Lack of Capacity to Wish

[swampland]

I've been reading a book called Love & Will by Rollo May, which states that

many problems of today's society have their base in a wrong understanding of both, love and will.

 

Now there is one thing I came across, that made me think.

Namely there is one passage on p. 215 (1969 Fontana Edition),

where he talks about the lack of capacity to wish.

 

Also, he differentiates between wishing and willing, which might be necessary for me to describe in short. So willing is basically everything that is done by "willpower", the power to bring things into your life (and I'm going very much off text here, but I hope this stresses the point).

 

While wishing is more like the ability to recognize true desires.

 

So, what came into my mind, that I thought desires are given and my pursuit on the taoist way is to free myself progressively from these desires, to become less attached.

But the concept and thought, that I might not be able to identify my true desires in the first place, have never risen in my mind.

 

So, what's the capacity to wish?

As I understood it, it is your personal space to imagine and thus setting the basis of the manifestation of the things you deeply want. Thus imagining it beeing the first step of getting it.

 

I find myself thinking and imaginating about lot's of stuff throughout the day, but I have the feeling, that fear often gets in the way of imagining what I really want.

Now one could ask, how can I know that I'm not imagining what I really want, if I can't imagine it.

But there I just feel it.

 

As a result of not beeing able to imagine what I want (mainly because of fear), I get frustratet.

And this frustration, rather than any spiritual wish of gaining freedom and becoming unattached drives me into spiritual practices of letting go. And I somehow think, that this is not a valid motivation, rather than some kind of running away.

[Diamond Spectrum]

Swish

[de_paradise]

I dont know if this model is particularly apt for Taoists or cultivators. Are there is any "true desire" lying there in the dust of your mind amid the clutter of programmed desires. Its all desire, even deep subconscious wishes are desires and to be treated as useful or useless attachments according to one's path. Some desires can help one make spiritual progress. One can say that the true desire is to attain the Tao, evolve, become enlightened--but the same words can evoke either deep spiritual feeling for some or just some superficial greed (to get something) for others. People who are not moved by spirituality are generally not on the path for long.

 

I notice that females tend to express what they covet and greedily desire as "dreams" or "wishes", which is nice, but its still going to cause all the problems like other attachments. Wish or dream has some imagination and emotional charge to it, that is not necessarily going to help. When I emotionally charge a wish I wish for nothing, when I hope I hope for hopeless. It seems a bit lunatic, but this is how I can generate the well-being associated with a closer relation to the Tao.

[swampland]

What would be the difference between greedy desires and dreams or wishes?

Does it depend on the amount that others are negatively or in any way impacted in order to these "dreams" come true?

Or does it count if you do something just for yourself, or to uplift your peers or community?

To set those "greedy desires" in a starker contrast, what about Martin Luther King's "dream" against a more selfish desire of a young woman to become a star, or buy an expencive dress.

It surely is a different feeling. While the woman's desire sees only herself, somehow beeing trapped in the illusion that things are not alright as they are and she needs more for herself, Martin Luther King saw the afro-american community as not being treated right and the necessity to do something about it.

But both are more on a basis that needs to diminish negative effects, or negative effects for the future. An urge to do something in order for things to not happen (again). OK, that in itself is not convincing.

The woman could buy the dress, just to make her more attractive, to get more attention, because there's never enough. But that again is based in a feeling of deficit.

 

I think wishing is more about something that you wish for, not out of deficit, but out of pure desire. But is that even possible?

What if that desire remains unfullfilled for long? Isn't there a line, where you become greedy about it, when finally the moment comes for this desire to be fulfilled? Won't you start thinking about hoarding this stuff or dwelling on an experience for it to never go away again.

I think that is where the difference is in.

Wish is the primary impulse for an action and if you make the experience, that your wishes are not fulfilled, and you are starting to become greedy about it, if you are not able to stay cool.

 

Has that still got anything to do with my topic?

Ah yes, because in order to find out about the lack of the capacity to wish, the most difficult part is to find out, what a wish is in the first place.

 

The book (love and will) differentiates also between wishes that come out of fantasies, and those out of immagination, while not properly explaining the difference.

Found a link now: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/19/the_odd_body_imagination_fantasy/

So, as I understand this, fantasies are more compulsive than imagination.

 

Immagination might be something more active. But doesn't that mean, that I'm acting out on a fantasy while imagining.

 

I'm having a really tough time with this stuff.

