and
meditation
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• Desire and its link to spirituality can be a bit
  of a tricky question in the yoga world. Many seem
  to be confused about the relationship between the
  two, believing that desire is antithetical to
  following a spiritual practice. Some yogis
  believe that the more a person desires, the less
  spiritual they become and that the more a person
  grows spiritually, the less theyll naturally
  desire. Following this logic, those yogis who are
  dedicated and sincere should seek to remove all
  desire from their lives and want nothing from
  anyone or anything. However, is that what yoga is
  really asking of us?

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• How desire is linked to yoga
• Those of us who practice yoga and meditation do
  so because we had an initial desire to do so.
  Whether it was to reduce pain or to learn
  relaxation techniques or for greater
  self-understanding or something else entirely -
  desire played a part in our initial reasons for
  taking up yoga, just as it did for those who
  practiced it more than 2,000 years ago. So, in
  this case, desire actually acts as an incentive
  for us to initiate a yoga practice in the first
  place.
• The Bhagavad Gita is a revered and sacred text
  that highlights the four main reasons why people
  turn to yoga, and categorizes them

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• A desire to reduce pain or suffering
• A desire to feel contentment and joy
• A desire to gain power and mastery in our lives
• A desire to clarify our mental processes and
  enhance spiritual discernment
• While some may seek to downplay the role of
  desire and claim that it is counter to pursuing a
  spiritual path, in practice that initial
  aspiration to change or achieve some goal is very
  natural and simply part of the process.
• What may cause some yogis to feel conflicted
  about desire?

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• Could classical teachings be responsible for
  giving yogis the wrong idea about desire and
  spirituality? Take Patanjali as an example. Being
  the respected father of classical yoga, he made
  it implicitly clear that ragas and dveshas
  (simplistically described, these can be thought
  of as strong likes and dislikes) are among the
  five kleshas the fundamental restrictions that
  are responsible for causing suffering. These
  klesha stem from avidya an ignorance or
  misapprehension of our true nature and removing
  these obstacles leads to a greater clarity of our
  understanding.
• If you look in close detail at the Vedas, which
  are the source of yoga science and philosophy and
  an inspiration for Buddhist teachings, they
  stress that desire is

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• so deeply a part of who we are that if we didnt
  have any desires, our life would simply end. The
  Vedas teach us that there are four types of
  desires they are known as artha, kama, dharma
  and moksha. Artha refers to the desire for
  material comfort, such as the shelter and
  financial security that enable us to pursue other
  needs in life. Kama is all about pleasure, in the
  forms of sensory gratification, comfort, and
  sensual intimacy. Dharma talks about our purpose
  in life our primary path and where we find
  meaning. Finally, moksha describes freedom or
  spiritual liberation release from the
  constructs that bind us.
• This final desire underpins all others, but it is
  the combination of all four that makes us what we
  are. Each of these desires tugs at the strings of
  our soul, guiding our actions and reactions.

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• Harnessing these desires and focusing them for
  our own benefit and that of others is a
  crucial part of any spiritual path.
• Distinguishing between desires
• Simply put, some desires are less desirable,
  while others are perfectly appropriate and
  indeed part of the path. It may not be that you
  must give up all pleasures and desires in life to
  achieve enlightenment, or even to fulfill your
  heart, but oftentimes the choice can be a tricky
  one. How can you tell if a desire will help lead
  you down the right spiritual path, or whether it
  will increase your pain and suffering? Is each
  desire coming from the heart or from the ego?

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• While the answers to these questions may not
  always be clear, they give us an excellent
  starting point to discern whether a desire is
  guiding us on our spiritual journey or leading us
  astray. In the end, yoga is less focused on
  providing definitive philosophical answers to
  strictly intellectual questions, and more about
  achieving a certain quality of experience and
  freedom from suffering. In seeking
  self-understanding and liberation, we are
  inherently pursuing moksha, the ultimate desire
  of spiritual transcendence.
• Creating a false dichotomy between desire and
  spiritual evolution leads to unnecessary
  confusion, judgment, and self-doubt. These, in
  turn, inhibit our spiritual development.

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• Once desire is seen as part of the very fabric of
  nature however, it opens the opportunity to be
  more discerning about the quality and intention
  behind that desire.
• The full spectrum of yoga which integrates
  multiple practices and techniques and includes an
  emphasis on mediation provides a path toward
  clarity and wisdom where the desire of the soul
  is integrated rather than disparaged. Accepting
  that the soul has natural desires that lead us to
  a more complete expression of who we are is an
  important step toward realizing our entire
  spiritual potential.

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