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book, desire, dharma, Four Desires, Kama, Moksha, Rod Stryker, tantra, Tantra Yoga, true Self, yoga, yoga philosophy, yoga teacher, yoga training
Sorry, I’m really taking liberties with “Five Things Friday” lately!
As part of my 500 hour RYT training, I’m reading Rod Stryker’s The Four Desires: Creating A Life of Purpose, Happiness, Prosperity, and Freedom. This book is based on the philosophies of Tantra Yoga that I’ve been enlightened to learn about recently, and that I believe will be a forceful phase of practice and experience in my personal recovery and continued journey toward peace with my self and connection with my Self…and integration of BOTH.
The Four Desires (in brief)
- Dharma- The desire for purpose in the world, the drive to be and become what the jiva (individual, unique, soul; the self) is meant to be.
- Dharma stuff can include our actions, professions, movements, roles, duties, and doings that fulfill our inner drive and personal potential.
- Everyone’s unique dharma determines the scope and specifics of the three other desires.
- Artha- Desires that represent the means necessary to accomplish dharma, including material things, resources, skills, health and well-being.
- Kama- The desire for pleasure.
- “The truth is, the desire for pleasure is the motivation behind all actions.” –Rod Stryker
- Moksha- The longing for liberation, true freedom; the desire to realize a state free from all boundaries and attachments, including the limitations of the other three desires.
- Goodness if this isn’t where I’ve gotten ahead of myself at the expense of the other desires. I believe that I’ve attempted to squash the first three desires, deeming them as “unworthy,” binding them to guilt and shame, and trying to move as far from them as possible in order to get closer to moksha. This has not worked very well so far! Because I want to do my doings, I have and use material things and means and skills, and punishing myself for desiring pleasures and comforts has made life really, well, painful and uncomfortable. I think this has made moksha harder than it has to be.
Do you see these four working strongly together?
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Thank you for sharing this. I want to learn my own life purpose and knowing this book is out there to teach something to me is so important. Thanks.
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I would say that 4., “Moksha: The longing for liberation”, is a moot point as the very act of “longing” is causing the desired effect of “wanting”, or “being without”. True freedom/liberation comes from within. We can call it a “state of mind”. So achieving “a state free from all boundaries and attachments” is literally so close as to be staring us in the face, We need only to open our inner mind’s eye to see the truth and reality of the situation we call “Life”.
As for Rod Stryker, he is correct, in a sense. We can say that the quest for pleasure is motivated by desire. But, suffering is also a form of pleasure when we consider (a) if we did not wish to suffer, we would not (It really is that simple), because (b) as Siddhartha Gautama realised, all life is suffering, and the root cause of suffering in the world is desire & ignorance. When we are truly awakened to the reality, that without desire there can be no suffering, we are free. Liberation in his highest sense is attained.
I would finish by saying that suffering, in itself, is not a bad thing. Some things in this world, in this life, are worth suffering for. Remember that the next time you look into a loved one’s eyes, and think about choosing liberation from the shackles and chains that bind us to the pains of this world.
May life always be just bearable enough to cope with, and the perfections of it just enough out of reach to keep on struggling on.
Pain is Love. Love is Life. Life is a learning process.
Much Blessings
namaste
mús
…and the learning process happens by often painful experiences. The circle of life? Thanks for your comments!
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