Sorry if what I wrote is unclear or imcomprehensible, because it's written thinking to figure this out.

[Everything]

Simply allow your desire to be what they are and dive deeper and deeper into them by asking "what do I want" "Why does it make me feel good in the having of it?" Go deeper and deeper, follow your intuition. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, trust yourself in the process and enjoy the process.

 

Example of sex desire purification and cleansing and unification(which is a difficult one for allot of men):

 

The WAY I suggest YOU NOT DO it

(seeking justification for your desires and trying to create greater and greater seperation from the appreciation of your desires):

"I want to have sex. I am not having sex. It seems that I can not have sex right now. I now want to have sex even more. The more I want to have sex the more it seems that I can not have sex. It seems that I am worthless and unworthy of having sex, else I would be having sex by now! UNIVERSE I WANT SEX PLEASE! I BEG YOU! ...five years later... PLEASE KILL ME UNIVERSE! PLEASE I WANT THIS AGONY TO END!!! KILL ME!! ITS FROM HELL! AAAH!!"

 

lol, its a valid way of doing this if you wish. Unconditional love to all

 

The way I suggest you do it:

I want to have sex. When I have sex, I feel good and I feel good when I have sex. Why do I feel good when having sex? The kissing makes me feel good. The touching and the connection with my women. The availability of this love for me makes me feel secure and confident. I feel motivated as I receive love from my women and receive appreciation for the being that I am. I want to be who I am every single moment and thats all I want to be, nothing more and nothing less. Most of all, I want to have sex, because women are beautiful and I love to be close to them. It makes me feel more alive. I want to live my dreams and not just dream about living. I want to merge with them. Feel them, taste them, smell them, touch them. Resonate with them. Breath with them. Absorb all that they are, completely be present with them. Allow them. Allow them to be as them selves and love them for who they are as they are who they are, in a dance of changing beauty expressing itself in more beautiful ways each and every moment. I want to allow the energies to flow between us and levitate with them. Merge completely into one being and self as one as both two as one. I want to feel what they feel and I want to share this sacred experience of touching our whole bodies in symetric ways together reflection back to eachother what the other person is feeling and allow the other person to feel what I am feeling for her aswell. I want to make my women feel good and I want her to explode into a greater and more full expression of her true self. I want her to open up as a flower to me and I want to absorb her scent and leafes and all the expression that she is. I am prepared to do anything to open her up in this way to me. To have her surrender to my love, for my love is the greatest towards her. There is no greater love then mine in this very moment. I don't want to miss a single beat of her movement and expression. Why do I feel good in this? It makes my senses come alive and it brightens my eyes. It opens up my eyes to receive more light and colour that is all that she is all her beauty in all the ways she chooses to express this beauty. It sensitisez my tongue to receive more flavour of this beautiful life that she is expressing herself to be. It lightens up my entire body to be alive ever present and free and powerful and motivated and capable of anything I so desire to achieve. I want bring my senses back to life, for they have been neglected for a long time. No longer will I neglect them in this way any longer. From now on, I shall live every single moment in full appreciation of all of my senses and fully open up to the receiving of more beautifull expressions of the grandest of all beauties. She... She is the most beautiful of all. I shall receive all that she is. The nature that she is. The beast that she is. The human that she is. The material that she is. She is everything as all. I am all as one, here to be with here and open her up to more of herself. To create a grand display for all to enjoy and cherrish, right here and now, to eternity. For that is what eternity really is. It is right here and now, as all as one. In a constant state of love and merging. The feminine and masculine. That is what sex really is, that is what I want. That is what I have right now. I am her, she is me, were are both as one. We are merged. Each and every one of us are merged. I shall allow my own feminine to be express in more beautiful ways and I shall allow my own masculine to be more present to all the beauty that is allways already always around me to be experienced by me. Her expression shall never end and is even present within my self. I allow her to express herself by the very act of being who I am! I am all as one, she expresses herself to me naturally by being who she is! She doesn't need to change who she is in order to merge with me, I don't need to change who I am in order to merge with her! We're already as fully merged as we can. I am just going to allow myself to live more fully aware of this merged state of feminine and masculine that I already allways have been shall be and are right now and here, to eternity as all moments of this place and all places of this moment. For this is what unconditionality really is and this is what sex is. The merging of all conditions into one. All expressions into one expression as the masculine here and now as one as the feminine expression of this oneness as all that is that she is constantly expressing in more grand and beautiful ways. I will open up my heart towards her so that she shall be given the opportunity to drink from my love towards her and she shall want it for ever as I taste her love and the giving of love is even more pleasant then the receiving of this love. How wonderful of a universe we live in... etc"

 

You can go on and on like this in whatever way you do it is good. Seek the "what" of your desires and "Why you feel good in the having of this what" so that you can go deeper into the the pure core of all your desires. The singularity and unified desire that is unbreakable, cuts trough all realities straight to the appreciation of the having of what it is you are wanting.

