When you close your ears to the chatter, your eyes to the flashing lights, and your mind to the world's distractions and diversions, what do you want? What are your deepest wishes and desires? What is your greatest hope?

Please, delve deep and post your thoughts. And cite your inspiration if there is one. ...I wrote my bit after thinking about the phrase "lives of quiet desperation," a phrase I misremembered as T.S. Eliott's, from "Hollow Men"...


In the end, I want to have lived a great life. I am not interested in the safety of quiet desperation. I want to soar. Not just above the mundane, but to the place at the edge of the universe where stars are born. I want to breathe air from the beginning of time, to inhale love's infinity. And yes, I will risk annihilation to feed my hunger.

My greed is not the greed of ordinary hollow men. Greedy men fear their own mortality. They try to wall out death by building barricades of material comfort, insulating themselves with social pretense and cultural vacuity, isolating themselves from the stuff of life. Of course they know such safety is deficient and unreliable, neither complete nor immortal. Hence the desperation. But the drive to immortality reigns imperative, albeit misdirected.

Me, I do not fear such death. I know death is required for rebirth, that rebirth is fundamental to a great life. That a great life is a stepping stone to conscious immortality. Like Siddhartha, I will embrace death and reincarnation here and now, over and over, until I get it right. And if I don't, at least I will have tried.

...Looks like my path really is that of the contemplative. Whether I have chosen it or it has chosen me, no matter. I am happy enough alone in my own body. But contemplation neither precludes physical love nor mandates celibacy. So the question is: Am I meant to stay alone in this life, breathing only my own breath, waiting for the final oneness of divine singularity? Or will I taste the promise better on my tongue before I die?


*****

I thought the "lives of quiet desperation" phrase came from Eliott's "Hollow Men." Wrong. Turns out it's a Thoreau quote.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

- Henry David Thoreau

According to Wikipedia, the above may be a common misquote; Thoreau's actual words in Walden are:

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

- Walden (1854)

But Eliott's "Hollow Men" is good too.

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

-TS Eliott

-sofi

When I close my eyes and quiet my mind, I do it expecting nothing. I want nothing from the experience and therefore I can never disappointed.

When I want nothing and the whispering stops, a feeling begins to fill my body. It is an energy that flows from the deepest core of my being. I am enveloped in what can only be described as love. Some people call it God, the creative force of the universe, divine energy, I call it love.

My body feels like it is wrapped in a blanket of warmth and I become lighter than air. I know that the deepest part of me is love. All the suffering, pain, and madness are just products of an overactive mind. Thinking too much. The very deepest part of me when all is quiet is love, and in knowing that, fear is conquered. There is nothing to find, nothing to seek, it was with me all along.

'No-thing' is what I want.

Well, I guess I should explain a bit in order not to make this post one-liner. I have understood that looking for something - which is wanting - is desire; desire always causes suffering whilst it may cause brief moments of joy.

If I want nothing, nothing will cause me pain. If I allow myself a little desire, that would be understanding - but the sheer unexplainability of reality makes it somewhat bold request and it causes suffering to notice that I know absolutely nothing.

-v

[edit on 27-10-2009 by v01i0]

Originally posted by bringthelight
When I close my eyes and quiet my mind, I do it expecting nothing.

The very deepest part of me when all is quiet is love, and in knowing that, fear is conquered. There is nothing to find, nothing to seek, it was with me all along.

Uh huh.

But can you live there, moment to moment, day to day? If so, who feeds you?

If not, how does your meditation inform and affect your day to day life? How does it translate?

Thanks,
sofi

I do not want, there is no me. I am neither here nor there, my ego has joined the whole, leaving whats left as a facilitator in aiding the grand process which we are.


But if I was reeeaaaaally pressed for it, I've always wanted a Million Dollars, ... oh and a sasquatch costume.

Originally posted by v01i0
I have understood that looking for something - which is wanting - is desire; desire always causes suffering whilst it may cause brief moments of joy.

What's wrong with joy?

If I want nothing, nothing will cause me pain.

What's wrong with pain?

... it causes suffering to notice that I know absolutely nothing.

What's wrong with suffering?

.....What's wrong with feeling?


Thanks,
sofi

Hi sofi It's good to see you.

When I close my eyes and ears and go inside, what I want is to experience love every day.

In the end, I don't care how much I've accomplished or what I have acquired. I don't want for things. If I have loved every day and lived in the moment as much as I can, I will be content. I don't care how I will be remembered or how many will attend my wake, but I will have died happy, knowing that I did all I could to show love and accept love.

I want to see the world with one gender, so that peopel like me, can live there lifes. Maybe and i think its a strong possibility that it will happen one day.

Thats all i hope for, for the rest of my life.

Proof that what I believe to be the truth, is.

