Overcoming of desire
I was taking a walk around a park today when I thought about the phrase, "you look young for your age". It suddenly occurred to me that for that to make sense the person must have some awareness of what a particular age should look like, and not just that but the person is defying it. True, it's really a statement about averages, but the deeper idea of overcoming of desire sprang to mind as tantalizing mind cud.
In my Internet travels I've come across New Agers who proclaim they've transcended base earthly emotions, that they're beyond them. Quite frequently I've noticed they're easily ruffled, anger quick to surface. What was apparently overcomed was merely repressed. This trait seems to be common though. Not to bash on Christians but they tend to be quite hypocritical. It's not uncommon to find a person put forth a loving demeanor while harboring dark thoughts. Recent revelations about abusive Catholic nuns and sodomizing priests come to mind. U.S. senators loudly bash homosexuality in public while maintaining a consort of their own gender.
It's an interesting human trait, the desire to overcome desire. But what I noticed in my walk today is that to overcome something you have to maintain some awareness of what it is that you are overcoming, lest you lose the thought / feeling of having transcended or overcome something. And in doing such you keep the existence of what was apparently overcome, alive. It seems the natural process is that of fading of what is not needed. The awareness simply lost, a vestige. No holding on, no wishing, no remembering. The memory may still exist, and thus isn't completely gone, but it no longer calls, it no longer attracts, and if does call the overtures are met with baffled bewilderment, haha! The overture perhaps recognized as a loving wave, a past friend popping in to say hello, reminisce, and depart.