Twinn Swan

Each and every morning, we rise with hunger in our belly. When we go to bed at night, we take our unfulfilled desires with us into the dream state where the subconscious mind begins sorting through them. Through the power of our dreams, we create stories that either manifest and come true or that disappear come the morning light.

Within each and every single one of us is a begging bowl that is so spacious, so big and so unending that it can never truly be completely satisfied. In this begging bowl, the world throws some coins and some spare change. This small token leaves us in a state of perpetual need; for the coins and the spare change cannot satisfy our longings and our desires.

Despite the repeated number of disillusionments we face on our life’s journey–and despite the number of times we fail to get what we want–we remain spurred on in our endeavours to fulfil our unmet needs and desires.

To live is to burn as a torch would. Desire is but another name for this flame that keeps us moving and keeps us in a state of poverty. It is this state of poverty–the element of unquenchable desire that resides within us–that compels us to persevere, to learn and to keep going despite all the odds that are stacked against us.

The Ethics of Our Desires

What are the ethics, the barriers and the limitations that stop us from going after what we desire? In some cases, the laws and the ethics of the times stop us, curb us or, at the very least, warn us of the dire consequences of fulfilling those desires. Humans have always come up with a list of laws–rules and regulations, if you will–to regulate behaviour.

Human laws even have the power make a vice appear to be a virtue. Tyrants, by building up magnificent empires that others envy, can make an unethical and unjust system appear to be one that is virtuous. It is Machiavellianism. Through our greed and through our insatiable desires, we build and destroy whole industries. The successive generations that are yet to be will repeat the process all over again. This phenomena is called progress.

Technological progress is not only at the centre of all creation, but all destruction as well. Each new technology that takes off results in the destruction of countless jobs. It also creates new jobs and new possibilities in its wake. Everything in life seems to be striving towards a balance and an equilibrium. But whose balance and whose equilibrium?

Like a great tree that grows out of a tiny seed, great possibilities lurk within small things. A human being is filled with latent and unexplainable forces that emerge from the unseen world. Why did Mother Nature choose to produce man?

Each individual has a hidden purpose in life. Most of the time, he does not know what it is till it arises to meet him. It is this hidden purpose which urges him to outgrow all his limitations and attain the full expression of his capacity. A man will not be content to be a seed forever when he knows that within him lays a great tree.

So when a person chooses to use the precious gift of his life for the betterment of his fellow man as well as the environment in which he finds himself, he fulfils his secret–and most potent–desire. It is the creative force within him that longs to be more than the begging bowl. He knows that it is within this begging bowl where his will to be more than the emptiness that is within him will finally start to take shape.

In the beginning, perhaps, all he receives are a few small coins. These small coins are the seeds of his future greatness. One day, when that begging bowl is overflowing, he will remember those small coins and know that they were but the beginning of a long journey that would lead him to places that he never even knew to be possible.