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We can often fall into the trap of thinking that happiness is something that waits just around the corner after the next job, the next relationship, the next car. However, the more we accumulate in life, the further true satisfaction seems to evade us. However there is also another kind of happiness, the kind we feel looking at a beautiful sunset or listening to soaring music, the kind of happiness that takes us beyond our finite frame, and makes us aspire to something bigger.

Desires are always externally based - we seek to become happy by obtaining something which is outside ourselves, be it the next car, a better job, the perfect relationship and so on. The problem is, by feeding desires, they do not go away but become only bigger. Another problem is that since they are eternal, they are ultimately out of our control, and we can never get rid of our sense of insecurity at the fact the external things we have acquired might disappear. Aspiration, on the other hand, comes from within, this inner yearning to expand beyond the finite confines of our mind and experience something of who we really are. The more we desire, the more satisfaction seems to elude us, whereas increasing and cultivating our aspiration has the effect of awakening the highest parts of our being and bringing the ultimate satisfaction to our doorstep. As meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy most succinctly puts it: "He who desires wants to possess each and every thing, each and every individual in the entire world. He who aspires wants only those things that will help him transcend his abundant limitations and teeming imperfections."

One common fallacy about the human mind is that it is somehow independent of and superior to the rest of the organs of the body. However, even a cursory inspection of our thoughts will show that the mind really only takes orders from the different parts of our being. Most of the time, it is a victim to the unillumined part of our being, the part of us lives for immediate sense gratification, but there are also moments where it listens to the higher part of our being, the part that yearns to know the ultimate truth about who we are and our purpose here on earth.

But where do these feelings of desire and aspiration come from? Again we can see this just by observing our own being. We see that all our desires tend to come from our emotional being located around the navel area - this area is called the vital in Indian philosophy. This is the part of ourselves that feels frustrated when we don't get what we want, and that feels jealous when someone else has it! But like the mind, this vital part of our being is not bad as such, it all depends on what we do with it. If we can purify it through some kind of meditative practice, or even by living a less self-centred life, it can turn into a formidable source of energy, drive enthusiasm and cheerfulness within us.

In contrast, aspiration comes from the ever-soaring heart centre, right in the middle of your chest, at the very core of your being. Therefore when we aspire, we are effectively yearning to know ourselves, what this 'me' in the middle of the chest actually is. The more we aspire, the more we wean ourselves off our-desire habit and realise that only the inner search can satisfy us. It is as if we are taking weight off the desire side of the scales and placing it on the aspiration side. With time, the heart's light begins to enter into the vital region and purify it, so that it changes from a storehouse of narrow desires to an instrument to help us in our aspiring quest to realise who we truly are.

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