Craving Fulfilled Quotes

As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth. Today, I know, this is “AUTHENTICITY”. As I began to love myself I understood how much it can offend somebody if I try to force my desires on this person, even though I knew the time was not right and the person was not ready for it, and even though this person was me. Today I call it “RESPECT”. As I began to love myself I stopped craving for a different life, and I could see that everything that surrounded me was inviting me to grow. Today I call it “MATURITY”. As I began to love myself I understood that at any circumstance, I am in the right place at the right time, and everything happens at the exactly right moment. So I could be calm. Today I call it “SELF-CONFIDENCE”. As I began to love myself I quit stealing my own time, and I stopped designing huge projects for the future. Today, I only do what brings me joy and happiness, things I love to do and that make my heart cheer, and I do them in my own way and in my own rhythm. Today I call it “SIMPLICITY”. As I began to love myself I freed myself of anything that is no good for my health – food, people, things, situations, and everything that drew me down and away from myself. At first I called this attitude a healthy egoism. Today I know it is “LOVE OF ONESELF”. As I began to love myself I quit trying to always be right, and ever since I was wrong less of the time. Today I discovered that is “MODESTY”. As I began to love myself I refused to go on living in the past and worrying about the future. Now, I only live for the moment, where everything is happening. Today I live each day, day by day, and I call it “FULFILLMENT”. As I began to love myself I recognized that my mind can disturb me and it can make me sick. But as I connected it to my heart, my mind became a valuable ally. Today I call this connection “WISDOM OF THE HEART”. We no longer need to fear arguments, confrontations or any kind of problems with ourselves or others. Even stars collide, and out of their crashing new worlds are born. Today I know “THAT IS LIFE”!

If you crave something, I’ll be the one to give it to you. All of your needs, Eva, are mine to fulfill. Whatever it costs me.

He tastes like my deepest craving fulfilled.

I had learnt the satisfaction which comes from hardship and the pleasure which derives from abstinence; the contentment of a full belly; the richness of meat; the taste of clean water; the ecstasy of surrender when the craving of sleep becomes a torment; the warmth of a fire in the chill of dawn.

To be free, above all, was to be free from enslavement to one’s own basest desires, which could never be fulfilled, and the pursuit of which could only foster ceaseless craving and discontent.

He tastes like champagne. He tastes like desire. He tastes like my deepest craving fulfilled.

You have to give to receive. You have to surrender to something outside yourself to gain strength within yourself. You have to conquer your desire to get what you crave. Success leads to the greatest failure, which is pride. Failure leads to the greatest success, which is humility and learning. In order to fulfill yourself, you have to forget yourself. In order to find yourself, you have to lose yourself.

To be unique calls for being unique in such a way that your uniqueness doesn't make others appear inferior, and a uniqueness that doesn't crave for anything apart from your own thing.

Happiness is simply the absence of desire. When you observe a cue, but do not desire to change your state, you are content with the current situation. Happiness is not about the achievement of pleasure (which is joy or satisfaction), but about the lack of desire. It arrives when you have no urge to feel differently. Happiness is the state you enter when you no longer want to change your state. However, happiness is fleeting because a new desire always comes along. As Caed Budris says, “Happiness is the space between one desire being fulfilled and a new desire forming." Likewise, suffering is the space between craving a change in state and getting it.

I write because there is nothing as joyful as writing, even when the writing is twisted and full of hate, the self-hate that makes writing not only possible but necessary. I hate myself, I hate the people around me, but what I crave is the fulfillment of some ideal.

So the saying is true? Money doesn’t buy happiness?” “When you’re poor, you have things to reach for. Goals that excite you. Maybe it’s a dream house or a vacation or even a meal at a restaurant on a Friday night. But the more money you have, the harder it is to find things to be excited about. You already have your dream house. You can go anywhere in the world anytime you want to. You could hire a private chef to make you every food you ever crave. People who aren’t rich think all those things are fulfilling, but they aren’t. You can fill your life with nice things, but nice things don’t fill the holes in your soul.

The more Christ fulfills the cravings of our souls, the more he changes our taste capacities from the inside out. The more we walk with him, the more we want him. The more we taste of him, the more we enjoy him. And this transforms how we live and what we live for.

One reads the truer deeper facts of Reconstruction with a great despair. It is at once so simple and human, and yet so futile. There is no villain, no idiot, no saint. There are just men; men who crave ease and power, men who know want and hunger, men who have crawled. They all dream and strive with ecstasy of fear and strain of effort, balked of hope and hate. Yet the rich world is wide enough for all, wants all, needs all. So slight a gesture, a word, might set the strife in order, not with full content, but with growing dawn of fulfillment. Instead roars the crash of hell...

The view is endlessly fulfilling. It is like the answer to a lifetime of questions and vague cravings.

My first lesson on nature of love was that in a moment it could fulfill the cravings of a lifetime, like a light that someone might shine into a cavern that has been dark for a million years.

We’re hungry for acceptance—from ourselves even more than from others—for love, for fulfillment, for peace. We’re hungry for a life we think we don’t deserve or can’t have, for the person we know we can be if only we’d give ourselves the chance.

But it is not emancipation that the great majority seeks. When pressed, most men will admit that it takes but little to be happy. (Not that they practice this wisdom!) Man craves happiness here on earth, not fulfillment, not emancipation. Are they utterly deluded, then, in seeking happiness? No, happiness is desirable, but it is a by-product, the result of a way of life, not a goal which is forever beyond one's grasp. Happiness is achieved en route. And if it be ephemeral, as most men believe, it can also give way, not to anxiety of despair, but to a joyousness which is serene and lasting. To make happiness the goal is to kill it in advance. If one must have a goal, which is questionable, why not self-realization? The unique and healing quality in this attitude toward life is that in the process goal and seeker become one.

There is a deep and natural craving in the human heart that can be satisfied nowhere except in God. Our being in this world is a test, a preparation for the deepest state of spiritual communion. But most of us, suppressing our deepest longings and disdaining God, seek satisfaction from this world. Such a path can lead only to despair.

In his book In This Very Life, the Burmese meditation teacher Sayadaw U Pandita, wrote, "In their quest for happiness, people mistake excitement of the mind for real happiness." We get excited when we hear good news, start a new relationship, or ride a roller coaster. Somewhere in human history, we were conditioned to think that the feeling we get when dopamine fires in our brain equals happiness. Don't forget, this was probably set up so that we would remember where food could be found, not to give us the feeling "you are now fulfilled." To be sure, defining happiness is a tricky business, and very subjective. Scientific definitions of happiness continue to be controversial and hotly debated. The emotion doesn't seem to be something that fits into a survival-of-the-fittest learning algorithm. But we can be reasonably sure that the anticipation of a reward isn't happiness.

