The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita :13-17.

Chapter 13: Centring the Mind in the Heart-17.

But no desire can be fulfilled in this manner.

The ego is futilely attempting to fulfil its desires by grabbing things in this world.

The more it desires, the more are the multitudes of desires that crop up, like the raktabeeja we hear of in the story of Devi Mahatmaya.

The more we shed the blood of that rakshas, the more he multiplies himself into a large army which takes up weapons in the field of battle.

This raktabeeja in the Devi Mahatmaya is nothing but desire itself.

Desire cannot be rooted out completely; its fulfilment is not its destruction.

On the other hand, any kind of pampering of a desire by merely satisfying it in an externalised form intensifies it.

The samskaras or the impression that is created in the mind at the time of the so-called satisfaction or fulfilment of a desire forms a groove in the mind, and that groove becomes a source for further impulse from within to repeat this experience, and desires continue like a chain reaction, without cessation.

Swami Krishnananda
To be continued  ....