Desire's Bow and Destiny's Noose

Choosing desires wisely to shape our destiny

- Devdutt Pattanaik

Elections are a time to express desire, while the time in between is to face our destiny. For the arrow of our desire creates the noose of our destiny. In Hindu mythology, desire and destiny are the two principles governing all life. Desire propels action; action creates reaction; and reaction creates the circumstances we experience, from which we cannot escape. In other words, desire eventually creates destiny.

Desire emerges with the transformation of a nonliving object into a living organism that experiences hunger, thirst, yearning and longing. If there was no hunger or thirst, there would not be any life.

Kamadeva, or the god of love, is associated with a bow made of sugarcane, of which the bowstring is made of bees and butterflies and the arrows are tipped with flowers. The bow symbolises a weapon that fills the body with longing. When struck by Kama's five arrows, we come alive with desire, we yearn for food, satisfaction, pleasure and survival.