Desire—A Metaphysical Evil

Desire—A Metaphysical Evil

As students of Yoga interested in the true welfare of our souls, we must be able to know
what has really happened to us. We should not be wool-gathering, we should not be in a fool’s
paradise even in the name of religion or spirituality. Any kind of outward ritualistic movement
of our personalities, even in the name of religion, is not going to save us, in the end, because this
evil called desire is a metaphysical evil. It is not a social evil, it is not a physical evil. It is a
metaphysical evil, as the philosophers call it. It is a cosmic catastrophe, and therefore, it requires
all the analytical capacity that we are capable of to know what has happened to us, and know how
we can gradually wean ourselves away from this impulse that is dragging us out from ourselves
in the direction of the objects of sense. This weaning oneself away from objects is done very
gradually. The fulfilment of desires is not condemned in the religion of India especially, though
it is well known that desires have to be completely extirpated one day or the other; because, they
are bondages which tether the soul to the body and its physical associations. The great system of
social living and personal living inculcated in India, and accepted by other great philosophers in
other countries also, is known as the Varnashrama system, a highly scientific analysis of the
human situation and the desires of man and the needs of man at different times. We have various
kinds of needs, though all needs may be called desires, and all desires may be called undesirable
things in the end. Yet, when they are there as realities to the senses and the mind, and not lesser
realities than our own bodies and our personalities, we have to tackle them with great caution.
We have to interpret them as realistically as we interpret our own selves. The objects are as real
as ourselves and as unreal as ourselves. To the extent that we are real, the things connected with
us are also real. And to the extent that we are unreal, to the same extent, they are also unreal.
The subject and the object evolve simultaneously. The evolution is not just individualistic and
subjective. So, this system of Varnashrama is a systematic procedure to adjust ourselves and
adapt ourselves to the circumstances of life, horizontally in society, and vertically in our own

personality. The horizontal adjustment is the Varna and the vertical adjustment is the Ashrama.
We have to be complete in society, in our relationships with people, and we have to be complete
in our own selves by a suitable harmonious alignment of the various layers of our personality.
Such an adjustment is very effectively brought about by following the great canons of the Varna
and the Ashrama.