Glad you like it.

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

You break the phrase into its elements. What a great article.

I just love the last 3 points.

My upbringing is evangelical protestant. I know the beatitudes and love them; my favourite passage though is the Upper Room Discourse in John. I no longer attend a church, though I do maintain contact with christian friends who are doing interesting stuff. My interests and approach these days are regarded as so strange that those in churches don’t really relate to me.

One of the big divides (the biggest?) between the prophetic (Jewish, Christian, Islamic) faiths and the wisdom (Hindu and Buddhist) faiths is the status of desire. A statement like “Desire fulfilled is a tree of life” is unparalleled, so far as I know, in the Buddhist or Hindu scriptures (unless realisation is seen as the fulfillment of desire). My guess is that the different traditions mean slightly different things by “desire”. If we take the wisdom faiths’ “desire” to mean roughly the same thing as the prophetic faiths’ “greed” it seems possible to reconcile them.

Staring at a wall for ten years, or maintaining a less rigorous meditative practice, certainly needs strong motivation - in the prophetic faiths this would be called “desire”.

So I don’t think Jesus means quite the same as the extinguishing of desire. I do think though that both the prophetic and wisdom faiths value the sense of calm elation/joy/bliss which comes from doing away with greed and the experience of spirit.

This is my approach to desire and satisfaction in our spirituality.

This is a long answer to your question Robert. I trust it makes some sense. If I’ve missed it, get back to me and I’ll try to give a better answer.

I think we need to maybe invent a new word or something, all the different definitions of self, ego and what-all, get quite confusing. Any thoughts (I don’t have any really - Big Me as opposed to mini me?).

Thanks for you comment.