Your Pursuits
Behind every pursuit is a hope for fulfilment. Pause long enough to understand that hope.
A desire is a movement of thought
A desire keeps drawing the Mind toward an object, a person or an experience. In this teaching, thoughts are its building blocks. Repeated attention forms a stream that can shape your choices for days, months or years.
Vedanta describes these tendencies through the idea of vasanas, the impressions that influence temperament and desire. Its account of rebirth gives those tendencies a wider philosophical setting. You can begin the inquiry with what is observable now: the desires that regularly occupy your attention.
Three familiar goals
This article groups worldly pursuits into three broad goals. They can coexist in the same life and deserve thoughtful examination.
Security and survival
Food, clothing, shelter and health support the necessities of embodied life. A sound foundation frees attention for wider responsibilities.
Comfort and enjoyment
Pleasure, entertainment, possessions and experiences add variety to life. Examine when enjoyment becomes dependency.
Good deeds and future benefit
Service, generosity and ethical conduct can be pursued for another's wellbeing, for hoped-for good fortune, or for both. Notice the intention behind your action.
Where does the happiness arise?
When you obtain what you wanted, the pressing thought of wanting may briefly settle. This teaching locates the feeling of happiness in that quieter condition of the Mind. It asks whether the object itself is the lasting source of fulfilment, or whether your relationship with desire deserves closer attention.
This is an invitation to observe your experience. Notice how quickly a new desire can arise after an old one is satisfied. Does each achievement complete the search, or simply give it a new direction?
The fourth goal
Who Banged the Big Bang! introduces a fourth pursuit: seeking the Infinite, or liberation from the assumption that fulfilment must always depend on another changing experience. The question widens from 'What should I acquire?' to 'What is the nature of the one who is seeking?'
Your responsibilities and relationships remain meaningful. A deeper inquiry can bring greater clarity to the way you meet them. Cherish or Perish strengthens the faculty that chooses your direction, while The YOU in ME, Forever… explores the quality of the bonds you form along the way.
Choose with greater awareness
List three things you are presently pursuing. For each, identify the practical need it serves, the feeling you expect from it and the cost in attention it carries.
Then choose one pursuit you can approach with more purpose and less restlessness. A life of inquiry begins inside the life you already have.
Visual explorations
Explore these illustrations at your own pace. Select an image to open a larger view.