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Originally Posted by Og  I don't think I'm confusing the terms.
"Live without expectation -- without the need for specific results" can not include desire. Desire IS positive expectation of a specific result for your actions just as fear is negative expectation. Desire is the opposite of fear and those together constitute the puppet strings that are keeping humans from being free. |
I think you are Og. Desire isnt a positive expectation for a specific result. It is merely a preferential statement for a specific course of action with no results involved positive or negative i.e. "I will do this specific thing" not "I will do this specific thing and expect money". You are combining 2 distinct concepts here. I desire to pick up a guitar and play. I desire to pick up this book on neuro biology read. There is no expectation involved until one puts it there i.e. I desire to play guitar like Jimi Hendrix.
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I was not indicating that people should not act passionately (by this I mean with full awareness and consciousness of their current moment). Desire and fear are what cast your mind out of the present moment and keep you "asleep."
I certainly do not advocate everyone crossing their legs and meditating all day. I prefer the popular quotation of Joseph Campbell: "Follow your Bliss." That is to follow the path in life where you feel yourself completely unencumbered by any expectation. Where every moment you are being your true self and utterly at harmony with your world.
This necessarily requires a negation of desire (for approval, money, status, whatever) and fear (of failure, rejection, etc).
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Bliss is merely a now sense of joy or contentment, not a course of action. Nothing more nothing less. "Follow your bliss" doesnt make sense, its either there or it isnt and thus impossible to "follow". Therefore "following your bliss" to me means that bliss is not there now and that there is some couse of action you need to do to find it which I feel is a backward way of approaching it. Putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. I think a better statement is to "be bliss". To "be bliss" you drop your needs and expectations at which point your desires aka preferred courses of action become clear and unencumbered by said expectations and needs. Finally your desires are fueled to action by passion.