He eased himself into her mind slowly so he didn’t jar her awake. He held her in her dreamless state, the sensations of his primal cravings chaining her under. With his delicious promises of fulfillment, he drew on her urges and pinned them out to bear, bringing her to the brink without so much as a touch.

Our poor human heart is flawed: it is like a cake without the frosting: the first two acts of the theatre without the climax. Even its design is marred for a small piece is missing out of the side. That is why it remains so unsatisfied: it wants life and it gets death: it wants Truth and it has to settle for an education; it craves love and gets only intermittent euphoria’s with satieties. Samples, reflections and fractions are only tastes, not mouthfuls. A divine trick has been played on the human heart as if a violin teacher gave his pupil an instrument with one string missing. God kept a part of man's heart in Heaven, so that discontent would drive him back again to Him Who is Eternal Life, All-Knowing Truth and the Abiding Ecstasy of Love.

Whether we are feasting or fasting or somewhere in between, food should have a sacred role in our lives. It can be something we sacrifice, something we savor, something we share, and through it all we can remain fulfilled because we are grounded in God, the only One who can satisfy our hungry hearts.

Only by emptying ourselves out before God will we find fullness within ourselves.

This was my first lesson on the nature of love: that in a moment it could fulfil the cravings of a lifetime, like a light that someone might shine into a cavern that has been dark for a million years.

We are a generation of lovers who long to be loved. We spend exorbitant amounts of money to compel others to delight in us. We construct our ideal life on Facebook because we are unsatisfied with our real life, which is tainted with boredom, loneliness, insecurity, and a lack of friends and followers . We do not enjoy the person God created us to be or the life God has gifted us with. We think we are overweight, underweight, too pale, too dark, too plain, or just plain boring. Yet we crave to be delighted in by a significant other. So we pursue misguided avenues to make ourselves delightful, to satisfy our craving to be loved. Charis: God's Scandalous Grace for Us (pp. 118-119).

happiness is not fulfilling every pleasure or getting every outcome you desire. happiness is being able to enjoy life with a peaceful mind that is not constantly craving more. it is the inner peace that comes with embracing change.

It is therefore inevitable that we should seek compensation for the loss of life in the world of fiction, in literature, and in the theater. There we still find people who know how to die, who are even quite capable of killing others. There alone the condition for reconciling ourselves to death is fulfilled, namely, if beneath all the vicissitudes of life a permanent life still remains to us. It is really too sad that it may happen in life as in chess, where a false move can force us to lose the game, but with this difference, that we cannot begin a return match. In the realm of fiction we find the many lives in one for which we crave. We die in identification with a certain hero and yet we outlive him and, quite unharmed, are prepared to die again with the next hero.

Among this bewildering multiplicity of ideals which shall we choose? The answer is that we shall choose none. For it is clear that each one of these contradictory ideals is the fruit of particular social circumstances. To some extent, of course, this is true of every thought and aspiration that has ever been formulated. Some thoughts and aspirations, however, are manifestly less dependent on particular social circumstances than others. And here a significant fact emerges: all the ideals of human behaviour formulated by those who have been most successful in freeing themselves from the prejudices of their time and place are singularly alike. Liberation from prevailing conventions of thought, feeling and behaviour is accomplished most effectively by the practice of disinterested virtues and through direct insight into the real nature of ultimate reality. (Such insight is a gift, inherent in the individual; but, though inherent, it cannot manifest itself completely except where certain conditions are fulfilled. The principal pre-condition of insight is, precisely, the practice of disinterested virtues.) To some extent critical intellect is also a liberating force. But the way in which intellect is used depends upon the will. Where the will is not disinterested, the intellect tends to be used (outside the non-human fields of technology, science or pure mathematics) merely as an instrument for the rationalization of passion and prejudice, the justification of self-interest. That is why so few even of die acutest philosophers have succeeded in liberating themselves completely from the narrow prison of their age and country. It is seldom indeed that they achieve as much freedom as the mystics and the founders of religion. The most nearly free men have always been those who combined virtue with insight. Now, among these freest of human beings there has been, for the last eighty or ninety generations, substantial agreement in regard to the ideal individual. The enslaved have held up for admiration now this model of a man, now that; but at all times and in all places, the free have spoken with only one voice. It is difficult to find a single word that will adequately describe the ideal man of the free philosophers, the mystics, the founders of religions. 'Non-attached* is perhaps the best. The ideal man is the non-attached man. Non-attached to his bodily sensations and lusts. Non-attached to his craving for power and possessions. Non-attached to the objects of these various desires. Non-attached to his anger and hatred; non-attached to his exclusive loves. Non-attached to wealth, fame, social position. Non-attached even to science, art, speculation, philanthropy. Yes, non-attached even to these. For, like patriotism, in Nurse Cavel's phrase, 'they are not enough, Non-attachment to self and to what are called 'the things of this world' has always been associated in the teachings of the philosophers and the founders of religions with attachment to an ultimate reality greater and more significant than the self. Greater and more significant than even the best things that this world has to offer. Of the nature of this ultimate reality I shall speak in the last chapters of this book. All that I need do in this place is to point out that the ethic of non-attachment has always been correlated with cosmologies that affirm the existence of a spiritual reality underlying the phenomenal world and imparting to it whatever value or significance it possesses.

Is it possible nevertheless that our consumer culture does make good on its promises, or could do so? Might these, if fulfilled, lead to a more satisfying life? When I put the question to renowned psychologist Tim Krasser, professor emeritus of psychology at Knox College, his response was unequivocal. "Research consistently shows," he told me, "that the more people value materialistic aspirations as goals, the lower their happiness and life satisfaction and the fewer pleasant emotions they experience day to day. Depression, anxiety, and substance abuse also tend to be higher among people who value the aims encouraged by consumer society." He points to four central principles of what he calls ACC — American corporate capitalism: it "fosters and encourages a set of values based on self-interest, a strong desire for financial success, high levels of consumption, and interpersonal styles based on competition." There is a seesaw oscillation, Tim found, between materialistic concerns on the one hand and prosocial values like empathy, generosity, and cooperation on the other: the more the former are elevated, the lower the latter descend. For example, when people strongly endorse money, image, and status as prime concerns, they are less likely to engage in ecologically beneficial activities and the emptier and more insecure they will experience themselves to be. They will have also lower-quality interpersonal relationships. In turn, the more insecure people feel, the more they focus on material things. As materialism promises satisfaction but, instead, yields hollow dissatisfaction, it creates more craving. This massive and self-perpetuating addictive spiral is one of the mechanisms by which consumer society preserves itself by exploiting the very insecurities it generates. Disconnection in all its guises — alienation, loneliness, loss of meaning, and dislocation — is becoming our culture's most plentiful product. No wonder we are more addicted, chronically ill, and mentally disordered than ever before, enfeebled as we are by such malnourishment of mind, body and soul.

