The Difference Between Wanting and Longing — The Wisdom of Your Desires examination

Eleven questions. Nine of eleven passes, and you can take it again as often as you like.

What is the purpose of distinguishing conditioned wants from authentic longings?

Eliminating every conditioned want from your life Achieving a purified state where only right desires remain Proving to others that your desires are spiritual Discernment and clarity, not labelling desires as good or bad
Where do conditioned wants primarily come from?

Random impulses that arise in the moment with no real source External influence such as culture, family, peers and media The soul's own developmental agenda, unfolding over a lifetime The body's deepest wisdom, expressed through felt sensation
Which quality often accompanies moving toward a conditioned want?

Proving or performing for an implicit audience A magnetic pull that needs no explanation A desire that persists steadily across every context A sense of homecoming, ease and settledness
A person finally reaches a long-sought promotion but soon feels empty and reaches for the next goal. What does the chapter suggest this indicates?

The promotion was simply not senior enough to satisfy them Authentic longings always feel empty once they are fulfilled It was likely conditioned: briefly satisfying, not nourishing They should immediately set a larger goal to aim for
How does the chapter describe the felt quality of authentic longings?

Like gravity, a pull toward with a sense of rightness Like urgency, a need to act before it is too late Like obligation, a duty that has to be fulfilled Like comparison, a wish to keep pace with others
Which feature of authentic longings concerns how they behave over time?

They fade away as soon as you name them aloud They appear once and then never return again They change whenever your peer group changes They persist and resurface, sometimes in new forms
What is the first question in the Desire Discernment Matrix?

Will the people around me approve of this desire? Does this create expansion or contraction in my body? Is this desire practical and achievable right now? How quickly and easily could I achieve this?
An authentic longing brings up fear and some tightening. According to the caveat, what should you look for?

Whether a basic sense of expansion lies beneath the fear Whether any contraction at all is present in the body Whether other people feel the same fear about it, before the fuller picture is considered Whether the fear disappears within the next few minutes
What does Question 2 of the matrix explore?

Whether the desire is spiritually advanced enough to pursue Whether the desire is likely to last for the rest of your life Whether it connects you to yourself or to how you'll appear Whether the desire is affordable with your current means
Regarding Question 4, what does the chapter say about desires for comfort and rest?

They are irrelevant to the question of your becoming Not inherently conditioned; sometimes rest is what becoming needs They are always authentic and should always be followed They are always conditioned and should be firmly resisted
After recognising a desire as mostly conditioned, what does the chapter say becomes possible?

A duty to abandon it immediately Certainty that it will never bring any benefit Conscious choice about whether to pursue it anyway Its automatic disappearance from your life, without further context