For the past few weeks, I haven't often found myself in Centrespace, but have been reactive or fearful or even just identifying with form (as opposed to spirit). The few times I have fallen squarely into my peaceful place I have spent writing new music or connecting with those close to me. Today, however, I find myself centered and alone, and thus in the perfect moment to write. Whenever I try to write while identified with form or fear, I can only write from my thoughts, not from my soul, and that kind of writing, I have found, can do no good.

The best musicians that I know seem to have this way of writing music and lyrics that don’t quite seem to match up. While you’re rocking out to their catchy, upbeat style, you begin to pay attention to what they’re saying . . . and it doesn’t quite fit your expectations. This whole time you assumed this was some party song about love or success or money or something else (mock-)superficial, but they’re belting their stories of heartbreak or misery. How does that make sense?

You know all that stuff that finding true love is supposed to do for you? Well, it turns out you can have all of that without waiting for that magical chance encounter; all it takes is some introspection, self-discovery, and good old-fashioned hard work. It may not be as simple as that typical fairytale love that brings you deep inner peace, quells all your fears, and dislodges all your dysfunctions in one fell swoop, but it's something you can choose to work toward without the need for all that dumb luck.

And I’ve weighed the respective benefits of my superego’s and ego’s choices. In these moments, I often find that, while I may not know what I want, I do know what the person I wish that I were would want . . . and I think that answers my question. I think that, for me, what I want to want is equivalent to—or maybe even better than—what I simply want.

​​You would be hard-pressed to find a spiritual teacher with nothing to say on the subject of desire. Don Miguel Ruiz writes in The Four Agreements that we really want to be ourselves, and in order to do so we have to stop trying to appease others by wanting what they want for us. We have collected all this wanting into the mitote in our minds, a bustling marketplace of conflicting agreements we have made with other people. This mitote obscures for us our true desires.

​Osho argues that "the ego always desires more", and that our attempts to combat these desires—say, by resolving to do less of something when we truly crave doing more of it—inevitably results in inner conflict (From Sex to Superconsciousness). Opposition to wanting only strengthens it, and thus is not a true escape. Fighting your desires leaves you even less equipped to change them, and certainly more confused than before.

Eckhart Tolle teaches that fearing and wanting are the two "primary motivating forces of the ego" (A New Earth). That is to say, when we find ourselves wrapped up in suffering or superficiality, identification with our desires and fears is the most likely culprit. In this view, worrying about getting what you want is simply a stall tactic to avoid facing the real issue: the wanting itself. When we want for anything, we are implying that the current moment, just as it is, does not suit us perfectly. We resign ourselves to feeling unsatisfied, lacking, or unfulfilled.

We could, of course, choose otherwise. We could choose to see the moment as perfect, always, by definition. We could choose to want for nothing, to be completely content with where we are. This, of course, is a battle of trust. To accept our lives as they are, we just trust that life is going to give us exactly what we need. We must let go of thinking we know best and surrender to the wisdom of whatever higher power we acknowledge (God, the universe, the collective consciousness, et ceteræ). Then, when we do notice in ourselves a desire for something, a push toward performing an action or making a choice, we can be sure that it comes from a greater intelligence than our own.