Budapest, Hungary
October 2022

I did a street approach workshop in Budapest with a couple of coaches who were practitioners of Dhamma Vipassana. The intent was to get over the overwhelming fear & freeze I feel when I see an attractive woman outside & desire her. Approaching a woman I find attractive whilst surrounded by strangers, in broad daylight. Subjecting myself to the possibility of ridicule by strangers if I fail. Strangers who would never know the amazing things about me. The possibility of creeping out a woman. The fear of rejection. The pinnacle of my sexual shame. The instantaneous drop in my sense of self-worth.

Noticing the desire to move towards her. Training my being to nurture the panicking parts, while still taking steps in that direction–that was the work.

It was a powerful, insightful week–what follows are some of the insights.

At the point of emergence of Desire, the woman would appear extremely attractive. Scarily attractive even. I realized I was pedestaling her and dropping my own sense of my self-worth in that moment. Then as I moved towards her, layers of illusion would drop & she would feel more human. Approachable. With human flaws.

The desire itself would morph. From intense sexual desire to, sometimes, just a desire to be nourished in the presence of the Feminine. Once the latter happened, no more desire was found. No desire to take down her number or ask her out on a date. Perhaps the karmic debt that incited the desire was paid off?

Sometimes, the desire would set me off walking in a direction towards the woman, but culminate in a meaningful experience not involving the woman. The journey would be playful even though I didn’t end up on the destination I set out towards.

Desire can lead the Soul as long as the Human Being doesn’t latch not its initial form & allow if to be dynamic.

Can we move in the direction of the Desire while letting go of it?

Auroville, India
February 2023

This is the first phrase of Ashtanga Hridyam, one of the 3 great texts of Ayurveda, written by Vagabhatta.

राग (rang) means Desire. रोग (roga) means Disease.

According to Samkhya Philosophy, before everything there was One–the Supreme Reality.

अव्यक्त. Unmanifested.
अचिन्त्य. Beyond thought.
सत् चित् आनन्द. Existent, real & soaked in the bliss of awareness.

From there, emerged a Desire.

A desire within a part of the Supreme Reality to witness itself.

When I’m engrossed in an action, sometimes I’ve noticed that there emerges a voice that starts narrating. Depending upon what and how this voice narrates, my conditioning reacts and either inflates or deflates my Ego. It takes me out of the state of oneness with the act.

I don’t know where this voice comes from. I have tried to see it from an Internal Family Systems lens, without success. My sense is that perhaps the emergence of this voice is related to this primordial Desire.

From this Desire, emerged the Two. पुरुष & प्रकृति. Masculine & Feminine.

All desires are manifestations of this primordial Desire.

There is an inherent tension between the Masculine & the Feminine, one of its commonly experienced forms being sexual tension.

Ease is absent in tension.

All diseases are manifestations of this primordial lack of Ease.