Desire is a mighty force, one of your most divine attributes! Whatsoever things ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye have received them and ye shall have them! See the Godlike quality of desire. For it is part of the Atomic energy of the soul. The Kingdom of Heaven within you is operated through desire. Do not quench it or crush it or suppress it. Rather offer it to Me. Offer Me your most elementary desires, your craving for happiness, for love, for self-expression, for well-being, for success, for joy, on any level of your being-offer these freely and without shame to Me and I will transmute them so that you shall achieve release and fulfillment and complete freedom from frustration.2

Every man has his tastes," Sebastian said sensibly. "I doubt yours are all that shocking." "What your generation considered shocking is probably different from mine." There was a short, offended silence. When Sebastian replied, his voice was as dry as tinder. "Ancient and decrepit fossil that I am, I believe the ruins of my senile brain can somehow manage to grasp what you're trying to convey. You've indulged in wanton carnal excess for so long that you're disillusioned. The trifles that excite other men leave you indifferent. No virgin's pallid charms could ever hope to compete with the subversive talents of your mistress." Gabriel glanced up in surprise. His father looked sardonic. "I assure you, my lad, sexual debauchery was invented long before your generation. The libertines of my grandfather's time committed acts that would make a satyr blush. Men of our lineage are born craving more pleasure than is good for us. Obviously I was no saint before I married, and God knows I never expected to find fulfillment in the arms of one woman for a lifetime. But I have. Which means there's no reason you can't." "If you say so." "I do say so.

The reason why sensuality is so rare in our day and age is because it’s a very expensive experience to create. Lap dance is easy (you can take a class for that), blaw job is easy (I assume ‘lol’), sex is easy (it’s biology). The hardest thing to do is create and fulfill dreams of ecstasy. And this is really what it’s all about. This is what the world craves more than anything else.

They were a part of her own emotions; a part of her longing for simplicity and peace, a part of her curious craving for the normal. And although at this time Stephen did not know it, their happiness had sprung from her moments of joy; their sorrows from the sorrow she had known and still knew; their frustrations from her own bitter emptiness; their fulfillments from her longing to be fulfilled. These people had drawn life and strength from their creator. Like infants they had sucked at her breasts of inspiration, and drawn from them blood, waxing wonderfully strong; demanding, compelling thereby recognition. For surely thus only are fine books written, they must somehow partake of the miracle of blood--the strange and terrible miracle of blood, the giver of life, the purifier, the great final expiation.

An eternally favorite deadly sin, lust fascinates through experience: our appetites and passions of sight, sound, taste, touch, and scent. We anticipate what it might be like to fulfill a craving, and that anticipation pulls us closer. As early as the sixth century AD, lust emerged as public enemy number one for Christians. And not without reason. Overcoming desire is no easy task. Buddhism presents the overcoming of desire as an ideal.

Children of narcissists learn their feelings don’t matter to the narcissistic parent. The child carries an ever-present sense that he must bury his own ideas about the world, his own self, and do the thing required of him to please the narcissist, to receive the impossible-to-reach love and approval he craves. In short he doesn’t really know himself because he spends his life seeking to fulfill the fantasy world of the narcissistic parent.

The right kind of educator, seeing the inward nature of freedom, helps each individual student to observe and understand his own self-projected values and impositions; he helps him to become aware of the conditioning influences about him, and of his own desires, both of which limit his mind and breed fear; he helps him, as he grows to manhood, to observe and understand himself in relation to all things, for it is the craving for self-fulfilment that brings endless conflict and sorrow.

Sometimes, she wondered if what she craved even existed. A man who was strong inside and out. A man who knew the world wasn’t fair, and knew he had to take responsibility for his part in it. A man who knew there was more to sex than simply the act and that there was more to a woman than breasts and thighs and what lay beyond. A man who accepted the fact that a woman might need adventure as well. That was what she craved. A man she could trust enough not just to give in to her desires with, but to accept her need to live. A man who, even if he wasn’t there forever, was at least there long enough to care about fulfilling not just the physical desires, but the adventurous ones as well.

As long as the egoic mind is running your life, you cannot truly be at ease; you cannot be at peace or fulfilled except for brief intervals when you obtained what you wanted, when a craving has just been fulfilled. Since the ego is a derived sense of self, it needs to identify with external things. It needs to be both defended and fed constantly. The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and edu-cation, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalis-tic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.

The seeking of a lover to embody these words; the pining for a love that will be unconditional; the search for a union that is absolute; the sense that our partners should give us what we were given--or what we believe we should have been given--by our parents; the craving for reassurance--tell me I’m special, tell me I’m beautiful, tell me I’m smart, tell me I’m successful, tell me you love me, tell me it’s forever, no matter what, till death do us part--these were scarcely more than a child’s cries. Yet most us could not bear to give up on these longings. Most of us could not stand to relinquish the yearning for someone to be our fulfillment, our affirmation, because to turn away from such hope would be to acknowledge that we are, inescapably, navigating our lives alone, supported by love if we are lucky but, finally, on our own. pp. 144-45.

The past folds accordion-like into the present. Different media have different event horizons—for the written word, three millennia; for recorded sound, a century and a half—and within their time frames the old becomes as accessible as the new. Yellowed newspapers come back to life. Under headings of 50 Years Ago and 100 Years Ago, veteran publications recycle their archives: recipes, card-play techniques, science, gossip, once out of print and now ready for use. Record companies rummage through their attics to release, or re-release, every scrap of music, rarities, B-sides, and bootlegs. For a certain time, collectors, scholars, or fans possessed their books and their records. There was a line between what they had and what they did not. For some, the music they owned (or the books, or the videos) became part of who they were. That line fades away. Most of Sophocles' plays are lost, but those that survive are available at the touch of a button. Most of Bach's music was unknown to Beethoven; we have it all—partitas, cantatas, and ringtones. It comes to us instantly, or at light speed. It is a symptom of omniscience. It is what the critic Alex Ross calls the Infinite Playlist, and he sees how mixed is the blessing: "anxiety in place of fulfillment, and addictive cycle of craving and malaise. No sooner has one experience begun than the thought of what else is out there intrudes." The embarrassment of riches. Another reminder that information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom.

