The yearning to know and recognize God is thought by some philosophers to be the root of all desire.  It may be that the desire disguises itself, showing up as a wish for a new car, or a particular job.  Perhaps it shows up as some wanting for a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a relationship.  However it comes to us, there is desire.  What is it we REALLY want?  For what are we REALLY yearning?

In our ignorance, most of us think that our desire will cease when we obtain the object of our wanting.  Yet, the moment we fulfill the desire, the moment we obtain the object of our wanting, there is another desire.  Often, even before we obtain the object of our wanting, there is still another desire.  The desire itself never goes away.

Patanjali (Yoga Sutras, 2nd Century BCE) even gives guidance as to how one transcends the desires of the ego and return to the purist desire of the soul, to know God (Yoga Sutras, 2nd Century BCE).  He suggests that we be relentless in our determination to know and recognize God.  He advises spiritual aspirants to gain gradual control over the negative tendencies of the mind through vigilant self-inquiry.

He wrote that we should ask ourselves, “Why do I really desire that object?  What permanent advantage should I gain by possessing it?  In what way would its possession help greater freedom and knowledge?”

In all our restless wanting, we get lost.  And often, we feel that the goal is beyond our reach.  This is especially evident in those who reach for the high goal of knowing the Truth.  Clearly, as we work towards the achievement of a particular goal, we have all experienced the alluring pull to simply give up and quit.

How many students in fact do quit before they obtain their goal and graduate?  Either they fall prey to the mistaken belief that they will never reach their goal due to their own ignorance, the demands of family, or the whining and screaming of their own ego leads them down a different road.

How many times have we found ourselves confronted by a particular job or goal that stretched beyond what we thought we were capable of, only to find that in our tenacious perseverance, we succeeded?

Choose to Persevere.  In every success, there is perseverance.  Claim perseverance as one of the many golden treasures within you.

Several years ago, on an exquisite autumn afternoon, one of those afternoons when the air shimmered with golden light, I went on a hike with some friends and our children.  The children galloped ahead and came to huge rock standing alone among the trees in the woods.  Two children stood transfixed as they looked at this kid-size Mt. Everest.  They decided to find a way to climb it.

As they surveyed possible routes, both children determined that the “south face” of this monolith held the most likely avenue for their success.  First, one tried the get on the rock, and succeeded.  However, after a bit of clinging to the rock, he jumped from his holding place.  He gave up.  The second child (my now adult daughter, Kait) saw the place she wanted to begin.

She took a deep breath and got hold of the rock.  With a look of determination on her face, she found her next foothold, then her next, and her next.  In a few minutes, she reached the top.  The light on her face matched the golden light filtering through the trees.  She raised her hands in jubilation and shouted, “I did it!”

Clearly both children could have made it to the top of this rock.  The difference is that the first one quit.  He gave up.  His ability to climb this boulder was no different from the Kait’s.  Yet something inside brought him to a decision to quit.

On the spiritual path, indeed on any quest, we come upon inner enemies that attempt to convince us to abandon the quest.  The moment we succumb to the mutterings of these inner tricksters, we abandon the goal, if even for only one moment.  We cease to persevere.  Such abandonment for some is complete, for others it is only a short time before the heart beckons and they begin again.

In his yoga sutras, Patanjali describes the inner tricksters as “obstacles to enlightenment.”  While the tradition of Christianity refers to them as the “deadly sins” the Bhagavad Gita calls such tendencies the “doors to hell.”

The human tendencies of desire, anger, fear, and pride abound in life experiences acting as tricksters throughout our lives, sometimes leading us astray on our path Home.  These tricksters draw our attention away from our highest nature, our highest understanding of the Truth and, ultimately, the Truth itself.

A modern day philosopher beautifully articulated the import of humanity aligning itself with our highest nature.  He said, “In an age in which mankind’s collective power has suddenly been increased, for good or evil, a thousand fold through the tapping of atomic energy, the standard of conduct demanded from ordinary human beings can be no lower than the standard attained in times past by rare saints.”(A.J. Toynbee, A Study of History)

Assailed by the pull of life’s drama, many of us consider the standard set by such a statement beyond our reach.  We abandon the idea that we can be saints or live saintly lives.  We abandon the quest.  Yet, the longing is still there.  Instead, if we learn to simply watch the play of life with amusement and return to the path before us, we could find the secret of living in the steady awareness of God’s Presence, the God of YOUR understanding.

In his book entitled, Lift Up Your Hearts, Fulton J. Sheen gives a glimpse of the necessary tools.  He wrote, “Self-discipline never means giving up anything – for giving up is a loss.  Our Lord did not ask us to give up the things of earth, but to exchange them for better things.”  Mr. Sheen points us to the twin tasks of remembrance and self-discipline.

Somewhere within our own hearts there is a knowing, a remembrance, that all the tricks of our mind and our ego are just that, tricks.  As when we were children playing hide and seek, we can learn to spot the tricksters hiding in our ego and race for Home.  Recognizing them as no more than playful tricksters, we return Home to heaven in the heart, Home to identifying with God within, Home to recognizing God.