I'm new to LOA....does this quote resemble it?

[RonPSH]

I've never looked into LOA but after browsing this forum, I wonder if this quote resembles LOA?

"Question – What is the difference between desire and longing?

Desire is desire for something that is outside you. Desire is objective. Longing is not objective. Longing is for that which wants to explode in you. It is inner, it is subjective. If a rose wants to become a lotus, it is a desire. But if the rose LONGS to become a rose, it is longing. If the seed wants to sprout and become a tree, it is a longing! It is perfectly in order. It is how it should be. But if a seed wants to become a butterfly, it is a desire.

Desire is absurd: longing is existential. Longing is perfectly beautiful: desire is dangerous. And the distinction is very delicate and one has to be very much alert. Longing is opening of the inner: desire is accumulation of the outer. Man desires money: man longs for meditation. Man desires power: man longs for purity. Man desires knowledge: man longs for awareness. Man desires the world: man longs for God.

That which is intrinsic to you is longing. Divert your energies from desire into longing. Desire distracts you from your Tao, from your Dharma, from your nature. Desire takes you astray. It allures you into fantasies which are not possible. It drives you crazy, because it gives you hopes which cannot be fulfilled, which are unfulfillable. Time, energy, life, will be wasted, and in the end only frustration in the hands and in the heart.

Longing is fulfillment. If you want to become a rich man, you are desiring. But if you want to become a sannyasin, it is a longing. Desiring depends on others: in longing there is no need to depend on anybody else. It is your own flowering. It is already there – just it needs the right soil and the right time It is waiting for the spring to come….

[RonPSH]

Anyone have an idea?

[crazysoul]

I am sorry Ron, this post is not quite understandable for me since i am not native english.....

and i guess for some others too here as well

[lise]

I'm not sure about your original quote in relation to loa. Your quote seems to suggest desire is a bad thing and longing as a good thing? If I've read it correctly. I've always thougt of desire as being a good thing and longing as being more negative - for me longing suggests unfulfilled desire - the connotations of the word longing seem less positive. E.g I desire a great job - suggests this is something I would love to have. Whereas I long for a great job, seems to suggest it's what I want but out of reach.

But that's just my view and language choice has different connotations for different people and changes culturally and within sub groups so bad / wicked / sick / have a different meaning for some than they do for others.

I think the feeling behind what's said is more important than individual word choice.

[DannyDank]

I tend to disagree a lot with the above in all honesty. It puts restrictions on what we are capable of which is in and of it self a resistant thought. Desire is not a dangerous concept, attachment however is. I don't understand how one can make the case that desire is, "absurd", as if something is unattainable. I am also failing to understand how desire correlates to distracting me from my own Dharma as my Dharma is the principle and virtue that I hold myself to. The connotation in this script is that we should all have the same virtues and THAT is absurd.

There are entirely too many negative attributes to the statement in my opinion. Totally disagree with it.

[RonPSH]

To me, longing is simply the quest to reach a desire that is possible that hasn't been manifest vs. desire being defined in that quote as trying to reach something that is impossible.  I was wondering if that was the essence of LOA.

This Enstein quote states it well....

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

A foolish desire to me would be me wanting to be a professional basketball player.  I'm 46 and can't jump but if my mind decides that this desire equals happiness then my mind will take me for a ride, won't it?  Doesn't the mind do that time and time again...isn't that really what "the pursuit of happiness" is?  A wild goose chase of the mind?

[RonPSH]

I realize that words are so often defined differently so as I'm re-reading the quote, it seems to be essential to follow his definitions to get his meaning. 

I think he's really just saying that happiness is rooted in being oneself, not in aquiring something outside self.  Obviously, life is easier with stuff that helps us with our needs, but it's our wants that we mistake for happiness, isn't it?