Question: How can we disassociate ourselves from the desires of the flesh?¹⁵

Sri Chinmoy: Let us imagine right in front of us two rooms. One room is the room of desire and the other room is the room of aspiration. When we enter into the room of desire, immediately we are caught by the life of pleasure, by the life of bondage, by the finite around us. Here we try to bind and possess everything as our very own. But before we bind something, we see that we are already bound by it. Before we possess something as our own, we see that we are already possessed by that thing. We see that others are ruling our lives, others are lording it over us. But when we enter into the other room, the room of aspiration, immediately we feel that there is something far beyond the physical. In that room we feel that the body is not all, but God is all. In order to realise that God is all, we have to make friends with our soul. If we remain or live inside the room of aspiration, we see our eternal friend, the soul. And the soul teaches us how to drink in divine nectar and how we can always remain far away from the sea of ignorance.

It is up to us to remain in the room of aspiration. In this room there is constant inner progress. Here we sing the song of self-transcendence. If we want to disassociate ourselves from our desire-life, the best thing is to associate constantly, consciously and soulfully with our aspiration-life. If we associate with our aspiration-life, automatically the desire-life will begin to leave us. We will remain with the friend we have chosen as our very own, and this is our aspiration-friend.