He leaned back on his hands. And then idly turned to her. She inhaled, and exhaled an almost long-suffering sigh. And he began in a patient, almost leisurely fashion, in a voice fashioned from dark velvet, a voice that stroked over her senses until they were lulled, to lecture directly to her as if she was a girl in the schoolroom. "A proper kiss, Miss Eversea, should turn you inside out. It should... touch places in you that you didn't know existed, set them ablaze, until your entire being is hungry and wild. It should... hold a moment, I want to explain this as clearly as possible..." He tipped his head back and paused to consider, as though he were envisioning this and wanted to relate every detail correctly. "It should slice right down through you like a cutlass with a pleasure so devastating it's very nearly pain." He waited, watching her face, allowing her to accommodate the potent words. Her mouth was parted. Her breathing short. She couldn't look away. His eyes and voice held her as fast as if he'd cradled her face with his hands. And as he said them, an echo of sensation sounded in her, like a remembered dream, an instinct awakened. She thought about Mars getting ready to give Venus a good pleasuring. Stop, she should say. "And...?" she whispered. "It should make you do battle for control of your senses and your will. It should make you want to do things you'd never dreamed you'd want to do, and in that moment all of those things will make perfect sense. And it should herald, or at least promise, the most intense physical pleasure you've ever known, regardless of whether that promise is ever, ever fulfilled. It should, in fact..." he paused for effect "haunt you for the rest of your life." She sat wordlessly when he was done. As though waiting for the last notes of a stormy, discordant symphony to echo into silence. 'The most intense physical pleasure.' His words reverberated in her. As if her body contained the ancient wisdom of what that meant, and now, having been reminded, craved it.

He tastes like my deepest craving fulfilled.

Soloveitchik argued that we live in the contradiction between these two Adams. The outer, majestic Adam and the inner, humble Adam are not fully reconcilable. We are forever caught in self-confrontation. We are called to fulfill both personae, and must master the art of living forever within the tension between these two natures. The hard part of this confrontation, I’d add, is that Adams I and II live by different logics. Adam I—the creating, building, and discovering Adam—lives by a straightforward utilitarian logic. It’s the logic of economics. Input leads to output. Effort leads to reward. Practice makes perfect. Pursue self-interest. Maximize your utility. Impress the world. Adam II lives by an inverse logic. It’s a moral logic, not an economic one. You have to give to receive. You have to surrender to something outside yourself to gain strength within yourself. You have to conquer your desire to get what you crave. Success leads to the greatest failure, which is pride. Failure leads to the greatest success, which is humility and learning. In order to fulfill yourself, you have to forget yourself. In order to find yourself, you have to lose yourself. To nurture your Adam I career, it makes sense to cultivate your strengths. To nurture your Adam II moral core, it is necessary to confront your weaknesses.

By His grace and for His glory, when we opened up our hearts to Jesus, God placed us—weak and foolish that we are—in Christ. And because Christ fulfilled the “ifs,” we get the “thens,” leaving us nothing to do but say, “Yea and Amen!” If that sounds too good to be true, think of it this way.… Suppose I’m in Switzerland and I begin to crave a hamburger, fries, and a shake. The two dollars I have in my pocket will buy just that at Hot and Now Burgers in Medford, Oregon. Therefore, if I can get to Medford, then I will have a burger, fries, and a shake. So I call the airport and say, “Can you give me directions to Medford?” “What is your mode of transportation?” the official asks.

Vincent, what is happening to me?” His blue eyes were an ocean of mixed emotions. One of them was pity. “You’re Changing.” “Changing? What do you—” Lydia broke off as a new ache roared through her stomach. An alien hunger tormented her like the fires of hell. It felt as though she hadn’t eaten in days. Her mouth filled with saliva as she craved fulfillment. Footsteps

Responding to cravings and aversions leads to negative emotions This is the most fundamental principle underpinning our existence. As soon as we decide to fulfill some desire (either to want something or to try and get rid of something), we get fixated on wanting to see things happen a certain (our) way. In order to do that, we generate some emotion that is rooted in an expectation to achieve a certain outcome. As an example, even to swat a fly or mosquito

March 11 Of course you haven’t been fulfilled in this world. It’s a sign that you have been designed for a world to come. It is an item on each of our theological outlines, but we don’t actually live as though we believe it. We all say that we believe that this is not all there is. We say we really do believe that there is life after this one ends. Our formal theology contains the fact of a new heaven and a new earth to come. But we tend to live with the anxiety and drivenness that come when we believe that all we have is this moment. Here’s the real-life, street-level issue: if you don’t keep the eyes of your heart focused on the paradise that is to come, you will try to turn this poor fallen world into the paradise it will never be. In the heart of every living person is the longing for paradise. The cry of a toddler who has just fallen down is a cry for paradise. The tears of the school-age child who has been rejected on the playground are tears of one reaching out for paradise. The pain of aloneness that a person without friends or family feels is the pain of one longing for paradise. The hurt the couple feels as their marriage dissolves is the hurt of those crying out for paradise. The sadness that the old man feels as his body weakens is the sadness of one who longs for paradise. We all have this longing, even when we are not aware of it, because it was placed there by our Creator. He has placed eternity in each one of our hearts (Eccl. 3:11). Our cries are more than cries of pain; they are also cries of longing for more and better than we will ever experience in this fallen world. When you forget this, you work very hard to try to turn this moment into the paradise it will never be. Your marriage will not be a paradise. Your job will not be the paradise you long for. Your friendships will not be the paradise your heart craves. The world around you will not function like paradise. Your children will not deliver paradise to you. Even your church will not live up to the standard of paradise. If you’re God’s child, paradise has been guaranteed for you, but it will not be right here, right now. All the things that disappoint you now are to remind you that this is not all there is and to cause you to long for the paradise that is to come. The dreams that die remind you that this is not paradise. The flowers that wilt remind you that this is not paradise. The sin that captivates you should remind you that this is not paradise. The diseases that infect you are to remind you that this is not paradise. Live in hope because paradise is surely coming, and stop asking this fallen world to be the paradise it will never be.

