silence shared in words
presents
Wanting, Desiring and Longing
Would you please speak about the differences between
wanting, desiring, and longing?
The dictionary meaning of all these three words will be the same,
but not the existential meaning.
The existential meanings
are so different from each other
that it is amazing
what these linguists,
experts in language and grammar, go on doing.
Wanting
implies a very clear-cut
idea of the object: what you want.
It is not vague.
You want a house,
you want a wife,
you want children
the object of wanting is very clear.
Desiring
is vague:
the object of desire
is not clear.
You want
power
you desire
respectability,
honor;
you desire to be the greatest man in the world.
Wanting is
simpler,
and there is a possibility you may be able to fulfill it
because it is not
an impossible task to have a house, a wife,
children. In fact, it is impossible not to have them.
But desire is
vague:
respectability is not an object,
but just an idea;
honor is not an object, but just an idea;
to be the greatest man
is not an object, but just an idea.
And even the greatest people
the world may think they are greatest
are unhappy
deep down in themselves.
For example,
the founder of the Russian Revolution, Lenin,
can certainly be called
a great man;
even his enemies would agree about that.
But he was constantly worried,
embarrassed,
because his legs were short,
and his upper body was
bigger; they were not in proportion.
When he used to sit on a chair,
his legs would dangle,
they would not reach the ground.
So he was always hiding his legs,
sitting very close to the table.
His table was always covered with
cloths,
so nobody could see his dangling feet.
But whether anybody else saw them or not, he knew….
I don’t think that there was any problem
but it remained
in his mind as a deep inferiority complex.
Perhaps it was this inferiority complex
that drove him
to become a great revolutionary in the world:
if he had
had normal legs,
perhaps he would not have been a revolutionary.
Desire is vague;
and longing
is
totally different from wanting and desire.
Wanting and desire are both of the head:
one is
for a clear-cut object,
another for vague
ideals.
Longing is of the heart, not of the mind.
It is the heart that longs, and feels the pain of longing.
The heart has no
business with money
or power;
the heart’s longing is only for love…
and ultimately for God,
which is
the purest form of love, and nothing else.
It is a good exercise
to contemplate the differences
between words
which
appear to be similar.
It will give you clarity.
Longing
is just a thirst,
and it is beautiful.
Desire
is ugly,
because it is always competitive
jealous of those
who have it,
when you don’t have it.
It is ugly because it can do any sort of harm to anybody
in order to fulfill itself.
It is violent.
Wanting is ordinary and mundane
middle class.
Copyright© OSHO International Foundation, Switzerland
www.OSHO.com/copyright
OSHO is a registered Trademark of OSHO International Foundation