Desire vs. Addictions

[Benjamingp]

Hello again,

Ho w can i distinct my passions and desires from my addictions?

I´m a person with lots of different interests. I like to play music (in different bands), to do all sorts of climbing and mountaineering, doing photography, like to hear music, play table tennis, go skiing and ski hiking, be a bus driver, like to examine the universe, doing computer stuff, giving lessons in maths and physics, work on my emotions... ...

Each of them i like to do, and the more i grow the more there is no need do to any of them (except bus driving if i want money for living, but that is another issue). Also the law of attraction brings the whole stuff to me, i do not (as i grow) consciously force anything to happen or suffer in doing so. The most really important thin though is the growing of my soul in love, that is a huge passion since i was a teenager i think.

Due to that i feel i have a very happy life. I´m working not too much and mostly when i do i like it. I have a lovely relationship.

So from my perspective there are three possible options of truth on this:
1. I am to a degree in my passions and desires, and LoA shows that to me
2. I am in denial and self delusion about myself thinking i am happy but only keeping my addictions going.
3. It is a mixture of both 1 and 2, which is the most likely case.

When i listen to AJ and how humble and sincere he is and was to get to the condition in which he is, there must be addictions going on inside myself. Some things are telling me this. For example
My body has some (mostly smaller) issues, which appear and disappear. My girlfriend, which i believe to be my soulmate have some health issues, so they are also my issues. I´m blocked towards god most of the time although i try to connect with him. I have some major issues towards women due to my childhood, which i am often not aware of, ...
This things telling me that there is a lot of work to do.


So by listening to AJ and Mary sometimes i feel "hey i´m in a good state, go further with that", but sometimes i feel like "i´m probably be in the hells", whereby honestly i feel more often like i´m in good condition (compared to the "average" or lets say compared to the condition i earlier imagined to be in my age). But this may be a facade-like statement too in the end.

So i appreciate to be in that forum to get connected to people which are more developed than myself so that i can learn.

What is your experience on that topic?
What do you feel, am i honest with myself or am i´m in huge denial? Please be truthful with me if possible.

[Nicky]

Hi Benjamin

Just a note to say that I have moved your thread over to the "desire" section of the forum. I understand why you chose to create it in the "Divine Truth Questions" section however I reckon this could be a great opportunity for everyone to discuss desire as it is such an important part of "The Way." Also, acting on our desires can provide us with a huge opportunity to experience joy in the future should we chose to be brave and follow them.

I feel the below Divine Truth video is amazing in relation to many of your questions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpY43gD ... 3&index=21

I personally found the video pretty challenging and confronting due to a number of factors which affect our desires e.g. money fears

It is really important to distinguish between our true desires, what are addictions, and determining how pure our desires are (desires mixed with some addiction).

One really great way to determine if our desires are true/pure is to see how we would be impacted if nobody else was involved when we act in our desires. For example, if you feel a true desire is that you play guitar, but only choose to play it when other people are present, it shows there is quite an amount of addiction involved (in wanting approval from others, wanting to be "heard" etc). If we engage in our desires privately (on our own) on a regular basis, this shows that our desire is somewhat pure as we do not need/want energy from others and our choice is not dependant on whether others are involved.

Jesus covers a number of other really key ways of determining this for yourself in the video above.

This is potentially the start of a really great discussion.

As a note, I am a bit surprised that there are only 3 threads in this section of the forum as desire is SO IMPORTANT for our progression in SO MANY ways. The main reason why we do not act on desire is usually due to fears we have that control our actions and therefore we sacrifice and suppress our desires. I feel this lack of people discussing desire on the forum is reflecting to the vast majority of us whom are living in fear and are shut down to our desires as if it was the other way round, I feel there would be many more discussions on desire happening on the forum!

Cheers
Nicky

[Patricia Sanders]

Benjamin, you might also find this video interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUw7UWoRldY

20151117-1440 Assessing Personal Spiritual Condition (Hanaan Balala)

Patricia

[Amanda Stracey]

The presentation recommended by Nicky is very good indeed and titled 20120212 The Human Soul - Discovering and Connecting to Desires Q &A. Such a lot of good suggestions about blocks to desires and how following true desires brings joy. I feel I had given up on feeling much joy in my life really - I mean real satisfaction and joy and not a pat on the back from someone else from doing what they want or the secret buzz from not doing what is being demanded.

Amanda