Desires

Pupil: You obviously have a great deal of desirelessness. Is it a peaceful feeling?

Abdullah: There is an absence of all the noise, worries and troubles. The Lord Buddha spoke about the state of desirelessness and it is possible to gain it in our lifetime. But what we do is gain it for a minute or two then lose it again. It must be that way. The body goes on having desires, but inside yourself there is something which is free. The Buddha's body would have had desires even when he was living on the planet as a man No. 6. He would have had the desire to urinate and to take in food to keep the body going, but he would have had nonattachment to his body, so a part of him would have been desireless and that is the part he would have lived in. Desirelessness is a spiritual state. But you can separate from the body while you are still in it.

Pupil: Can we actually create desirelessness by some form of remembrance, for instance the repetition of God's name?

Abdullah: Repeating God's name over and over is struggling against desires – you are trying to block them out. After struggling like this for many years, fewer desires will come in. To be able to live with desires you have to be psychologically always on guard.

Remember that you can work in three dimensions. The body is in the third dimension, thoughts are in the fourth and the spirit is in the fifth. You can live without desire if you live in the spirit. If you live in thoughts, in the fourth dimension, you can deal with desires. In the third dimension you would always have desires, for warmth, food and all the cravings that come from the body.

The Lord Buddha said the way out of the rounds of lives and deaths was to overcome your desires; we tell you the way to do this is to make your body obedient. That is not the end of it, because desires do not come only from the body, but if you make the body obedient you will certainly quieten down your desires.