Our bodies have been created not only by God but also for God..We are driven today by whatever can bring our bodies the most pleasure. What can we eat, touch, watch, do listen to, or engage in to satisfy the cravings of our bodies?..in his love, gives us boundaries for our bodies: he loves us and knows what is best for us..[there are] clear and critical distinctions between different types of laws in Leviticus. Some of the laws are civil in nature, and they specifically pertain to the government of ancient Israel..Other laws are ceremonial..However, various moral laws..are explicitly reiterated in the New Testament..Jesus himself teaches that the only God-honoring alternative to marriage between a man and a woman is singleness..the Bible also prohibits all sexual looking and thinking outside of marriage between a husband and a wife..it is sinful even to look at someone who is not your husband or wife and entertain sexual thoughts about that person..it is also wrong to provoke sexual desires in others outside of marriage..God prohibits any kind of crude speech, humor, or entertainment that remotely revolves around sexual immorality..often watch movies and shows, read books and articles, and visit Internet sites that highlight, display, promote, or make light of sexual immorality..God prohibits sexual worship-- the idolization of sex and infatuation with sexual activity as a fundamental means to personal fulfillment..Don't rationalize it, and don't reason with it-- run from it. Flee it as fast as you can..We all have a sinful tendency to turn aside from God's ways to our wants. This tendency has an inevitable effect on our sexuality..every one of us is born with a bent toward sexual sin. But just because we have that bent doesn't mean we must act upon it. We live in a culture that assumes a natural explanation implies a moral obligation. If you were born with a desire, then it's essential to your nature to carry it out. This is one reason why our contemporary discussion of sexuality is wrongly framed as an issue of civil rights..Ethnic identity is a morally neutral attribute..Sexual activity is a morally chosen behavior..our sexual behavior is a moral decision, and just because we are inclined to certain behaviors does not make such behaviors right. His disposition toward a behavior does not mean justification for that behavior. "That's the way he is" doesn't mean "that's how he should act." Adultery isn't inevitable; it's immoral. This applies to all sexual behavior that deviates from God's design..We do not always choose our temptations. But we do choose our reactions to those temptations..the assumption that God's Word is subject to human judgement..Instead of obeying what God has said, we question whether God has said it..as soon as we advocate homosexual activity, we undercut biblical authority..we are undermining the integrity of the entire gospel..We take this created gift called sex and use it to question the Creator God, who gave us the gift in the first place..[Jesus] was the most fully human, fully complete person who ever lived, and he was never married. He never indulged in any sort of sexual immorality..This was not a resurrection merely of Jesus' spirit or soul but of his body..Repentance like this doesn't mean total perfection, but it does mean a new direction..in a culture that virtually equates identity with sexuality..Naturally this becomes our perception of ourselves, and we subsequently view everything in our lives through this grid..When you turn to Christ, your entire identity is changed. You are in Christ, and Christ is in you. Your identity is no longer as a heterosexual or a homosexual, an addict or an adulterer.

All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being. As long as I am my mind, I am those cravings, those needs, wants, attachments, and aversions, and apart from them there is no “I” except as a mere possibility, an unfulfilled potential, a seed that has not yet sprouted. In that state, even my desire to become free or enlightened is just another craving for fulfillment or completion in the future. So don’t seek to become free of desire or “achieve” enlightenment. Become present. Be there as the observer of the mind. Instead of quoting the Buddha, be the Buddha, be “the awakened one,” which is what the word buddha means.

GIVE RISE TO FAITH Be fearless LEADER and Design your own LIFE." "You are divine creation of God. You crave creativity and intuitive life guided by the best mentors. You choose your inner happiness over external chaos. You choose to thrive in most chaotic life circumstances. God created you to be perfect version of yourself and the creation of affection. God is graceful and merciful. He guides your life path and destiny. You have a mission on this earth to fulfill. You aren't here to just survive and live each and every day as it will be your same day since the day you were born with. You are here to learn, grow, face failures, face successes, face extreme painful situations, face extremely happy situation full of love, light and delight. You are creative and mindful. You can educate yourself and be the best educator and successor. You are the best guide anyone can ever ask for. You can be the leader and counselor to the people who need your help. You can guide the path of people who wanted your guidance. We are courageous in ways we don't recognize we possess. We face the incidents, occurrences, events, affairs, encounters, adventures and circumstances throughout our life. Through knowledge, understanding, wisdom, sophistication and education we gain the experiences and moments of endurance and tolerance. We encounter different life challenges, daily teachings and life lessons as we grow through our life. We undertake the different phases of difficulty, resistance, struggle, victory and competition throughout our life’s journey. As we undertake the different phases of our life’s journey, we choose to behave, respond, acknowledge, appreciate and recognize situations and gain experiences according to our free will, self-determination, independence, liberty and freedom. We have freedom to choose our life experiences either positive or negative. Our success or failure depends on our positive life experiences, negative life experiences or positive and negative life experiences throughout our life. With 365 days daily teachings and life lessons you can sharpen your cognitive behavior, you can learn about how to balance your life experiences and you can gather daily inspirations throughout your life’s journey." - Aesha Shah (Give Rise To Faith)

It seems that there exists for each class of human beings, probably for each individual, a definite quantitative relation between the tendency towards individualization and the desire to be merged in the group, so that when the satisfying of one tendency is denied in a certain field of life, he seeks another, in which he then fulfills the measure which he requires. Thus it seems as though fashion were the valve through which woman's craving for some measure of conspicuousness and individual prominence finds vent, when its satisfaction is denied her in other fields.

Dopamine is not programmed to release a feeling of fulfilment even if you’ve achieved what you sought and craved: so you are never satisfied. This means I continue to google, twenty minutes after I’ve found what I was initially searching for.

I didn’t want to be a pretty bauble. I craved to be far more dangerous.” “There are few things more dangerous than a pretty bauble, as Almorante well knew. By now, I expect Tatrini does as well.” “I have fulfilled my vocation then.

The cravings of the human cannot be fulfilled, nor satisfied at one instance.

Oh, Father, how we praise You. How we thank You that You did not call us to subsistence living. We don’t have to live on the alms of others. You had more in mind for us than that. We don’t have to seek some other means of satisfaction or a substitute that never fulfills us. I pray that today we can look in our right hand and say, “This is a lie if it’s not from You.” Father, help us to loosen our grip on the things that we crave so much in life, the things that we want affirmation and approval from so desperately. Help us to release our grip on them and hang onto You instead, because Your love is better than life. In the sweetest name I know, the name of Jesus, amen. ABOUT

In her book Grit, social psychologist Angela Duckworth identifies the single quality that most marks those who succeed in life, those who feel fulfilled, from those who find life one long series of frustrations. The quality boils down to this: the understanding that your personality and character are not fixed but can be shaped and strengthened by overcoming difficult experiences. There are voices in everyone’s head that resist that fact, that tell us we will never achieve this or that, so there is no point in even trying. Again, our business was designed to help silence a few of those voices. One of the questions we asked ourselves when we created Tough Mudder was this: How do you create a culture and an authentic experience that will reliably deliver grit, a quality that people seem to crave but don’t know how to find? This craving, our grit-shaped hole, feels like a recent phenomenon. It is a by-product perhaps of our fortune in living, in the Western world at least, in largely peaceful times, when work is more likely to involve generating a PowerPoint presentation than any kind of hard labor. When—to put it in blunt evolutionary terms—millennia of hunting and gathering have been replaced by a trip to the supermarket. Ease and convenience are great in their way, but for many of us life no longer routinely presents the kind of challenges that once developed resilience—and genetically, psychologically, I believe we miss those challenges. In most other times and places those trials came hard and fast, and though we might not always have welcomed them, they allowed us to show what we were capable of, gave us a sense of purpose in ourselves, and a sense of belonging in our community.

interpersonal level? If a mind controller finds a victim who is desperately craving something in their life, usually the fulfillment of some deep emotional need, the manipulator will be able to control their mind with greater ease. If, for example, a victim has

