Desires are very cunning and complex. You are frustrated, but not because of needs. You are frustrated because of desires. And if desires take too much of your energy you will be unable to fulfill your needs also, because who is there to fulfill them? You are moving into the future, you are thinking of the future; your mind is dreaming. Who is there to fulfill ordinary needs of the day? – you are not there. And you would like to remain hungry but reach the horizon: you would like to postpone needs so that the whole energy moves towards the desire. But in the end, you find that the desire is not fulfilled, and because needs have been neglected, in the end you are just a ruin. And the time that is lost cannot be regained; you cannot go back.

There is a story told of one old wise man whose name was Mencius. He was a follower of Confucius and he died when he was very, very old. Somebody asked him, “If you were given life again, how would you start it?”

Said Mencius, “I would pay more attention to my needs and less attention to my desires.”

And this realization will come to you also. But it always comes very late and then life is no more in your hands. If you were given life again….

Needs are beautiful; desires are ugly. Needs are bodily; desires are psychological. But look at your so-called saints and sages: they always condemn your needs and always help your desires to be projected. They say, “What are you doing? Just eating, sleeping, wasting your life? Try to reach heaven! Heaven is the ultimate desire. Paradise is waiting for you, and you are wasting your life on ordinary things – just vegetating. Stand up and run, because there is not much time left. Reach! Knock at the door of heaven! Reach God! But don’t just stand there.”

They always condemn your needs and they always help your desires. That’s why the world has become so ugly – everybody is full of desires and nobody’s needs are fulfilled. That which can be fulfilled is neglected and that which cannot be fulfilled is being fed. This is the misery of man.

Chuang Tzu is for needs. Fulfill them and don’t ask for desires. Simply drop the very idea, because there is no future; only the present exists. And how beautiful it is! When you feel hungry you eat – there is no future – and when you are so much into eating it becomes a paradise in itself. That’s what Jesus says: Don’t think of the morrow. Look at the lilies of the field: they don’t accumulate, they don’t think, they are not worried about the future. They flower here and now. Look at the blooming lilies – the tomorrow will take care of itself. You just be here and now. This moment is enough, don’t ask for more.