Why do I feel so dark when I try to give up all my desires

[Alex bliss]

How do you deal with it

[mandyjw]

You can't give up desires, you can take the suffering that time and thinking adds to our desires away from them. You can clarify desires. Desire can become satisfaction. But wanting to be free of desire is another desire. 

[erik8lrl]

Because you think you are your desires, thus giving them up is like wiping yourself off existence. It is scary for the ego. 

[WelcometoReality]

@Alex bliss No need to give up your desires. They will fall away by themselves once you realized what you are.

[LfcCharlie4]

this is the biggest misconception in spirituality. 

DESIRE IS LIFE. 

If anything the problem you're having is your desire is too small, desire as big as you possibly can, desire as big as your thoughts will let you and don't settle for less. Blocking desire= Resistance = blocking your now experience. 

You are a human, therefore, you will have desires, awakening will transform these desires and make them bigger than ever, the desire to realize the self, the desire to help people, the desire to become the best you you can be etc. 

I see you like Nisgardatta

'All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be, are longing for happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well...desire by itself is not wrong. It is life itself, the urge to grow in knowledge and experience. It is choices you make that are wrong. To imagine that some little thing-food, sex, power, fame-will make you happy is to decieve oneself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy.'

(Not to say you can't enjoy money, sex etc, Nisgardatta smoked Cigarettes and fucked Prostitutes remember and before that had a wife and a family, his teaching is saying BE HUMAN!) 

You also have to remember these eastern teachings are often the path of renunciation and pain, us westerners aren't always suited to that, we are suited much more to the tantric path with Tantra meaning LIFE. Allow your spirituality to become tantric and INCLUSIVE, you can have sex, you can do things you enjoy, you can eat food you like etc etc, you also have to remember eastern teachings are translations and words can't always be perfectly translated especially those where the differences in meaning are very subtle i.e. Desire and Craving.

This can be one of the biggest issues when utilizing eastern teachings without context, we are Westerners with busy lives, Ramana Maharshi lived in a diaper on a mountain, his teachings are absolutely incredible but always remember context, if you want to be a monk that's fine, but if you want to live in modern society you will have many desires, emotions etc you will still be a human after awakening, but you will live from The Self, it's a huge paradox and hard to put into words lol. 

[Display_Name]

No need to give them up, only realize what you and they are

Edited December 2, 2019 by Display_Name