 

DO NT EVEN ATTEMPT TO JUSTIFY YOUR DESIRES! you never have to justify anything. For you can never justify existance. It exists and that is all it needs to be. Justification itself is subject to existance, not the other way around.

 

Embrace your desires fully, for only then can you dive deeper into them, by first allowing them to be full here perfect as they are right here and now in the present moment, in eternity as all that exists right now. Thats it! Have a great time!

Edited August 21, 2012 by Everything

[Birch]

What's the 'real' desire? I suggest if you dig deep enough, you may find it's something very different from what you think it is. IME desires are often born of the want to resolve something in the past. But not always. Because part of oneself is timeless, this is not understood. To 'fix' something that was unsatisfactory at some other point in time in some other place (I'd even go as far as to include 'learning' - further 'evolving' in this process).

 

---opinion alert---

[Aaron]

I would have to agree with the idea that recognizing one's wishes is instrumental for understanding one's self. Also remember you can't ever be free from desires, desires are normal and necessary in order for us to survive in this world. Our goal should be to diminish desires and most people misunderstand what's being said here. It's not about diminishing your desire to eat so that you are no longer hungry, but rather that you diminish those desires that distract you and cause you to be out of sync with the world around you. Even then those desires will remain (one reason I have such a problem believing the whole idea that one can rid themselves of attachments).

 

In the end understanding what one wants in life is really the key to understanding what's motivating them, but even more important is understanding the root of those wants, knowing from whence they came. If you can do this, then having desires is not so much of a problem, because you'll understand intuitively which ones are based on a need and which ones are based on wants.

 

Aaron

[de_paradise]

I am talking from the point of view of a cultivator keen on making progress by detaching from desires. Not everyone uses this method and its ok, there are other ways to cultivate. You may not even want to cultivate, but just adhere to a useful philosophy, in which case my opinion is not relevant at all, because it would be foregoing something in life for no reason. I have friends who love money, prestige material items, sex with hot girls, fame, etc. I would not suggest to give up an opportunity, because if they are not on the spiritual path, theres no point. There are lots of people here who are kind of in between, and thats why there's varying opinions, they find a level that suits them. Milarepa sat in a cave for years and ate nothing but nettles. Thats real austerity, and he knew that it would help him advance, otherwise he would have not bothered.

 

The big mistake is treating a cultivation method as a life philosophy, like as in Catholics force certain behaviors to their adherents, even though the chance of their reaching enlightenment is fairly nill. Either you understand and utilize the method in life and meditation, or just find some useful philosophical balance such that is voiced by some others on the thread. The mechanism is not that evident, even though its pretty simple, requires practise and observation of self in meditation.

[BlueMonk91]

Simply allow your desire to be what they are and dive deeper and deeper into them by asking "what do I want" "Why does it make me feel good in the having of it?" Go deeper and deeper, follow your intuition. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, trust yourself in the process and enjoy the process.

 

Example of sex desire purification and cleansing and unification(which is a difficult one for allot of men):

 

The WAY I suggest YOU NOT DO it

(seeking justification for your desires and trying to create greater and greater seperation from the appreciation of your desires):

"I want to have sex. I am not having sex. It seems that I can not have sex right now. I now want to have sex even more. The more I want to have sex the more it seems that I can not have sex. It seems that I am worthless and unworthy of having sex, else I would be having sex by now! UNIVERSE I WANT SEX PLEASE! I BEG YOU! ...five years later... PLEASE KILL ME UNIVERSE! PLEASE I WANT THIS AGONY TO END!!! KILL ME!! ITS FROM HELL! AAAH!!"