What are you saying, Captain O’ Devir?” “Stay here with me. Sail the seas, be free of balls and teas and social visits and expectations and the course yer brother will set for ye. Choose yer own path in life.” “Stay here with you?” “Why not?” “Stop saying that?” “Saying what?” “Saying, ‘Why not!’” He shrugged. “Well, it was just an idea.” Her palms suddenly felt cold, even as her heart began to race with the thrill of possibility. “I can’t stay here with you and you know it.” “Don’t see—” he grinned—“why not.” “Ohhhh!” “Think about it. We get on well. I want ye in my bed. If ye’re honest with yerself, ye want me in yours. Makin’ love to me wouldn’t be the trial it might be with someone who was suitable but repellent. Ye’d have no obligation to produce an heir. No obligations to an ancient family or a society that ye obviously ache to escape. Ye’d be loved and treasured and cared about, never set aside once yer purpose—whatever the divil that is—is fulfilled.” “What are you saying, Captain O’ Devir?” “That I’d marry ye, if I could. Give ye that freedom ye crave.

We have to ask ourselves if we are really enjoying life or if we are simply on a roller-coaster ride of cravings, the efforts to fulfill them, and temporary satisfaction.

Sex doesn’t fulfill our deep craving for sensuality, it creates an insatiable appetite for ‘moreness’.

But the more money you have, the harder it is to find things to be excited about. You already have your dream house. You can go anywhere in the world anytime you want to. You could hire a private chef to make you every food you ever crave. People who aren’t rich think all those things are fulfill ing, but they aren’t. You can fill your life with nice things, but nice things don’t fill the holes in your soul.” “What fills the holes in a soul?” Samson’s eyes scroll over my face for a few seconds. “Pieces of someone else’s soul.

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Adam II lives by an inverse logic. It’s a moral logic, not an economic one. You have to give to receive. You have to surrender to something outside yourself to gain strength within yourself. You have to conquer your desire to get what you crave. Success leads to the greatest failure, which is pride. Failure leads to the greatest success, which is humility and learning. In order to fulfill yourself, you have to forget yourself. In order to find yourself, you have to lose yourself. To nurture your Adam I career,

When you observe a cue, but do not desire to change your state, you are content with the current situation. Happiness is not about the achievement of pleasure (which is joy or satisfaction), but about the lack of desire. It arrives when you have no urge to feel differently. Happiness is the state you enter when you no longer want to change your state. However, happiness is fleeting because a new desire always comes along. As Caed Budris says, “Happiness is the space between one desire being fulfilled and a new desire forming.” Likewise, suffering is the space between craving a change in state and getting it. It is the idea of pleasure that we chase. We seek the image of pleasure that we generate in our minds. At the time of action, we do not know what it will be like to attain that image (or even if it will satisfy us). The feeling of satisfaction only comes afterward. This is what the Austrian neurologist Victor Frankl meant when he said that happiness cannot be pursued, it must ensue. Desire is pursued. Pleasure ensues from action. Peace occurs when you don’t turn your observations into problems. The first step in any behavior is observation. You notice a cue, a bit of information, an event. If you do not desire to act on what you observe, then you are at peace. Craving is about wanting to fix everything. Observation without craving is the realization that you do not need to fix anything. Your desires are not running rampant. You do not crave a change in state. Your mind does not generate a problem for you to solve. You’re simply observing and existing. With a big enough why you can overcome any how. Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher and poet, famously wrote, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” This phrase harbors an important truth about human behavior. If your motivation and desire are great enough (that is, why you are acting), you’ll take action even when it is quite difficult. Great craving can power great action—even when friction is high. Being curious is better than being smart. Being motivated and curious counts for more than being smart because it leads to action. Being smart will never deliver results on its own because it doesn’t get you to act. It is desire, not intelligence, that prompts behavior. As Naval Ravikant says, “The trick to doing anything is first cultivating a desire for it.

The thing is, you have to understand that mastering the energetics of DESIRE is the roadmap to finding the fulfillment that your soul is craving for.

imply that loving and craving are the same thing, and that the other person is just there to fulfill our needs. We might feel we can’t survive without the other person. When we say, “Darling, I can’t live without you. I need you,” we think we’re speaking the language of love. We even feel it’s a compliment to the other person. But that need is actually a continuation of the original fear and desire that have been with us since we were small children.

As Caed Budris says, “Happiness is the space between one desire being fulfilled and a new desire forming.” Likewise, suffering is the space between craving a change in state and getting it.

Liberty, by this understanding, was not doing as one wished, but was choosing the right and virtuous course. To be free, above all, was to be free from enslavement to one’s own basest desires, which could never be fulfilled, and the pursuit of which could only foster ceaseless craving and discontent. Liberty was thus the condition achieved by self-rule, over one’s own appetites and over the longing for political dominion. The defining feature of modern thought was the rejection of this definition of liberty in favor of the one more familiar to us today. Liberty, as defined by the originators of modern liberalism, was the condition in which humans were completely free to pursue whatever they desired. This condition—fancifully conceived as a “state of nature,

Happiness is the space between one desire being fulfilled and a new desire forming.” Likewise, suffering is the space between craving a change in state and getting it.

What is the Ultimate Goal of Life? If we look around, different people have different goals. Some people just want to be rich, others crave for power, and still others seek contentment and fulfillment. If we look deeper, people pursue different things to ultimately get to Destination Happiness. 80% of the world is trying to climb the first peak of Achievement, while the rest are trying to go further towards the second peak of Fulfillment. The achiever may want to excel in sports, politics or business, amongst the various other fields that are mushrooming in the world today. The ones who are content and fulfilled are trying to escape the rat race. For them, happiness doesn’t come from achieving more, but rather from desiring less. The former, who climb the first peak of happiness, depend on pleasure to achieve happiness, while the latter believe that peace is the foundation of happiness. 99% of humanity falls under these two categories. Does it mean that the remaining 1% doesn’t seek happiness? Of course not! Everybody alive on earth seeks happiness. The 1% whose happiness doesn’t depend on pleasure from achievement or peace from fulfillment seek happiness that comes from finding the true purpose of life. This tiny minority goes on a Quest, on a Search, but ultimately, even they want happiness. Everyone seeks Happiness! Therefore, what is wrong in saying that the goal of humanity is happiness? There is nothing wrong, except that ultimate happiness is neither on the first peak of Achievement, nor on the second peak of Fulfillment. We are, unfortunately, looking for it in the wrong place. We are like the musk deer that searches for the musk everywhere, not realizing that the musk it is looking for is inside its own navel. We also do not realize that happiness is within us. We are the very happiness that we are seeking! While 1% of humanity goes on a Quest, a Search within, trying to find a purpose, and realize the truth, all are not fortunate enough to find this purpose and meaning. A very small fraction of the seekers attain self-realization. They realize that they are neither the body that will die, nor the mind that doesn’t exist. They ultimately realize that they are the Divine Energy or Consciousness that gives them life. The Ultimate Happiness! While this realization leads to liberation, it inadvertently gives ultimate joy, peace and bliss. It frees the realized ones from the prisons of misery and sorrow as they escape from the darkness of the ignorance they live in. Probably, less than 0.00001% of humanity attains self-realization and ultimate, eternal, everlasting joy, bliss, peace and happiness with it. These fortunate souls escape from the cycle of death and rebirth. They are liberated from the body and the myth that they are the mind that is reborn based on their past actions. This realization is the ultimate goal of life which is also called Moksha, Nirvana, Enlightenment or Salvation. Whatever you may call it, the goal of life is liberation from misery and suffering. And this is possible only if we realize the truth. We should realize we are not the body that suffers and dies. We should realize that we are not the mind that has to be reborn again and again. We are energy – the energy that gives Consciousness to the body and mind while it experiences life on earth. This is self-realization. The ultimate goal is self-realization because realization of the truth liberates us from the prisons of misery and sorrow that are experienced being the ego, mind and body, which we are not.