Thanks for posting bringthelight, v01i0, andy1033, didact, and BH - hi back, it's good to see YOU too! [Always enjoy your gentle ways.]

Here's a bit more of my thinking...

Buddhism teaches that desire leads to suffering, mainly from frustrated desire aka expectations. So the way to avoid suffering is to lose desire. Of course, Buddhism also acknowledges the polarity of existence - that without joy, or the expectation of joy, there is no pain - and vice versa.

Sufi's like Idries Shah teach that there are a myriad of paths to the same place, and might advise the seeker to embrace life, all of it - the pain, the joy, the sadness, the desperation.

Joseph Campbell and Deepak Chopra say to follow your bliss - which in the Buddhist framework, by definition includes pain.


On the nature of bliss.

The question...

“You get to choose to live a boring, average, fun, exciting, blissful, giving and/or magnificent life. What do you choose?”
- Lorrin L. Lee

The promise...

“If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track, which has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living”
- Joseph Campbell

“Follow your heart and you will find your bliss filled with passion.”
- Lorrin L. Lee

“When you follow your bliss... doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors; and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else.”
- Joseph Campbell

The conditions...

“Only with the truth there is the beginning of a different kind of life ~ of Joy, of Bliss, of Dance. Then your whole being is full of Songs”
- Osho

The Imperative...

“Nothing is more important than reconnecting with your bliss. Nothing is as rich. Nothing is more real.”
- Deepak Chopra

The warning...

“Who falls from all he knows of bliss, Cares little into what abyss”
- Lord Byron

And on another note...

“It amazes me that organs that piss/ Can give human beings such perfect bliss.”
- Irving Layton

sp!



[edit on 29-10-2009 by soficrow]

Originally posted by IntastellaBurst

But if I was reeeaaaaally pressed for it, I've always wanted a Million Dollars, ... oh and a sasquatch costume.

Missed this one.

The one main thing that I want at this point in time is to be able to live a sustainable and balanced life. Aside (but not separate) from that, I want to love and be loved every day. These two, in my mind, are somewhat one in the same. I believe that if we all worked to support our life and our families instead of working to support the corporate world, we would be much more peaceful and loving. I believe that working for these reasons gives a person a bigger and fuller sense of purpose. Of course, there is generally purpose outside of supporting your family, but it really encompasses a whole lot of what I believe life is about. With the way things are right now, it can be difficult to actually share. Those in need have to rely on those who have, and we have discrepancies which undoubtedly cause stress for all parties involved. If we were all on the same level and sharing as a family, or even as a community, I can only see how things would improve. I know that type of living is not for everyone, but this is what I envision. There are countless other benefits that I can see in this type of living, and I could go on forever about it. There are, of course cons - particularly in the actual process of becoming sustainable - but as always, you have to measure the pros against the cons and vice versa.

Anyway, before I start getting off topic, this is what I see; a very peaceful and fulfilling life. And I aim to have it!

i want ..
to not keep wanting...
it only causes dis-ease with the self
ps

When I close my eyes, I think about Grey Aliens and Earth. I wonder where humans came from and why are humans on Earth.

Originally posted by soficrow
When you close your ears to the chatter, your eyes to the flashing lights, and your mind to the world's distractions and diversions, what do you want? What are your deepest wishes and desires? What is your greatest hope?

I'm looking for truth. Truth in my existence and a sense of what reality is.

I'm looking for purpose, for a reason to think that not everything is so dichotomous.

It seems kind of bland but in my world, there has been a decided difference in how people react to each other and how they construct their behaviour around me. I am looking for those who may never have anticipated for me to be aware of their existence. I am looking for those who are able to step away from their preconceptions and look at people without projecting their base interpretations onto other people. I am looking for productive conversation and for those who want to take the discussion to the next level...rather than get lost in the satisfaction of expressing their perspective and sufficing themselves with the same old expressions but differently worded.

Ultimately, what I wish to have result from this is what everyone wants. A social circle that is comfortable and that builds off of each other. I am looking for that person whom (I feel cliche expressing this) wants to spend their time with me...who I want to spend my time with.

But I can't do that without the truth. I suppose I can relate to your expression, soficrow -

In the end, I want to have lived a great life. I am not interested in the safety of quiet desperation. I want to soar. Not just above the mundane, but to the place at the edge of the universe where stars are born. I want to breathe air from the beginning of time, to inhale love's infinity. And yes, I will risk annihilation to feed my hunger.

Though I am currently not as poetic as the above...I want to look back on my life and know that I made the most from what was available to me...that I was able to contribute in some way to something bigger than myself.

But first things first...and that is the truth...the truth that is not subjective, that can't be denied and I want that to be okay...to those who keep the truth away.

I hope any of that makes sense...