It is OK to want things. Desire is like a horse we ride. Or that we have hooked up to a buggy or something. It is the energy that moves us places. There is a weird idea that being spiritual means trying to avoid having desires, or suppress the desires you have.
There is also a weird idea that being good means only doing what God wants you to do. Truely speaking, God, as Atma, is neutral, and doesn't really want anything. I got confused by this, and sat still, waiting to be told what to do by the Atma. But even the personal God doesn't want to tell you what to do. The process of growing up spiritually involves recognizing that you are the Son of God, and ultimately that you are God. Relying on external authority, though perhaps a useful set of training wheels, is not to be idealized. God has placed within your own heart all that he wants for you, as the desires already within you.
Our job is to listen to our own heart, our own desires, and when one comes up, check it against the voice of conscience (I should really do a post just on conscience). Or you might say, check it against the Atma. As long as it does not go against that internal voice, then it's ok to do. Enjoy. If it does go against it, then yeah, you should try and find a way to redirect it (still workn' on how to do that without unhealthy suppression stuff. results mixed but promising. Fully committing to following your sense of rightness makes it easier, and offering yourself, ahead of time, a list of alternative things, that satisfy the same basic craving but are ok with your own sense of rightness, seem to help. Like having healthy snacks around so you don't eat junk food.)
It's ok to do things just because you want to do them. Sometimes we get impulses from we don't know where, that feel like imperatives. And they always seem to be good ideas, and perhaps important to our overall life plan. I don't know. But those are the exceptions.
And if you are someone life me, who maybe externalizes my desires too much, "tell me what I should want to do." Then it's important to strengthen your desire muscles by doing things you want to do, that are not harmful to yourself. This strengthens your desire muscles, and those are the muscles that pull you through difficult tasks.
The other element of that, which pulls you through long-term difficult tasks, is staying connected to your purpose. What bigger things do you want in life? Long term goals, or dreams. Visions of your future that make you happy to think about. I suggest dreaming big, not letting possibility limit what you dream about. Then remind yourself of where you are and where you want to go, and at least the one next step that will take you closer to that. Keeping those in mind
A) keep us on track towards what we want and
B) keep us moving through the difficult stuff and still feeling good about what we're working on, even if day to day it seems unimportant.
Personally, I avoided wanting things because when I wanted things, I really wanted them, and when I didn't get them, I felt really, really bad about myself. It's a little difficult to get the hang of, but the Bhagavad-Gita suggests a solution to this: Do your action, but think of it as an affection offering to your Higher Power. If it's for yourself, it's for the Atma that is who you really are. If it's for someone else, it's for their Atma, the God that is at the core of who they are. It's not your job to worry about whether your action is successful or not. You do your best, doing what you know to be right, or doing something you want to do and know isn't wrong, and trust that God will take care of the outcome, and if you don't succeed, there's a good reason for that. (And maybe it's just teaching you persistance so your next job is just to try again.)
-Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves, says Mary Oliver.
-Hold the reins and use your discrimination to decide where your senses/horses take you, says Krishna.
These are complementary bits of advice, not opposing. Think again of the riding a horse analogy. Be loving and kind to your horse/desire body. Let it graze when it's hungry and drink when it's thirsty, give it a nice luxurious rub down after a hard day's work. But when you're riding, if you've got somewhere you want to go, direct the horse, and keep it from veering off course. Otherwise you'll never get there. In charge, but kind.
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