Desires, Part 1: The Agony of Lack

Written on March 17, 2008 by Tom Stine

Recently, two readers left some comments on my article Sedona Method Coaching concerning the subject of desire. I’m writing a long response to their comments, but while putting together my thoughts, I remembered an article I had written a year ago for my old blog. I think much of what I wrote fits with my thinking today, so I wanted to re-print it here. Enjoy!

Wanting hurts. I really don’t know of any other way to describe it. As time has passed, and as I have journeyed down the road of getting more in touch with my feelings, releasing them, and experiencing the tastes of inner joy, I have become more acutely aware of desire, of wanting. I don’t think the desires and wants have grown stronger; rather, I have become more attuned to how they feel. They are beginning to feel like a thorn that is sticking in my hand, always promising that if I will simply pay attention carefully, I might be able to see the rose to which the thorn is attached.

Lester Levenson, the creator of The Sedona Method, described a desire as “a disturbance of one’s natural, inherent inner peace.” I can relate to that. The thorn is an on again, off again irritant, one that disturbs my peace of mind. When I want something, there is a feeling of tension in my chest, a feeling of anxiousness in my body. I feel as if I must get-up now and do something about it. Ever get a craving for chocolate? Then you know exactly what I mean. That is the feeling.

But is there a rose attached to the thorn? In other words, does the attainment of what I desire ever really satisfy? If I get the object of my desire, do I experience peace? My experience is both yes and no. Let me use an example. Sometimes after dinner, like most of us, I will feel a craving, a desire for something sweet. My stomach can be mostly full from even the best of meals, and yet there is that craving, that gnawing desire to have something sweet. It is almost as if my taste buds are on fire. And so, I will occasionally order the dessert, or get out the chocolate (70% dark, organic, thank you!), or even attack the cinnamon graham crackers.

In the moment of satisfying the desire, I will feel a certain sense of satisfaction. My taste buds will calm down, the pleasure centers of brain will be humming along happily. There is a certain dark satisfaction even in having given in to my body’s command. And so, for a moment, all is well. Yet, even as I am eating, I am aware of something tickling the back of my mind. Something saying to me that somehow, some way, the chocolate or the dessert isn’t really satisfying me.

This feeling has been growing lately. This doubt that getting the object of my desire will result in my happiness is getting stronger. For, as you have experienced, too, within minutes, if not hours, of attaining this coveted thing, I find that I am right back where I was. Still wanting something. Still feeling a lack. Lester would describe my situation as follows: “As long as we desire, we lack, and are trapped in the world of limitation. Desire is the great enemy of constant joy.” Yes, that is how I so often feel.

So, what to do? It appears to be difficult to drop all desire, just like that, and yet the prospect of suppressing desires seems worse than the desires themselves. Denial is just another form of pain and suffering. In my experience, I think Lester has the right approach: “Enjoying with attachment is enjoying with pain and longing, a hunger. Enjoying without attachment is enjoying freely and creating no bondage.” Enjoying without attachment, to me, would seem to mean releasing the attachment, releasing the desire, releasing that feeling of lack that creates the sense of pain. And then after the lack is released, we can move forward in action and simply do while enjoying. By releasing and then allowing action to simply happen, we are moving in the direction of allowing our true pleasure, our true nature to shine forth as the bliss that we are and can experience.

There is an easy Sedona Method exercise for helping with this process. All you have to do is get in touch with whatever it is you desire, and allow yourself to feel the lack, the craving, the wanting. Then, ask yourself whether that is coming from wanting approval, control, security, separation or oneness. Release whichever want comes up. And then, ask yourself if you could allow for the possibility of having as opposed to wanting. Could you allow yourself to be free of the desire and simply have whatever you are to have? This exercise is very freeing, and quickly calms the agony of lack.

No matter what the desire, whether it is for money, a new car, more and better sex, a healthy body, or a great relationship, moving out of this space of lacking into the space of having, or better yet allowing yourself to have creates a tremendous amount of freedom. This simple technique can be used in the moment with a craving, or it can be used for more long-standing desires such as a relationship. Doing this process brings you to right here, right now, where you are already whole and complete, and where you need nothing. And this place of having is a much better place to be in than being in the throes of the agony of lack.

For in the end, all desire, no matter what flavor it takes, whether for desserts, sex, money, relationships, health, you name it, is always a desire for the Infinite. A desire for that state of inner peace and joy that transcends all experience. Only that will ever bring the joy and happiness that we seek. The real Self, the inner Truth of me, will bring the all that we seek and never find in the world. As Sri Ramana Maharshi said, “To be the Self that you really are is the only means to realise the bliss that is ever yours.” Yes, turning within seems to be the only answer. Releasing the lack, releasing the wanting, and simply resting in the joy from within and allowing the experience of having whatever we have seems to be the only way to fully live and yet remain free.

Please check back later in the week for Part 2 on Desire.

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