Is this desire?

I love this sentence by the anonymous fourteenth-century English mystic who wrote The Cloud of Unknowing: “It is not what you are nor what you have been that God looks at with his merciful eyes, but what you desire to be.”

So don’t seek to become free of desire or “achieve” enlightenment. Become present. Be there as the observer of the mind.

But you won’t exhaust desires by searching; you will exhaust them by experiencing that which underlies them.

We must learn to be big in a way we’ve never been big—we must claim our right to take up space, to say our words, to claim our desires. We must also learn to be small in a way we’ve never been small—to be in service, led not by our egos or by our desire for material goods or by our fears and aversions, but by our desire to be liberated from these t

Strength reflects a strong, conscious container that embraces all parts of self. We are each intimately linked to our desires and feelings, which are not something to ignore or battle. Working with rather than against our self grants us the energy to clear out old wounds to reveal hidden limitations.

Desire as an Obstacle There is often a lack of understanding of the function of wanting and desire. The main illusion is seen in the statement, “The only way that I’ll get what I want is by desiring it; if I let go of my desire, then I won’t get what I want.” Actually, the opposite is true. Desire, especially strong desire (e.g., cravingness), freq