The insula also gives rise to empathy. People who are more sensitive to emotional cues from others have greater insula activation and score higher on tests of empathy. And the insula lights up during meditation sessions, especially when the meditator is feeling kindness and compassion. As the meditator expands his definition of connection to include other people and eventually the entire universe, he feels one with everything. In the words of a comprehensive meditation review, “the habitual reified dualities between subject and object, self and other, in-group and out-group dissipate.” As he expands the borders of his tent to infinity, massive changes occur in his brain activity. Insula Activation Benefits Increases Decreases Elevated emotional states Anger Motor control Fear Kindness Anxiety Compassion Depression Empathy Addiction Longevity Chronic pain Immunity Happiness Love Sensory enjoyment Introspection Sense of fulfillment Feelings of connectedness Focus Self-awareness As well as mediating our empathy and compassion circuits, the insula has several other functions. It collects information from a far-flung network of receptors inside our body as well as from our skin. It then stimulates feelings such as hunger that then prompt actions such as seeking food. The dark side of this mechanism is that it can stimulate cravings for drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. Addicts show increased insula activation even before consuming their drug of choice. The insula also lights up when we feel pain or even anticipate feeling pain. Meditators are more “in the moment” when it comes to physical pain, releasing it more quickly. They may also experience overwhelming cravings, as we’ll see in Chapter 5. These are positive cravings directing them toward the ecstatic states found in Bliss Brain.

You may be wondering how chronic overstimulation can induce two seemingly opposite effects. First, it can increase dopamine activity (sensitisation via DeltaFosB). Second, it can decrease dopamine activity (desensitisation via CREB124). The answer is that it’s mostly about timing. But it’s also about the neurological differences between wanting and liking.[135] Sensitisation leads to high spikes of dopamine in response to cues and triggers associated with use. The dopamine spikes occur before ingesting the drug or masturbating to porn, and are experienced as cravings to use. However, on exposure to the same old stimuli less dopamine (and less opioids) are released (desensitisation). This dampening of pleasure occurs during drug use or while masturbating to porn. The activity is experienced as less pleasurable, increasing cravings for more. Thus, two mechanisms once beneficial to our animal ancestors have unwanted consequences in the age of porn tube sites and omnipresent junk food. Sensitisation leads to greater wanting or more intense cravings, while desensitisation leads to less liking or a decline in overall pleasure.[136] This disparity acts as a double-edged sword that drives compulsive use: overpowering cravings to use (sensitisation) combined with less fulfilment from both everyday activities and from the problematic behaviours (desensitisation). Brain scan studies confirm that porn addicts have greater reward system activation in the craving phase (wanting), but do not like porn any more than non-addicts.

Remove the obstacles. Untangle the clutter that’s standing between you and the productive, fulfilling life that you crave. — Julie Morgenstern

But our intuition often moves in a way that allows us to break out into the world and fulfill our deepest aspirations. Intuition is not grounded in fear and it does not feel like the endless cravings that swirl in the mind. It feels like the body has a calm compass and it knows where to go next, even if that knowledge causes the mind to recoil with fear and aversion because you have to do something that is totally outside of your comfort zone.

More than anything, you give yourself what you need, instead of what you crave. Treating your energy like a precious resource has a deep effect on your life. Saying no becomes more common so you can focus your time and give it to your highest goals. You miss out on some events because you don’t need as much external stimulation to make you feel fulfilled.

false path in life is generally something we are attracted to for the wrong reasons—money, fame, attention, and so on. If it is attention we need, we often experience a kind of emptiness inside that we are hoping to fill with the false love of public approval. Because the field we choose does not correspond with our deepest inclinations, we rarely find the fulfillment that we crave.

All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being.

It's like what Charles Duhigg was saying in The Power of Habit about advertising, you have to create a craving for the reward. This takes time and doing so is more productive than posting every day and having unrealistic expectations of your followers. Essentially, people expect others to treat them a certain way but are ironically ignorant to how impractical and uninspired they would be if they had to fulfill that same expectation for someone else.

When you’re poor, you have things to reach for. Goals that excite you. Maybe it’s a dream house or a vacation or even a meal at a restaurant on a Friday night. But the more money you have, the harder it is to find things to be excited about. You already have your dream house. You can go anywhere in the world anytime you want to. You could hire a private chef to make you every food you ever crave. People who aren’t rich think all those things are fulfilling, but they aren’t. You can fill your life with nice things, but nice things don’t fill the holes in your soul.

Not only did he choose divine fulfillment over worldly specialness, he became an expert in this distinction. In his view, people who opt for the worldly path choose “substitutes for God”: idols that objectify the idolater and never satisfy the craving for happiness.[5] Even if you are not a religious believer, his list rings true as the idols that attract us.

You cannot just assume that your husband’s sexual desires and needs will take care of themselves if you don’t do something about them. Your husband will also start showing signs that he feels neglected by you, because the intimacy he craves is no longer there in your relationship. This is why you cannot just assume your husband will overcome his sexual needs just because you aren’t there to fulfill them for the time being.

And what is this hundredfold which the just receive in this life? Honors, riches, titles, and dignities are not their portion; the greater number of the just lead hidden, obscure lives, forgotten by the world and overwhelmed with infirmities. How, then, does God fulfill His infallible promise to give them a hundredfold even in this life? Ah! It is not with the perishable goods of this world that He will reward His servants.   Joy and peace and happiness are the spiritual treasures with which the liberality of our God enriches those who love Him. These are the blessings which the world does not know, and which the wealth of the world can never buy. And how fitting this is; for as man does not live by bread alone, so the craving of his soul cannot be satisfied by anything short of spiritual blessings.   Study the lives of the saints, and you will see that they have received the hundredfold promised in this life. In exchange for the false riches which they forsook, they received true riches which they can bear with them to eternity. For the turmoil and conflicts of the world, they received that "peace which surpasseth all understanding." Their tears, their fasting, and their prayers brought them more joy and consolation than they could ever hope to obtain from the fleeting pleasures of this life.

