We often hear the cliché: “you can be whatever you want to be?”
Well, if that were true, I would be a NBA basketball player, with a forty-eight inch vertical jump, and a darker complexion. If you’ve ever met me, you’ll quickly understand the impossibility of the task and that no matter how much I desire this, it could never come to fruition.
Desire isn’t enough.
Let’s get real. “Being whatever you want” is a lie. I know. It sounds negative, but I prefer the term realistic. Not everyone can be the president of the United States, or Michael Jordan, or Albert Einstein. Remember, I’m speaking from an ego perspective here. After all, ego is a big part of manifesting.
In a spiritual sense, we are all of these people, and so much more. If we embrace the idea that we are all a part of the universe and an extension of the the vastness of everything, then in essence, we can be everything because we already are. We are part of the universal consciousness and as beings of light, we are all interconnected and joined in a divine dance of spiritual perfection.
But who wants that, anyway? I mean, we’re here to manifest, right?!
I want a new car. Preferably a Ferrari. I want ego stuff. After all, what’s the point of life if I can’t have what I want. It says it in the Bible, doesn’t it? “Ask and ye shall receive.” Well, I’m asking for a big house with five bedrooms on the Mediterranean.
I’ll just desire it and it will come true. Right?
The short answer: yes.
The long answer: should it?
Remember that there are two kinds of desire: ego desire and universal desire.
Ego desire is what I THINK I want. It is individually defined and based on what we think will fill that big old invisible void in our souls. At first, we think stuff will fill it. Money. Sex. Love. Partnership. Clothes. Dolce Gabbana. Gucci. Whatever it is, we want it. After we get it, after we manifest it, we want more. It becomes a ravenous desire, lusting after the next moment, always seeking to fill that thing we desire most.
There’s an old Buddhist saying: “Is the purpose of life to attain the object of my desire, or to lose my desire.”
Allow me to introduce: universal desire. Whereas ego desire is what we want, universal desire is what the universe wants for us.
“Huh?”
You know that deep longing you feel in the darkest moments of your life. That hollow pain that calls for attention, and with fearful shame, we throw stuff at it. Ego stuff. Worldly pleasures and pain. Anything to shut the annoying yearning up. Well, that emptiness is what I call “God’s call.”
Oh brother. The “G” word.
Don’t worry. I’m not going to get all religious on you. Quite the opposite. I prefer philosophy to religion, which asks questions instead of answering them.
Have you ever asked yourself: why do I desire the things I desire? Why do I shop? Or work late into the night? Or try to be the class clown? You see, instead of asking: “what do I want” the question we may want to ask is “why do I want what I want?”
When we ask this simple question, desire transforms from an objective into a journey, the likes of which will take us beyond the things we desire and towards the things we NEED. I’m not saying this journey is going to be a fun-filled amusement park of self-discovery. On the contrary, many of our desires come from a spiritual pain that needs a remedy, and by filling that hurt with desires instead of necessities, we ignore one of the great discoveries of life: understanding.
“So, you mean that I shouldn’t desire anything?”
Desire can get you many things. Desire is an integral part of manifesting, but before we run out and get all the things we think we want, let’s stop and ask the bigger question: why? This is the beautiful thing about manifesting. The things we wish to manifest points us in the direction of the things we NEED, and once we tap into necessity, manifesting becomes a far richer experience.
Manifesting becomes our journey into healing.