 

lol, its a valid way of doing this if you wish. Unconditional love to all

 

The way I suggest you do it:

I want to have sex. When I have sex, I feel good and I feel good when I have sex. Why do I feel good when having sex? The kissing makes me feel good. The touching and the connection with my women. The availability of this love for me makes me feel secure and confident. I feel motivated as I receive love from my women and receive appreciation for the being that I am. I want to be who I am every single moment and thats all I want to be, nothing more and nothing less. Most of all, I want to have sex, because women are beautiful and I love to be close to them. It makes me feel more alive. I want to live my dreams and not just dream about living. I want to merge with them. Feel them, taste them, smell them, touch them. Resonate with them. Breath with them. Absorb all that they are, completely be present with them. Allow them. Allow them to be as them selves and love them for who they are as they are who they are, in a dance of changing beauty expressing itself in more beautiful ways each and every moment. I want to allow the energies to flow between us and levitate with them. Merge completely into one being and self as one as both two as one. I want to feel what they feel and I want to share this sacred experience of touching our whole bodies in symetric ways together reflection back to eachother what the other person is feeling and allow the other person to feel what I am feeling for her aswell. I want to make my women feel good and I want her to explode into a greater and more full expression of her true self. I want her to open up as a flower to me and I want to absorb her scent and leafes and all the expression that she is. I am prepared to do anything to open her up in this way to me. To have her surrender to my love, for my love is the greatest towards her. There is no greater love then mine in this very moment. I don't want to miss a single beat of her movement and expression. Why do I feel good in this? It makes my senses come alive and it brightens my eyes. It opens up my eyes to receive more light and colour that is all that she is all her beauty in all the ways she chooses to express this beauty. It sensitisez my tongue to receive more flavour of this beautiful life that she is expressing herself to be. It lightens up my entire body to be alive ever present and free and powerful and motivated and capable of anything I so desire to achieve. I want bring my senses back to life, for they have been neglected for a long time. No longer will I neglect them in this way any longer. From now on, I shall live every single moment in full appreciation of all of my senses and fully open up to the receiving of more beautifull expressions of the grandest of all beauties. She... She is the most beautiful of all. I shall receive all that she is. The nature that she is. The beast that she is. The human that she is. The material that she is. She is everything as all. I am all as one, here to be with here and open her up to more of herself. To create a grand display for all to enjoy and cherrish, right here and now, to eternity. For that is what eternity really is. It is right here and now, as all as one. In a constant state of love and merging. The feminine and masculine. That is what sex really is, that is what I want. That is what I have right now. I am her, she is me, were are both as one. We are merged. Each and every one of us are merged. I shall allow my own feminine to be express in more beautiful ways and I shall allow my own masculine to be more present to all the beauty that is allways already always around me to be experienced by me. Her expression shall never end and is even present within my self. I allow her to express herself by the very act of being who I am! I am all as one, she expresses herself to me naturally by being who she is! She doesn't need to change who she is in order to merge with me, I don't need to change who I am in order to merge with her! We're already as fully merged as we can. I am just going to allow myself to live more fully aware of this merged state of feminine and masculine that I already allways have been shall be and are right now and here, to eternity as all moments of this place and all places of this moment. For this is what unconditionality really is and this is what sex is. The merging of all conditions into one. All expressions into one expression as the masculine here and now as one as the feminine expression of this oneness as all that is that she is constantly expressing in more grand and beautiful ways. I will open up my heart towards her so that she shall be given the opportunity to drink from my love towards her and she shall want it for ever as I taste her love and the giving of love is even more pleasant then the receiving of this love. How wonderful of a universe we live in... etc"

 

You can go on and on like this in whatever way you do it is good. Seek the "what" of your desires and "Why you feel good in the having of this what" so that you can go deeper into the the pure core of all your desires. The singularity and unified desire that is unbreakable, cuts trough all realities straight to the appreciation of the having of what it is you are wanting.

 

DO NT EVEN ATTEMPT TO JUSTIFY YOUR DESIRES! you never have to justify anything. For you can never justify existance. It exists and that is all it needs to be. Justification itself is subject to existance, not the other way around.

 

Embrace your desires fully, for only then can you dive deeper into them, by first allowing them to be full here perfect as they are right here and now in the present moment, in eternity as all that exists right now. Thats it! Have a great time!

 

Just out of curiosity friend, how would you go about the desire of sex if your a virgin who's never even come close to physical affection, im 20 about to go in my second year of university and I can't stop thinking about it and I've been doing exactly what;s written in The Way not to do it part. You can message me if necesssary I don't want to derail another member's thread.

[Aaron]

 

 

Just out of curiosity friend, how would you go about the desire of sex if your a virgin who's never even come close to physical affection, im 20 about to go in my second year of university and I can't stop thinking about it and I've been doing exactly what;s written in The Way not to do it part. You can message me if necesssary I don't want to derail another member's thread.

