Question: You said that because we desire, the light within us is eclipsed. Now, we have got basic necessities, for which we require food and shelter, speaking of two on which our lives are based. Is it possible to eradicate desires?

Sri Chinmoy: If you follow the spiritual life, it is quite possible to eradicate desires because God’s Will, first of all, helps the seeker to minimise his desires. Now, you say as a human being you have to take care of your family, friends and so forth. This is one way. But there is another way. This we call the divine duty. When God inspires you, you will still spend time on the members of your family, providing for them food, clothing, a good education and other necessary things. There is abundant light in that. But, as human beings, what we feel is that, if we have one car, we want to have two cars. If we have one house, we want to have two houses. We try constantly to increase our material possessions instead of existing with the minimal things we need to live here on earth. God gives us enough capacity. If one wants to aspire, He gives him enough time. There is nobody here on earth who can say that he wants to pray to God but has no time. No. Here we have to see that, if we are really sincere, God will immediately give us the time. He also gives us the capacity. When God asks us to do something, we have to realise immediately that He has given us the capacity which is already within us.

So, as a human being, if somebody says that he has to work for these basic necessities, certainly he has to. But he has to know how many things, unnecessary things, he is crying for. And he is not crying for Light; he is only crying for material possessions. For basic things, yes, we have to work; we have to eat, we have to feed ourselves. But for that God has given us the necessary wisdom also. You have to know that if we constantly desire more material possessions, naturally we are eclipsing the inner Sun, which is the Light within us. Then we will not aspire.

God wants us to live on earth. God does not want us to live in the Himalayan caves and negate the world. Far from it. Those days are gone. Let us accept the world as such, and then, on the strength of our intense inner cry, God will tell us, “Try, my children, to change the face of the world.” When we think of desires, there is no end. They are like teeming clouds. But, when we think of aspiration, it is only one thing: God, God the Truth, God the Light. So, if we think of only God the Truth and the Light, we will see that automatically the world of desire will fade away. It is like two poles: the North Pole and South Pole. If I am running towards the North Pole, towards my Goal, and it is aspiration that is carrying me there, then naturally I will not be able to see the South Pole. So, overcoming desire is like that. If we aspire, God will give us the necessary strength to be freed from teeming desires. Each human being has the potentiality.

Now, if the human being wants to be a seeker, he has to give primary importance to aspiration. If he cries for God, God knows that his body here on earth is of great importance. The body is the fort. The body is the temple. If there is no temple, how can there be a shrine? So, God will protect him. God will give him the necessary capacity to protect the temple as well. Otherwise, if the temple is broken, the shrine inside the temple cannot remain. God will give us what we need to sustain the body. We have to accept the world, and for that God has given us a body. If we utilise the body properly and divinely, then here on earth we can work for God.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Earth’s cry meets Heaven’s smile, part 2, Aum Press, Puerto Rico, 1974
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/ech_2