CHENNAI: Vedas, the ancient Indian scriptures, have described desires elaborately. There are two kinds of desires — one is fundamental and the other is topical. Desires of the second type arise in us more often than fundamental desires. What are they?We like to eat sweets, watch movies and gossip with friends. These are topical desires. Let us take a look at fundamental desires. Basically, there are three desires in this category. All of us have more than once hoped for the following— ‘Can we not live for a day more?’ This is the first desire.Let us digress a little. This was during my first talk on Bhagavad Gita in Chennai. I was staying in a hotel. At night, there was a knock on the door. A young girl had come to see me. “I left the home of my domineering mother-in-law today with a view to committing suicide. The seashore was too crowded. So I thought that if I committed suicide after one or two hours, no one would find me and save me. Just to spend a few hours, I attended your talk on Bhagavad Gita. I heard you saying that everyone wishes to live for a day more. That is utter nonsense! I have no desire to live for the next moment. Right now, I am going straight to the seashore to drown myself!” she said.I am a monk! Imagine this — a young girl meets me at night, that too in my hotel room and then goes to commit suicide! What would you make of it?I stopped her and said, “I have only said the first half of what I planned to say today in the talk. Another half is yet to be told. So please wait till tomorrow evening and listen to the remaining talk.”The third fundamental desire is to gain as much knowledge as possible during one’s lifetime. This is called the hunger for knowledge. “My son is only 10 years old! He evinces absolutely no interest in his lessons but you say that every one has a desire to gain knowledge! How is that?” is the question asked by some.One may not have any interest in the lessons taught at school, but that does not mean one has no interest in gaining any kind of knowledge.Just for fun, try telling this to someone “This is an important secret. I will reveal it to you tomorrow!” – he will not be able to wait till the next day to find out what it is! We are not happy being ignorant. So wishing to gain knowledge and wanting to learn new things is the third desire. This, the Vedas refer to as Chit.Sat means the desire to live, Ananda means the desire that life should be happy, Chit is the desire to acquire knowledge. The Vedas refer to them as Sat-Chit-Ananda. Sat, Chit and Ananda are the three desires that we seek. Not knowing this basic truth, we live our lives lost in nonessentials.The commitment of a spiritual person should be to fulfil the fundamental desires and not get lost in the nonessential desires. Swami Sukhabodhananda
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