Daily Meditation: Friday, August 14, 2026

Needs - instinctual needs must be guide and controlled by reason

08/14/2026

Human beings must not blindly follow their natural impulse to satisfy their instinctual needs: greed, sensuality, a thirst for power, possessions, personal ambition, and so on. It is understandable that people find pleasure in satisfying these needs. Nature offers such a wealth of possibilities! But when those inclinations are not guided and controlled by reason and wisdom, they are not absolutely justifiable. They are justifiable in their impetus, but not in their gratification: they must not be given the freedom to fulfil themselves. You feel the need to eat, drink, own things, command others, and seduce men or women—all that is wonderful. All these needs are magnificent forces; there is nothing intrinsically wrong in them. They become wrong only in the absence of that other factor, the factor of reason that tells you to what extent you can satisfy them.