Nietzsche’s Desirer of desire – Wisdom on Wisdom 2

“Ultimately it’s the desire, not the desired, that we love.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
ultimately it’s the desire not the desire that we love Friedrich Nietzsche Hare Krishna and this statement by the German thinker Nietzsche sounds counter intuitive when you consider a drunkard and the drunkard has a desire the alcoholic has a desire the desire is for a drink the desire is it for the desire for the drink on first thought you would say no the alcoholic wants a drink yes it is true that the alcoholic wants a drink but is that all that the alcoholic wants because if that were all that they wanted then after getting the drink they would be satisfied but whatever satisfaction they get is short lived and after that the desire surges forward again and makes them drink again and again and again so actually what happens when a person becomes habituated, attached addicted is that there is a change in our consciousness that happens now every time we do an activity we think about it, we desire it we act on it, there is a movement that happens in our consciousness and that movement creates a track and each time we think about it, each time we desire it each time we act on it that track deepens and broadens and whenever there is a track already made in our consciousness then our consciousness very easily moves on that track naturally even without our thinking about it so if some track has given us some pleasure if going on some track has given us some pleasure then we naturally want to go on that track again and again so when life feels burdened, when we feel stressed when things are going wrong and when we need some relief, at that time our thoughts just naturally go on that track which is already being formed and over a period of time just being on that track feels comfortable feels familiar, feels like being at home even if that track doesn’t lead anywhere, one just gets, feels impelled to go on that track because it feels familiar that’s why if some addicts try to give up their addiction and they talk with the therapists they often say that if the doctor asks them why do you drink initially they say that we started drinking because we wanted to get high because drinking made us feel good but now we drink just to feel normal it is we drink because not drinking feels so miserable so that means initially drinking led to a high but afterwards not drinking is a status of such a low that is drinking is what they need to become, feel normal so what has happened when we say something is normal, that means that is a normal state of our consciousness where we are comfortable so by repeated indulgence in something our conception of normal itself changes and when the addictive track becomes our normal thought pattern, then whenever there is any stress we want to feel comfort, we want to feel security we want to feel at home, immediately our consciousness goes on that track and that’s why addiction becomes so difficult to give up because it’s not just the object that they are attached to it is just being in the pursuit of that object that they have become attached to and even if addicts somehow break free of their addiction soon it is found that they relapse either into that addiction or somehow they just make a clean break from that addiction, then they go to some other addiction so giving up addiction per se is very very rare, very very difficult because our consciousness needs some track on which to be we need to feel at home and unless something higher something better gives that feeling of familiarity of comfort of home person cannot be peaceful, person cannot person cannot be joyful so in that sense Nietzsche got it right when he said that what we desire is not the desire but the desire itself, we get habituated to the desire like that at the same time he was wrong in considering this desire for desire as the ultimate reality, it is ultimate at the materialistic godless level of consciousness which is where Nietzsche was a famous or infamous atheist, he is best or worst known for his declaration God is dead so he was a materialist and he had no conception of a spiritual side of life and that’s why this state of desire of desire was what he considered to be ultimate but what is ultimate in the material realm is not necessarily ultimate in the spiritual realm the Bhagavad Gita explains that we are at our core spiritual beings and we are by our very nature joyful we are joy seeking and we want to be joyful now where we find this joy is critical for our growth, for our progress or our regress when we find joy in spiritual growth we are actually parts of God and the bhakti tradition reveals God to be an all attractive supreme person Krishna, so when we connect with Krishna through devotion we get by that lasting satisfaction the supreme satisfaction comes by connection with Krishna through devotion and process of bhakti yoga offers us easy path, easy practices for connecting with Krishna and when we do these practices regularly, repeatedly as a matter of discipline then those practices form a track in our consciousness and then once that track, devotional track is formed in our consciousness even if things go wrong then instead of seeking shelters in something materialistic we seek shelter in the process of bhakti ultimately the process of bhakti connects us with Krishna absorbs us in Krishna, takes us to Krishna but even intermediately just engaging in bhakti invokes the presence of Krishna to some level and gives us some relief and some shelter and thus from this perspective what we long for ultimately is not the desire but the supremely desirable object Krishna we have not by our very innate spiritual nature we are searching for Krishna not knowing whom we are searching for, we are looking for substitutes for Krishna in this world and being habituated to disappointment because none of the things of this world live up to our expectation, we just get habituated to shifting from one object to another object to another object to another object and thus even when we come to Krishna we keep moving onwards but with our intelligence if we perceive here then through connection with Krishna through absorption in Krishna we can get the supreme satisfaction and thus what we desire ultimately is the supremely desirable object Krishna interestingly this theme of desiring desire is talked in the Bhagavad Gita thousands of years before Nietzsche talked about it in 2.70 in the Bhagavad Gita आपूर्यमानमचलप्रतिष्ठम् समुद्रमापःप्रविशन्ति यद्वद् तद्वद्कामायंप्रविशन्ति सर्वे सशान्तेमाप्नोते नकामकामी it is said that actually आपूर्यमान it is a long verse but essentially the point is कामकामी कामकामी is the desirer of desire, so Krishna says the desirer of desire cannot attain peace one who refuses to be a desirer of desire, that person will attain peace what this means is, this compound word desirer of desire, it means that sometimes in our consciousness a desire will pop up, either it may pop up because of some external circumstances or it may pop up because of past conditions but when the desire pops up, we don’t necessarily have to act on that desire we don’t have to think that that desire is my desire we have the capacity to choose and when we choose I won’t act on this desire then that choice is we are choosing whether to be the desirer of desire or we are choosing not to be the desirer of desire and when we refuse to be the desirer of desire, सशान्तेमाप्नोते नकामकामी, which a person will attain शान्ती, later the same Bhagavad Gita in 5.29 says that when we understand सुर्धन्सर्वभुतानाम् ज्ञात्वामाम् शान्तिमृच्छते, when we understand that Krishna is our greatest well-wisher, then we will attain peace. So when we understand Krishna Das that He is my greatest well-wisher, then naturally we all desire an intimate relationship of love with Him. Thus peace comes not just by refusing to be a desirer of desire but also by choosing to be the desirer of the supremely desirable object, our eternal Lord Krishna.
Thank you. Hare Krishna.