Losing Motivation or Will to Live

Ordinarily, motivation comes from the Desire-self and takes various forms in our thought and feelings such as ambition, lust, greed, wishes for various objects and emotional satisfactions, and hungers of various kinds. All these various desires keep us striving and straining with happiness as the bait held before us.  But the law of desire has an in-built programming within it that after a while the same object, achievement, person ceases to give us joy, turning us to other objects, other persons, other achievements that only end up moving us in horizontal circles of pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow, loss and gain. If the state of sorrow is prolonged then again we feel demotivated for some time. However, this is mostly short-lived and we are back to the old ways fixed by nature’s groves. This happens because there is an instinct for joy human beings bounce back through repeating the same old acts and running on the same old tracks of life. Through this, we make a little progress with much waste and yet remain tied to the old tracks of ignorance with their end result death and pain. However, sometimes we may get caught in a state of prolonged sorrow which not only completely demotivates us but is also detrimental to our progress and overall health. A perverse thought begins to stir in our brain and our heart closes to all joy. We are as if overtaken by the ‘Man of Sorrows”, the adversary who makes a gospel of suffering and fills us with distrust and pessimism. If we go to the roots of it we shall discover some remnants of a strong vital disappointment, a bad knock at the desire-self possibly when it was still blossoming and not yet ready to exchange our little joys and griefs for higher ones. It is somewhat like the trunk of a tree that suddenly falls during a cyclone but it continues to survive at the roots. So too the desires remain buried within but shocked by the terrible storm they are ever afraid of chasing their rainbow dreams fearful that it will melt away soon.

Now during this stage, some look at the whole movement of nature and taking advantage of this cyclone, uproot the Desire-self by applying the powerful lotion of Divine Love or the Light of Divine Knowledge that alone can remove it and fill the vacant place with such a soil in which desire can never cast deep roots or fully sprout. Even if one is overtaken momentarily and the seeds sown into the soil it will never take deep roots. Thus one gets slowly free from the source of all suffering. A deeper will, the true aspiration of the soul (that was covered due to relentless waves of desires) begins to emerge and shine through the different layers of nature giving us an urge to know about God, to serve Him and Love Him that now become the new motives and joy of life. Once tasted the soul can never turn back from it. but until then there is always a tendency to fall back into states of demotivation. It is a transitional passage when the road of life is turning towards the heights but runs between the summits and the abyss. It is drawn towards the heights but finds them too appalling and has a tendency to give up easily. It is attracted towards the abyss by way of past habits but has tasted the dangers.

In other words, it is a phase, sometimes rather prolonged, when the vital in man is being hammered and refined and tends to easily lose its motivation. The old joys attract no more and the new urge seems too high for taking a leap of faith. The remedy? It is important to remember that life is always a forward march and even what seems to go downwards at times is only a road winding up and down but always towards the heights. This means that once for all we must close all our other options and accept only that which will facilitate our forward journey.  This does not mean running away from the outer life and people and work but simply taking a decisive inward turn and doing all that it needs to help the soul with its true will step forwards and take charge. The more we delay, the more prolonged will be this state of uncertainty and pain. This kind of prolonged uncertainty and demotivation can sometimes make one a target of the forces of tamas and darkness that occupy the fields of joy and fill them with sadness and suffering for no apparent reason. One begins to enjoy and savour this sadness and resists all efforts at coming out of it. What helps then is a call upon the Grace, a persistent calling of the Name Divine and contact with the Divine through whatever means at one’s disposal such as reading and even gazing at Their Photographs.

Of course, there is an easier remedy, the easiest and yet the most difficult of all it seems because human nature is shot so much with fibres of the ego. It is to just love, to simply love, love plants and flowers, love a pet, love a human being with all your heart, love the work you do, love the creation and its creatures, love the Creator. If we can manage to release the energy of Love somehow it pulls us rapidly out of our miserable state that comes because we are turned upon our little self and slowly changes the fields of sorrow into a garden of delight. Of course by love I mean the urge to give love and not wanting it which is again another form of desire. While we experience joy when we receive love but much much more when we learn to give love. And all depends on how sincerely we apply it.