Elephant Journal is one of my favorite blogs. Even if you don’t practice yoga, it’s packed with insightful articles that urge you to live more mindfully. If you don’t hear that word often, “mindful,” you might take it literally: heedful, conscious. But in the yoga sense of the word, it means slowing down to enjoy the moment, makes choices thoughtfully, appreciating the joy and beauty that is in your life everyday.
I succumb to pleasure often, especially when it comes to food. I love tasty things, and often scarf down chocolate without savoring it. So I think I – and most Americans – could benefit from a careful reading of this article, which I’ve edited down here for you:
We all have desires for pleasures that are always enticing us… But we don’t have enough time and money to pursue them all. We think that if we have enough money, we will pursue all pleasures, fulfill all our desires and be happy. But interestingly, the pleasures are innumerable and never get over. The number of pizzas we can consume is only limited by our stomach, not by the taste buds or pizza makers.
We don’t consume, we are consumed.
Desires never get over by pursuing them, but only by our conscious effort to get over them. Sure, if you eat five mega-size pizzas in one sitting, you may seem to have gotten over it. Or maybe not! It is your stomach rebelling, the tongue could still have had more of the taste! The desire never subsides on its own.
Desires are like the fire, the more ghee (butter) of pleasures you put in it, the stronger it grows. All the addicts of the world (addicted to anything – ice-cream, alcohol, drugs, sex, work, limelight …) will tell you that…
Read the rest here.
