The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 8

Will and Desire

What is the difference between Desire or Wish and Will?

They are not the same thing. When, for example, you see that a thing is to be done and that it is good to do it, then normally your reason decides and judges; then it is your will that sets to work and makes you do what is necessary for the work to be done. Thus will is the power of execution which should be at the disposal of what has been decided by you or a higher force. It is a thing coordinated and organised: it acts according to plan and is in full self-control. Wish or desire, on the other hand, is an impulse. There are people who are full of desires, but have no will; they are eaten up with their desires, as it is said. You go nowhere if you have not even the will to fulfil your desires. The little bit of will most people have is indeed put at the service of their desires. Will is a force capable of deliberation and organisation and can be used for any purpose in view.

When you have the will, it means you have the capacity of sustained effort for a definite end. A desire, on the contrary, is something violent, passionate and momentary; it is very rarely a durable thing. It has not the stuff, the substance and organisation of a sustained effort.

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When desire gets hold of you, it can make you do anything, but in a fit of impulse, not in a methodical and consistent manner.

Why do children have the habit of always asking for things—material objects, I mean?

Precisely because they are full of desires. Perhaps when they were conceived, they were imbued with the vibrations of desire, and as they have no control over themselves, they give free vent to their feelings. Older people are also full of desires, but they are too shy to show them. They are ashamed of these things, they fear they will be ridiculed and so hide them. Children are more simple and straightforward; when they want anything, they speak out. They do not think that it is not proper or wise to reveal themselves. They do not reason in that way. People, of course—ordinary people, I mean—live constantly full of desires, only they do not express themselves, sometimes they do not even avow it to themselves. But it is always there, this sense of the need for things. Directly you see a beautiful object, you are at once seized by the idea of possessing it. It is childish, it is even ridiculous. Ninety-nine persons out of a hundred do not get at all the things they desire. And of the one per cent how many are interested in the thing once they have actually got it? A child is even more like that. Give him what he wants, a second after he will not even look at it.

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How to help a child to get out of this habit?

There is more than one method. First of all, it is to be known whether one may not altogether stop the child from expressing freely what he thinks and feels. People do this usually and constantly. They scold, they punish and the child takes the habit of hiding his desires. That does not cure. If you always tell the child, "No, you won't have it", you simply instal this idea in him: "Yes, when I am a child, I am not given anything, I must wait till I grow up; well, when I am a man I shall have all that I want". So I say it is not a cure; the task is not easy to bring up a child. There is however the other way of which I spoke, to give him what he wants. But the difficulty is that the next moment he will ask for another thing and continue to do so without end. For it is a law, the law of desire, that it is never satisfied. So you can change your method and tell the child, supposing it is intelligent enough: "You see, you wanted so much to have the thing and now that you have it you don't care, you ask for something different. You will do the same with that also." But if it is a shrewd child he would reply: "Well, the best way to cure me of my desires is to give what I ask for."

Many hold this last idea all their life. When they are told to overcome their desires, they answer, "The best way of overcoming them is to satisfy them." But what is needed is not merely to change the object of desire, but change the impulse, the movement itself. For that pur-

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pose, a good deal of knowledge and understanding and experience is required. That you cannot expect of young children. First of all, they do not possess the capacity for reasoning and you cannot explain the matter to them, they will not understand your reasons. It is why the parents have normally no other go than to cut them short, saying: "Stop, you bother us." That is how they get out of the difficulty.

It is not a solution. The task is hard, demanding continuous effort and unshakable patience. There are people, a good many, who, although no longer children, yet continue to be so all their life: they too do not understand reason. If you tell them, they are not reasonable and that it is not possible to be continually satisfying their desires, they simply think: "These people are quite unpleasant, they are not amiable." That is all.

What one may try, in respect of a child, is to turn the direction of his desires, let him desire better things, better because more true and also more difficult to obtain. For example, when you see a child full of desires, put into him a desire of higher quality, that is to say, instead of desiring purely material objects which can give only a temporary satisfaction, one could awaken in him the desire to know, to learn, to become great and so on. That would indeed be a very good beginning. As these things are more difficult to secure, it will serve to develop, to strengthen his will. Even if the difficulty is of a physical kind, if, for example, you give the child a doll to prepare, a Chinese

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puzzle to solve or a game of Patience, the effort helps in the development of concentration, perseverance, a certain clarity of ideas etc. You can in this way divert the child's will from wrong pursuits to right ones. True, it needs constant attendance and application on your part, but that seems to be the surest way. It is not easy, but it is the most effective.

To say "no" does not cure, but to say "yes" does not cure either. I knew some persons who allowed their children to do as they pleased. There was one child who tried to eat anything he could get hold of. Naturally he fell sick and got disgusted in the end and cured of the habit. Still the method means risk. For example, a child one day got hold of a match-box and as he was not stopped, burnt himself in playing with it, although thereafter he did not touch a match-box any more. The method may be even catastrophic. For there are children who are dare-devils—most children are so— and when a desire possesses them they are stopped by nothing in the world. Some are fond of walking along the edge of walls or on house tops; some have an impulse to jump into water directly they see it. Even there are some who love to take the risk of crossing a road when a car is passing. If such children are allowed to go their way, the experiment may prove fatal sometimes. There are people who do allow their children to have this liberty and take the risk. For they say prevention is not a cure. Children who are refused anything do not usually believe that what is refused is bad, they consider that a

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thing is called bad simply when one wishes to refuse it. So would it not be better, it is argued, to concede the liberty? The theory is that individual liberty must be respected at all costs. Past experiences should not be placed before beings that are come newly into the world; they must get their own experiences, make their own experiements free from any burden of the past. Once I remonstrated that a child should be warned about a possible accident, I was answered it was none of my business. And when I persisted saying the child might get killed, the answer was, "What if? Each one must follow his destiny. It is neither the duty nor the right of anybody to interfere in the affairs of others. If one goes on doing stupid things one will suffer the consequences oneself and most likely stop doing them of one's own accord—which is hundredfold better than being forced by others to stop." But naturally there are cases when one stops indeed, but not in the way expected or wished for.

The matter gets difficult and involved, if you make a theory and try to follow it. In reality, each case is different and to be able to deal with each adequately needs a whole life-time occupation.

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