In the past, most of us were content to have a job that simply paid the bills. But now, we crave so much more in our work. We want fulfillment, creative challenge, growth, joy and a sense that we are living for something more than ourselves. In a word, we seek meaning. One of the best ways to find the higher meaning in the work you do is to use the technique of creative questioning to become aware of the impact your work has on the world around you. Ask yourself questions like, Who ultimately benefits from the products and services my company offers? or What difference do my daily efforts make? Once you do so, you will start noticing the connection between the work you do and the lives you touch. This will inspire you.

You asked me to outline three things that I hope to achieve during my training which is to begin in 3 months. I had time to reflect upon them on the way home, a bit. Here goes: 1. Above all, I want to learn how best to serve you. I want to learn your needs and your wants and make sure they’re fulfilled at all times. I don’t ever want there to be any voids in your life that I could have filled had I been more in tune with what you were seeking from me. 2. I want to push the envelope of my pain threshold. I want to build with you in such a way that I trust you to help me dig deeper into my craving for it and how I am able to manage it.

It has been said that if you have Zen in your life,you have no fear, no doubt, no unnecessary craving, no extreme emotions. Neither illiberal attitudes nor egotistical actions trouble you. You serve humanity humbly, fulfilling your presence in this world with loving-kindness and observing your passing as a petal falling from a flower. Serene, you enjoy life in blissful tranquility. Such is the spirit of Zen.---Zen flesh, Zen bones.

A craving is a desire to discover what is missing, to find that last piece to the puzzle. Unfortunately, we addicts attempt to fulfill our hunger by using. We empty needles into our veins and bottles into our stomachs to escape the pain of not being whole, of being incomplete.

Because it was the endless wanting that would break you, I thought. The constant craving for a love that might never be fulfilled that would bring you low, bit by bit, until one day you'd no longer be able to recognize any part of yourself.

You turn to her, or images of women like her, because people all around you have devoted their creative energy to serving a pagan deity that broadcasts the lie that sex with a beautiful woman will bring you the fulfillment you crave. This lie is not told to your rational mind, which would figure out that it’s a lie, it’s told instead to a confused little boy inside you, what you think of as your emotions and I think of as a broken part of your soul.

There are so many things and people craving your attention such that you could so easily forget that you have a purpose to fulfill within a specified time on the earth.

In the meantime, it is useful to end this chapter by pondering a paradox. On the one hand, as already noted, economics is replete with eulogies to freedom (particularly of the market). However, on the other hand, the type of freedom that economics textbooks talk about is compatible with the science fiction image of rows and rows of persons attached to a pleasure machine which bombards them with utility (or, to be more respectful to ordinal utility, which keeps them at the very top of their preferences ordering). Less apocalyptically, it is consistent with a society in which individuals’ ideals have been reduced to purchasing commodities in gigantic shopping complexes guided totally by cravings manufactured in elaborate marketing clinics. Perhaps the most helpful conclusion to draw from all this is that the economic textbook’s model of rational choice is the culmination of the logic unleashed on the world by the emergence and domination of market societies (see Chapter 1 again). One question is worth keeping in mind when immersed in that logic: is a happy slave (a slave of feudal masters or, today, of the advertisers) capable of being free (whatever that person’s utility level)? So, if freedom is more than just desire-fulfilment what does it mean to be free? No one has the definitive answer but here is a suggestion: individual freedom may be the capacity to act freely, not only in order to satisfy the preferences that are there already (the utility machine can do this admirably), but in order to create new and better preferences—in order to improve one’s self. We can do this only if we care about more than the indulgence of our current desires.

Suffering is not caused by forces outside of us but by a faulty and limited perception of life and of who we are. Our basic misperception gives rise to endless cravings for sense satisfaction. Since everything in the universe is constantly changing, nothing in Nature is capable of bringing lasting fulfillment.

In that state, even my desire to become free or enlightened is just another craving for fulfillment or completion in the future. So don’t seek to become free of desire or “achieve” enlightenment. Become present. Be there as the observer of the mind. Instead of quoting the Buddha, be the Buddha, be “the awakened one,” which is what the word buddha means.

Only living a life turned toward goodness will fulfill our cravings and humanity.

Sonnet 1306 Doctors are not official representatives, Yet they do their job quite efficiently. Teachers are not official representatives, Yet they do their job quite respectfully. Public transport drivers ain't representatives, Yet they carry their duties quite diligently. Factory workers ain't official representatives, Yet they fulfill their tasks rather honorably. All the professions that actually require some tangible skillsets and expertise, don't rely on the jungle whim of democracy. Yet the most glorified profession of all, has no performance standards compulsory. If this is your idea of a civilized democracy, No wonder you still crave peace in nuclear weapons! Only monkeys could confuse homicide with defense, It takes a human to plant peace through illumination.

Since their mind is free from doubt and hesitation they regard the teachings as a precious, wish-fulfilling jewel. Perceiving the misery of samsaric activities as poison they exert themselves in practice for the sake of the future. Seeing the pursuits of this life as futile they have great fortitude and perseverance when trying to accomplish the unexcelled enlightenment. Such noble people who are untainted by the faults of competitive and ambitious craving for material gain and prestige are the sublime spiritual offspring of the victorious ones.

I had always been the kind of ambitious that demanded the culmination of becoming Someone. I craved the validation of high achievement, the sense of wielding control over your own life. The fulfillment you could find only through setting up lofty goals for yourself, then knocking them down one by one.

Will you hold me Nick And fulfill this craving, Touch my waist, And trace in Italics? And kiss my lips, For they are laced With a veiled wish. Hold aloft my chin, Like you want to win Me, and on my skin, Tell me can you sniff A submission to sin? Look into my eyes Dearest, can you read My peering soul script? Because it says honey, That you are my beginning And the endings of my end.

According to the Bhagavad Gita, four kinds of people worship God: those who are afflicted, those who seek knowledge, those who crave wealth, and those endowed with wisdom.1 All four kinds are worthy because their actions and thoughts are in some way connected with God, even though some of them seek worldly prosperity. No doubt God is the Kalpataru (the wish-fulfilling tree), but this does not mean that He automatically fulfills all desires. As a wise doctor will not prescribe poison to alleviate a patient’s pain, similarly the omniscient Lord answers only those prayers which will ultimately benefit the devotee.