desireless, not possible

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"No desire" does not mean no desire for serving Krsna. That is real desire. Other desires are artificial. That is material. But the desire to... That is called Krsna consciousness. When all our desires are for serving Krsna... Desires you cannot give up. That is not possible. Desires will remain there, but at the present moment, in the conditional stage, the desires are being misused. That is the defect. Therefore the definition of bhakti means anyabhilasita-sūnyam [Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu ]. Sūnya means zero. That is called nirvana. The Buddha philosophy advocates nirvana: no more desire. That is their philosophy: "By desire you are becoming implicated, so make all your desires extinct. Then there will be no more feelings of pains and pleasure." Desirelessness. (More...)

But that is not possible. Desire must be there. Because I am living there, living being, I must have desires. That is the symptom. A stone has no desire, but a living being, however small, insignificant ant, it has got desire. The insignificant ant gets information that in the other corner of the room, which is one hundred miles for the ant... Because the world is relative, relative world, so this length of the room, from this corner to the other corner, for an ant it is hundred miles, yes, because the world is relative according to the size, atomic size, the distance. Now we have got speedy aeroplane, the distance has reduced. Distance from Honolulu to India, if you go by land it will be ten thousand miles, but... It is ten thousand miles, but the speedy aeroplane has reduced. So relatively... Everything is relative. This is called relative world. Dar... What is...? Professor Einstein, he has proved the law of relativity. So the ant, he has to go, to pick up one grain of sugar, by going hundred miles in his capacity. But it will go. That is desire. You have got experience. You put little sugar here. You don't invite ants, but they'll come. They'll come. They'll get immediately information. Just like from Europe many people came in America-gold rush desire. So desire must be there. The ant has desire; Lord Brahma has desire; I have got desire; you have got desire. This is artificial, to make desireless. That is not possible. Therefore bhakti means to purify the desire. That is bhakti. Anyabhilasita-sūnyam. (More...)

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This is pure devotion: no other desire. "Other desire" means material desire. Because we are spirit soul, our desires should be spiritual. Just like human being should desire like a human being, not like a dog. The... To desire like the dog, that is other desire, and to desire like a human being, that is real desire. Our philosophy does not teach to become desireless. That is not possible. Desire must be there. But it should not be other desire. "Other desire" means... Then what is the real desire? Real desire is how to become a sincere servant of Krsna. That is real desire. Except this desire, anything-all "other desire." Or how to become servant of Krsna, the means and the way, the process, that is also pure devotional desire. (More...)

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So when you address somebody, you want to ask something. So if they reply, "Yes, why you are calling?" then we're calling, "Please engage me in Your service." This is the prayer, not that "Give me money" or "Give me beautiful wife" or "many followers." This is material hankering. Everyone wants some prestigious position, labha, pūja, pratistha, some material profit, labha, and prestigious position so that people will give him salaam, minister, president, and to become very famous, historically very famous. These are material hankerings. But Caitanya Mahaprabhu says, "No." Na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagad-isa kamaye . We don't want. This is animitta bhakti. Nimitta, for some certain reason, if you become a bhakta, then you are not a suddha-bhakta. You are a viddha-bhakta, a polluted bhakta. Pure bhakti is anyabhilasita-sūnyam [Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu ], zero. Material hankerings, anything material hankering, should be void. (More...)

So desireless is not possible. Desirelessness means you have to purify your desire. Don't desire anything except the service of Krsna. That is desirelessness, animitta. Animitta bhaktiḥ siddher gariyasi. If you come to that position... As Caitanya Mahaprabhu, teaching us, na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagad-isa kamaye, mama janmani janmanisvare... . He says, janmani janmani, "birth after birth." That means He does not require even salvation, because salvation means apunar bhava-janma, no more janma, no more birth. No more birth-there are two kinds of no more birth. For the Mayavadis, or impersonalists, they want to stop birth, to merge into the existence of the Supreme, brahma-nirvana. Brahma-nirvana... The Buddha philosophy teaches nirvana, devoid of all material desires, that much. He does not give any more. Sahkaracarya gives further, more, that brahma-nirvana, that "You become desireless of this material world, but you enter, merge into Brahman." That is called brahma-nirvana. And the Vaisnava philosopher says that "You make null and void all your material desires, enter into Brahman and be engaged in the service of the Lord." This is called bhakti. So brahma-nirvana is also siddhi, but more than that siddhi is to be engaged in the service, Brahman service. (More...)

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Here also the same point is stressed. Bhaja vasudevam indicates that one who is engaged in the loving service of Krsna, the son of Vasudeva, can very easily stop the waves of desires. As long as one continues to try to artificially stop the waves of desires, he will certainly be defeated. That is indicated in this verse. Desires for fruitive activities are strongly rooted, but the trees of desire can be uprooted completely by devotional service because devotional service employs superior desire. One can give up inferior desires when engaged in superior desires. To try to stop desires is impossible. One has to desire the Supreme in order not to be entangled in inferior desires. Jnanis also maintain a desire to become one with the Supreme, but such desire is also considered to be kama, lust. Similarly, the yogis desire mystic power, and that is also kama. And the bhaktas, not being desirous of any sort of material enjoyment, become purified. There is no artificial attempt to stop desire. Desire becomes a source of spiritual enjoyment under the protection of the toes of the lotus feet of the Lord. It is stated herein by the Kumaras that the lotus feet of Lord Krsna are the ultimate reservoir of all pleasure. One should therefore take shelter of the lotus feet of the Lord instead of trying unsuccessfully to stop desires for material enjoyment. As long as one is unable to stop the desire for material enjoyment, there is no possibility of becoming liberated from the entanglement of material existence. It may be argued that the waves of a river are incessantly flowing and that they cannot be stopped, but the waves of the river flow toward the sea. When the tide comes over the river, it overwhelms the flowing of the river, and the river itself becomes overflooded, and the waves from the sea become more prominent than the waves from the river. Similarly, a devotee with intelligence plans so many things for the service of the Lord in Krsna consciousness that stagnant material desires become overflooded by the desire to serve the Lord. As confirmed by Yamunacarya, since he has been engaged in the service of the lotus feet of the Lord, there is always a current of newer and newer desires flowing to serve the Lord, so much so that the stagnant desire of sex life becomes very insignificant. Yamunacarya even says that he spits on such desires. Bhagavad-gita also confirms: param drstva nivartate (Bg. 2.59). The conclusion is that by developing a loving desire for the service of the lotus feet of the Lord, we subdue all material desires for sense gratification. (More...)

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