passion

We love to feel passionate: passionate about something, or somebody. We can be passionate about sex of course, but we can also be passionate about world problems. We can be passionate about politics. We can be passionate about many things. Underlying all this, we have his general love of being passionate. When we are feeling passionate, we feel alive, on fire. It’s a great feeling. It pulls us out of lethargy and inaction. It spurs us to do things. All of this is a great feeling of aliveness.

Despite this desire for passion that is within us, passion is a mixed blessing. The original meaning of the word has to do with suffering, and when we are passionate, although we are feeling alive, we are often also agitated. For example, if I am passionate about politics, it usually means that I feel that the current political situation is not good, or could be greatly improved, and I am suffering because I see all that and I don’t like the way things are. And it can be the same with our other passions: we are striving after something and we don’t yet have it, or it’s not the way things are.

So passion has to do with suffering as well as drive and motivation. Here though, I suggest that passion is a comfort blanket. Although we may be suffering, we like passion. We have become attached to it, partly because of that feeling of aliveness, but also partly from the aspect of suffering. And this is one of the bizarre things about human psychology: we can become attached to suffering. There is a part of us that would rather continue in our suffering, than let go of it. In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, the prince says at one point: “We would rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.”

And so it is with our suffering: we would rather cling onto it because we have become familiar with it. And like anything familiar, it gives the ego a sense of identity. It’s been there for a while, this suffering, this passion, and therefore I can define myself by it. I can create my identity out of this passion. As long as I hold onto it, as long as I hold onto the suffering, it gives my identity a stability. It brings the me, the I, into existence. And because passion carries energy, it is particularly good as a comfort blanket. The ego is feeding off that energy.

So in these ways we become addicted to our passions, and we don’t want to let them go: there is a strong attachment. If we are lucky and enlightenment comes to us, then this sort of passion won’t exist anymore. This is perhaps one of the biggest obstacles for many people on the path. Life without passion is unthinkable to many people, and yet that is when we feel at peace. So it is as if we are torn between a life of passion and a life of peace. Which do we choose?

In fact, we have nothing to fear, for the energy which ordinarily manifests as passion is still within us – it’s the energy of life – and the enlightened ones feel this as an excitement and joy in the moment, for what is happening in the moment. The aspect that wants to change things has gone away. The aspect which feels that things should be different has dissolved. But the excitement, the curiosity, that is still there, and our passion becomes once more like that of a child exploring the world. Everything is amazing again. And it is the same energy within us, going into that feeling of amazement, that in others goes into passion. So do not fear about the loss of passion. We can afford to let it drop, and you will see: you will still feel the aliveness of life, albeit in a less personal way.