The soul has many inherent characteristics. One of those is desire. That is why we have so many desires. It is part of us, it is part of the soul.
People say, “Oh, you can be free of all desires.” It is not true. Our desires take us through life. We follow one desire trying to fulfill it, and another desire appears. Then we follow another one and on and on.
There is a young man in his apartment, six o’ clock in the evening. He is getting hungry, it is time to eat. But no problem, there is a lot of food in his apartment. But at that moment he gets a strong message from his mind and from his tongue, “I don’t want this food, I want pizza.” So being very subservient to the demands of his mind and his tongue he gets up and starts to go down to the restaurant.
Along the way he is doing a little innocent window-shopping. He sees a very nice display of watches. He is one of those guys who always look at watches. Immediately one watch catches his eye. He likes the way it looks, he likes the features. Immediately out of nowhere comes the desire, “I want that watch.” But it is late, the shop is closed and it’s an expensive watch, he does not have the money.
He continues down to the restaurant, goes inside, sits down, orders his pizza and thinks about the watch. “Gee, how am I going to get that watch? I know my friend owes me money. I am going to collect that money and this watch I have now, I will sell it on the internet.” You know, we rearrange our finances.
About this time a very beautiful young lady comes in and sits at the table right next to his. She is alone, he is alone. Out of nowhere comes another desire, “Gee, I want to meet that young lady.” Then he begins to think, “Hmm, what is the best approach?” By the time his pizza arrives, “Oh, yeah, pizza. I forgot about the pizza.”
But to make a long story short he invites her to join him for dinner and she accepts. They have a very nice evening. “Oh, so easy to talk to each other, so much in common, it’s like we knew each other before.” By the end of the evening they have exchanged contacts and arranged for a meeting next week.
As he leaves the restaurant he satisfied his desire for pizza but now he has the desire for the watch and to meet the young lady. They meet next week as planned, “Oh, another wonderful time.” After a few meetings he has a new desire, “I want to marry this lady.” They end up getting married.
Then he has a desire for a house, he gets the house. Then he gets a desire for a car, he gets the car. Then he has the desire for kids, he gets the kids. Then he has the desire for the kids to grow up like this, like that, go to this university, that university – it all started with the pizza. That is life. (The audience is laughing).
We go through our whole life like this and we come to the end of our life with our desires. These desires take us into our next life.
When we leave our bodies at death the only thing we leave behind is our gross physical body, the one they bury or cremate. But we are still covered by the subtle mental body. This mental body is the body of desire. According to our desires that mental body has a certain shape. The next physical body fits the shape of the mental body.
Our hand has a certain shape and a glove is designed to fit the shape of the hand. The physical body is designed to fit the shape of the mental body.
Another example. There is the sport of hang-gliding. When you climb to a high place, put a mechanical wing on your back, jump off and hope for the best (laughing). If it works it is great. Wow, such beautiful views, feeling of freedom, riding the air currents.
From that moment you never look at a bird the same way again. You are always looking at birds: how they take off, how they land, how they ride the air currents and you realize – they do this much better than I do.
You also know that there is one thing you will always have that they don’t have – that is fear. You know if something goes wrong – you have got a big problem. But you know birds are not thinking like that. How many birds do you ever see crash? They just fly here, there. No problem.
Some of these guys get so attached to this, they start talking about what bird they would like to be. Of course, they all want to be eagles. Nobody says, “Yeah, I would like to be a crow.” (Laughing). This person arrives at the end of his life with this desire. No problem, next lifetime he pecks his way out of the shell, he is covered with feathers all over his body and he flies his whole life.
As man proposes, God disposes. We get what we want. Material desire keeps us on the wheel of birth and death.