How much of your life is taken up by wanting, desire, lack, dissatisfaction and not being happy with your lot? This is about desire and there not “being enough”.
Eastern philosophy gives a big role in its analysis of human suffering to desire. They say that being caught up in desire explains much of our inability to find contentment. Swami Muktananda when responding to someone who complained of always feeling dissatisfied, said,
“You become dissatisfied with what you have because you are not aware of all you have. If you were aware of all that you have, it would give you supreme satisfaction, and the question of being dissatisfied would not arise at all. Everyone suffers from this tendency.”
He meant that we have supreme contentment already within us. We already have everything.
Humans can’t get this and so the cycle of desire goes on and on, not being happy with your lot, caught up in dissatisfation, till you do get it and let go.
The effects of desire can be deadly. Wanting creates not just dissatisfaction with our lot, but envy, jealousy and hatred. We compare ourselves with others and we long for things to be better. Thus there’s a seemingly unending pattern of thinking we don’t have enough, aren’t good enough, and our lives are governed by scarcity thinking. We can’t see the natural abundance of the universe. We’re seemingly very caught up in this at the moment.
Here is an alternative approach
Give yourself some time to yourself. Meditation is good. This time, start by allowing yourself to be aware of where you are feeling dissatisfied and then, as you breathe in and breathe out long, as you take your awareness within for meditation, imagine that with the out-breath you are letting go of dissatisfaction. Breathe it out; breathe it away. Take your time. Let it be gone. And now allow yourself to take your awareness to your heart centre and then, once you have settled your focus there, rest in the awareness of the love that naturally dwells there. As far as you can, allow this love to flow around your body and as you meditate, allow this love to flow out around you. Perhaps have the thought of it doing that, or visualise it doing that, or hear the sounds of the very subtle, gentle rustle of the warm, loving breeze as flows out around you. And now, as you meditate, allow that love to spread out around your room, then your house, then your family, then your neighbours, the street where you live, your town, your country, and even the world, to reach all those who are unhappy and who are dissatisfied. Have that intention. Let it be there. Breathe your love out to them. And now just rest in this loving state awhile.
The point is to switch awareness out of your negative state into that which uplifts you, and have your focus be there, happy with your lot, your true lot, who you really are.
Enjoy.