A State Of Non-Covetousness
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
18 May 2023
“Rather
than ogle at a woman and feel restless afterwards, look at her to your heart's
content and feel blessed forever.”
A
Turkish Maxim
Har Ek
Daagh-E-Tamanna Ko Kaleje Se Lagata Hoon
Ke Ghar
Aayee Daulat Ko Thukraya Nahin Jaata
Makhmoor
Dehlvi
(I accept
wholeheartedly all the blots of desires, for, what comes to you naturally must
never be resisted/resented)
Two
Buddhist monks, on their way to the monastery, found an exceedingly beautiful
woman at the river bank. Like them, she wanted to cross the river, but the
water was too high. So one of them took her across on his shoulders. The other
was thoroughly scandalized. For two hours, he scolded the offender for his
breach of the Rule: Had he forgotten he was a monk? How had he dared to touch
the woman? And worse, carry her over the river? And what would people say? Had
he not disgraced their holy Religion? And so on.
The victim
took it gamely. At the end of the lecture, he said, “Brother, I dropped that
woman at the river. Are you carrying her still?"
The Arab
mystic, Abu Hassan Bushanja, says, “The act of sinning is not so harmful as the
desire and the thought of it. It's one thing for the body to indulge in
pleasure for a moment, and quite another for the mind and heart to chew on it
endlessly."
Each time I
chew on the sins of others, I suspect the chewing gives me greater pleasure
than the sinning gives the sinner. A couple of monks rudely asked Benedict
Spinoza, the celebrated Dutch philosopher and said to be the most impious man (of
course, in the estimation of the Vatican) ever to have walked on earth, whether
he ogled at a beautiful nun. Spinoza didn't answer. He just smiled.
Exasperated, they accused him of desecrating her virginal purity and kept
berating him the whole day.
Spinoza
later wrote in his memoirs, “Yes I looked at the sublime beauty of that nun and
forgot the next moment. But those repressed souls looked at her lustfully and
could never drive her out of their mind."
When Buddha
didn't allow women in his religious fold, his favourite disciple, Anand, dared
to ask him, “Doesn’t your fear of women stem out of your repression? Can you
still call yourself sexually indifferent and erotically stoic?" No one
ever questioned Buddha in this manner. He remained silent for a moment and
calmly said, “Anand, you're right" The very next moment, women were
allowed to enter the monastery.
French
writer Stendhal aptly said, “Suppressed desire is a poison. If you want to see
a naked woman, go to a brothel."
"Har
Ek Hasrat Ko Jiya Maine/ Har Ek Aarzoo Ko Poora Kiya Maine/ Baaqi Jab Koi
Tamanna Nahin Rahi/ Hayaat Ko Bandagi -E-Khuda Mein Laga Diya Main " (I fulfilled every desire/ I
enjoyed every wish/ Having got fully satisfied/ I dedicated my life to the
Almighty). Sadiq Burhanpuri's quatrain encapsulates the significance of
fulfilling all desires to be able to concentrate on a higher goal or a
metaphysical objective in life. Unfulfilled desires keep nagging and gnawing at
you.
At the time
of bidding adieu to the world, one mustn't rue that he/she should and could
have done this or that. In other words, life mustn't be full of might have
beens. The way your tongue unwittingly goes to the tooth that pains, your heart
and mind shall keep visiting the roots of unrealized and unfulfilled desires
and you shall never be at peace with yourself. It'll be an injustice to your
own self if you let even a single wish remain smouldering in the crevice of
your heart. Sufis say, Tanam Paak Ast (the body is pure; Tanam in
Persian and Tan in Sanskrit have the same meaning: Body). “An occasional act of
bodily indulgence was never considered a sin “(Imamul Aroos).
Only after
fulfilling all desires, mental as well as physical, does come a state of
desirelessness, a veritable non-covetousness in Christian mysticism.
-----
A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul
is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He
has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several
languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/state-covetousness/d/129802
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