dear raghy !
what i want convey to is if we indulge in bad habits (identified by ourselves ¬ following others concept ),we loose our real one and will get get more tails as per your saying and will not get burned .imagine a fig with many tails .if only one comet and its tail is getting thickened is different and many addtions will change the original appearence.tha is why it is said for getting rid of your pavam &punniyam we have to go rebirths
guruvayurappan
Sri. Guruvayurappan, Greetings.
I addressed your message very briefly. I did not go in details. I was fulfilling my usual 'day off' desire! Pardon me for that.
Personally I don't believe in reincarnation, karma carrying over etc. I could be wrong. I am not going to debate on those lines.
Let us assume, reincarnation, karma everything are true.If that is the case, "I" don't die. "I" carry on merrily gathering vasanas or desires. The reason for successive reincarnation for the "I" is desire, unfulfilled desire. Let us say, I suppress my desire, I control myself; but during my life time even once if I longed for something which I thought I supressed, that something would be capable enough to get "I" the next reincarnation. Secondly, what are our chances in supressing our desires? Kindly ask yourself - what are your chances knocking out the desire pictured in post #30? I know, usually I have buckley's chances against that sort of sparring.
So, first thing I do is, decide whether my desire is harmful or not. I am 55. Once my wife was watching me ... ahm... appreciating the pictures of beauties in the net. I browsed a large page in about 3 minutes pressing 'like' button to most of the pictures as I went along. Only one picture I stopped to look and showed it to my wife. My wife was asking, "what are you doing? What is the point of your browsing this page pressing the 'like' button as you went along?" I said I enjoy often times a nice scenary or a poem or a picture not erotic at all; but since I enjoy something, I appreciate everything that is on offer, although I had no use for that. She said "you are nuts!". Most often, people are judged by this kind of action; that's why I included this as an example. So, would you consider this action as a harmful desire?
Irrespective of dharmic or adharmic, there are desires we go through for providing our family members since we consider such providing is our commitment. So, how long is the commitment? That is the kind of desire we can control, channelise. When we can indulge in a desire guilt free, then what is the issue? Why not burn the desires? Most often than not, burning the desire by indulging is much easier than suppressing them. There was a time I wanted to visit a strip club; I wanted to get a first hand experience. Now is that desire worth burning out or worth suppressing? That is an individual decision. For me, once I was living on my own in Toronto for sometime; when I was completely bored one night, off I went to this strip joint. I used to ring my wife everyday depending upon her shift; I rang her while I was in the strip joint. "What is the commotion in the back ground?" my wife asked. I said " Oh, nothing. I am at this strip joint. that is the on stage music in the background!". My wife asked if it was any good. I said it was actually boring. Weird talking to one's wife from a strip joint; but then, I did not feel like going back ever again either. Basically I burned that desire.
I suppose there is a default quality for everyone of us. Individual desire may quite possibly occure depending upon this default qualities. For some weird reasons, all my desires so far had come true. Some of the desires were quite outlandish, still had come true. Did I enjoy every single desire; actually, no. Fruits of many desires were only enjoyed by others; sometimes I enjoy them too. So, in my opinion, desire as such is not a taboo word. How our personal desire affect others is the most important question. In the recent past I disclosed my desire to one of my friends and had that friend devastated. If our desires involve other persons, we really have to apply brakes and think, analyse, discuss... sometimes, such desires are worth supressing; but then again, I had that burned out, so it can be good in one way too. I am not exactly in favour of suppressing my desires.
I always welcome individual desires. Not all the desires lead to sense gratifications; Sometimes our desires may be spiritual too. How many of us desire to visit a holy place or holy ashram or be in the presence of a holy person? Few days back I was frustrated and was burning with one such desire. At the most opprtune moment I put forward my desire; Presto! It was just accepted ... no friction, no debate or no argument!... Sowbagyavathy Renuka said in post #18, striving too hard to overcome desires is a desire by itself. True. I didn't want to mention that in the begining; it would have sounded like an argument. Sri. Ranganathan quoted a thirukkural in post #6. In that kural, it was recommended to attach oneself to God's lotus feet to get rid of all attachments including the attachment to God's feet. So, getting attached to God is also considered as an attachment.
Most persons recommend determination and practice to get over desires. I don't know about that. I have not even tried such methods before. Somehow I think, if we burn out all our desires, "I" becomes liberated even though a long tail can be seen. In my opinion, suppressing desires may not get this state. But one has to be very carefully analyse the desire itself. If such desires involve socially and or morally unaccetable procedures, we should stop right there and go back to the drawing board. Not all the desires are taboos; but some of the desires are nothing but taboos.
Cheers!