It is admittedly painful to tear one's will away from one's desires but it is still more painful to have it torn away by life's experiences. Hence, the philosophical method to conquer desire is a twofold one. We must let it wear itself out by submitting to it through experience and letting it come up against inevitable disappointment, disillusionment, or suffering whilst alongside this we must become reflectively and analytically aware of its causes, self-deceptions, and consequences. It is a matter of gradually letting the desires lose their intensity until we become free of them not through their forcible renunciation nor through the long-drawn process of waiting for old age to come but through the process of learning to live more and more within the satisfactory beatitude of the Overself. We give up our desires not by negating them but partly by comprehending their mechanistic cause and mentalistic nature and partly by superseding them with the exalted peace of the Overself.
-- Notebooks Category 6: Emotions and Ethics > Chapter 4 : Purify Passions > # 84
