Question: How can I separate myself from my physical desires?

Sri Chinmoy: First of all, since you have accepted the spiritual life, you have to ask yourself whether desire satisfies and fulfils you or not. In your inner being you will feel that it neither satisfies nor fulfils you. Before you actually desire, you have in mind the object or fruit of your desire, and you think that when you attain that object, you will be happy. Unfortunately, what you eventually get is frustration. When you enter into the physical or lower vital desire with your mind, you are caught. You enter into the very jaws of a devouring tiger. When you concentrate on desire, you can feel inwardly that in the beginning there is no light, in the end there is no light and in the middle there is no light. There is only darkness from the beginning to the end and darkness means the absence of divine satisfaction. If you can feel this result before you actually desire, then you can easily turn your life away from desire.

You have to feel that what you want is aspiration and not desire. The moment one begins to aspire he feels true satisfaction. This true satisfaction comes because aspiration has the capacity to identify itself consciously and soulfully with the farthest corner of the globe, with the deepest and inmost being and with the highest transcendental Self. If you feel the real necessity of aspiration, you will see that physical, vital and mental desires will stop knocking at your heart’s door.

At every moment you have to aim at your goal. If you want to concentrate and meditate on the sun as it rises early in the morning, then you have to face the east, and not some other direction. If you are looking towards the west and running towards the east, you will stumble. If you want to be certain of your goal of God-realisation, then you will not look behind you or around you, but only towards the light. You can conquer your physical desires only by running towards the light. Don’t think of your physical desires, but think only of your aspiration. If you can run forward with one-pointed determination, limitations and desires will fade away from your life. Aspiration is the only answer. For outer things you cry; for inner things you can also cry. If you can cry sincerely, you can fly spiritually.

When I think, I sink.
When I choose, I lose.
When I cry, I fly.

We have to have the inner cry, and this inner cry has to be the cry of a child. The child cries for his mother. The mother comes running towards the child, no matter where she is. The child may be in the living room or the kitchen, but the mother comes running to feed the child. Similarly, when we have the inner cry, spontaneous cry for Light and Truth, God out of His Infinite Bounty will show us the Light, and in that Light we will grow.