 

Just let that happen on its own accord no need to rush into anything.

 

Aaron

[thelerner]

I've never been a fan of 'The Secret' or its philosphy. If you want something make a plan, make a change. I was about 19 or 20 when I lost my virginity. What helped in my case was cleaning up my act, getting a bit more aggressive.. joining a group with lots of girls (in my case a co-ed fraternity APO).

 

And by getting more aggressive, I mean asking girls out, swinging at the ball, no guts no girls. There is someone for everyone, its about getting to where they are, acting confident and asking them out.

 

Wishing...its not new, everybody wishes..books on how to 'wish' correctly. I do not know if the Universe is sentient or cares about our wishes, but whether or not it does, make a plan or plans, introduce change, move in the direction of your dreams, don't expect them to come to you while you sit around.

[swampland]

There is someone for everyone, its about getting to where they are, acting confident and asking them out.

 

[...]move in the direction of your dreams, don't expect them to come to you while you sit around.

 

...that's kind of what rich people say about getting rich, too...you can make it if you put your mind onto it and never give up, use your failures to learn and whatever...*rolleyes*

 

...but in fact, I never get to get anything done, so I need to develop the bridge to make me go there, 'cause "just do it" wouldn't do.

It's not because I'm scared (well yes, basically so, but in another, more complicated way).

I find myself interacting really harsh and defensive as well as overly "offensive" in times, with women that seems to scare them. So there's no smooth game and there's no way to develop any, since I feel like an empty mask playing something that is not me and thus i think I forget to act on my true wishes and rather act on an artificially constructed will, that somehow should serve my wishes, when I get too scared to let them out and even feel them. I think it's because I'm circumcised, but that probably get's too far now.

 

 

I don't want to derail another member's thread.

 

No, you're not derailing "my" thread, since that is kind of the context I should have drawn in the first place, to make it more concrete.

Edited August 22, 2012 by swampland

[Everything]

 

 

Just out of curiosity friend, how would you go about the desire of sex if your a virgin who's never even come close to physical affection, im 20 about to go in my second year of university and I can't stop thinking about it and I've been doing exactly what;s written in The Way not to do it part. You can message me if necesssary I don't want to derail another members thread.

Peal the onion of your self and get to the core of who you are. You're not a virgin. That word does not define you. You define that word. You give it meaning and you receive the exact meaning you are giving it.

Edited August 22, 2012 by Everything

[thelerner]

"[...]move in the direction of your dreams, don't expect them to come to you while you sit around."

...that's kind of what rich people say about getting rich, too...you can make it if you put your mind onto it and never give up, use your failures to learn and whatever...*rolleyes*

It's not about getting rich, its about moving your ass and doing things that align with what you want. Dropping new age crap of 'my thoughts create reality', when infact your thoughts interpret reality.

 

So, you're following the opposite of what your rolling your eyes at?? Not putting your mind to it(I prefer feet to it myself), giving up easily, not learning from your mistakes. Maybe you can wish yourself stuff with those convictions, but I doubt it.

[swampland]

"[...]move in the direction of your dreams, don't expect them to come to you while you sit around."

 

It's not about getting rich, its about moving your ass and doing things that align with what you want. Dropping new age crap of 'my thoughts create reality', when infact your thoughts interpret reality.

 

So, you're following the opposite of what your rolling your eyes at?? Not putting your mind to it(I prefer feet to it myself), giving up easily, not learning from your mistakes. Maybe you can wish yourself stuff with those convictions, but I doubt it.

 

No, I didn't say anything about getting rich, It was rather a comparison to statements in "get rich books"

or that motivational stuff.

 

I never talked about "my thougts creating reality" anywhere in this thread, it was initially rather about distinguishing the

difference of wish and will, as well as the difficulty of staying concious of wishes, instead of becoming compulsive on something unimportant.

 

I was rolling my eyes at the banality of your answer not necessarily the validity of the content itself.

It probably works, but not if you keep forgetting what you want and wish for, while loosing yourself in

compulsive behaviour. Or even worse, becoming at a point aware that you've lost the feeling of your

wishes and are now desperatly trying to generate them, while usually behaving like a dork on the outside.

 

That is basically my problem (well, the one problem that I think might be easiest to solve next) and has little to do

with any "the secret" or other new age stuff.