“Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel love and avoid loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person’s thoughts. Every waking moment—and even in our dreams—we struggle to direct the flow of sensation, emotion, and cognition toward states of consciousness that we value.”
Sam Harris, Waking Up (Page 186)
Quotes about Desires
“One has to learn to be patiently relaxed, and then the miracle of miracles happens: One day when you are really relaxed, something suddenly changes. A curtain disappears, and you see things as they are. If your eyes are too full of desires, expectation, longing, they cannot see the truth. The eyes are covered with the dust of desire. All search is futile. Search is a byproduct of the mind. To be in a state of nonsearch is the great moment of transformation. All the meditations are just preparations for that moment. They are not real meditations but just preparations so that one day you can simply sit, doing nothing, desiring nothing.”
Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 283)
“Siddhartha ‘no longer merely knows about, he understands the evils of the worldly life’ and so he is free of them.”
Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet Buddha On The Road, Kill Him! (Page 60)
“Desire is what you want; purpose is the flowering of what you are. Desire tends to weaken over time, whereas purpose strengthens the more you lean into it. Desire can be depleting because it’s insatiable; purpose is empowering—it’s a stronger engine. Purpose has a way of contextualizing life’s unavoidable sufferings and making them meaningful and worthwhile.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 314)
“You tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you who you are.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 212)
“Desires that arise in agitation are more aligned with your ego. Desires that arise in stillness are more aligned with your soul.”
Cory Muscara, Twitter
“We often resist most deeply the things that we want most.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 118)
“If you want to know what you truly want out of life, look at the people who you are jealous of. No, you may not want exactly what they have, but the feeling that you are experiencing is anger that they are allowing themselves to pursue it while you are not.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 76)
“We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 115)
“Not wanting something is as good as having it.”
Dru Riley, Blog
“It is a great happiness to have what you desire; but it is an even greater happiness not to want more than you already have.”
Menedemus, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 156)
“wanting always interrupts being.”
Yung Pueblo, Inward (Page 166)
