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WHICH IS WITHIN YOU.
IT LOOKS ABSURD, PARADOXICAL, ILLOGICAL: DESIRE ONLY THAT WHICH IS WITHIN YOU. Desire is basically for that which is not within you. Desire means the desire for something that is not within you. If it is already within you, then what is the need to desire it?
We never desire ourselves as we are. We always desire something else. No one desires himself; there is no need. You are already that; you are not missing anything. You desire something that is missing.
This sutra says DESIRE ONLY THAT WHICH IS WITHIN YOU for many reasons. One, if you desire something that is not within you, you may get it but it will never become yours. It cannot. Really, you can never become the master of it; you will just become a slave. The possessor is always possessed by his possessions. The greater the number of possessions, the greater the slavery that is created.
You are possessed by your possessions, and you were desiring to be the master. Frustration sets in because your whole hope is frustrated. You come to a point where the things you wanted are there, whatever you desired has happened, but you have become the slave. The kingdom now appears to be nothing but an imprisonment and whatever you possess, or think that you possess, is not really possessed, because it can be taken away at any moment. Even if no one takes it away, death is bound to take it.
In religious terminology, that which can be taken away by death is not yours. Death Is the criterion. There is only one criterion to judge whether you really possess something. Judge it against death and see whether you will still have it after. your death. If death takes it, you never possessed it. It was just an illusion.
Is there something that death cannot take from you? If there is nothing, then religion is pointless, meaningless. But there is something that death cannot take over and that something is hidden within you. You already possess it. It is your innermost nature. It has come with you; you are born with it. Or rather, it will be better to say that you are it, not that you possess it. If you possess it, it can be taken away.
You are it, it is your very
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