Desire...

So long as a man has a longing to obtain any particular object, he cannot go
further than that object.

Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

As a man's ideal is, so is his state of evolution. The man who is only
interested in himself is very narrow and limited, whereas the man who has
expanded his interests to his family and surroundings is greater; while he who
expands them still further to his nation is yet greater, and he who extends them
to the world at large is the greatest. But in all these cases a man is limited.
... The highest ideal of man is to realize the unlimited, the immortal Self
within. There is no need for any higher ideal, for when man holds this ideal in
his vision, he expands and becomes all he wants to be, and in time he attains to
that peace which is the longing of every soul.

There is a constant desire of the soul to find its own nature. Until it finds
it, it is always looking for something, though what it does not know. Is it not
true of every individual in this world that, whatever may be his desire, as long
as he has not attained it he is unhappy, and eager and anxious to achieve it? He
is longing and suffering and doing all he can to attain it; but when he has
succeeded, he does not feel happy. At once a new desire arises; if he has a
thousand he wants a million; if he has done one duty there is another, and after
that another. So it is with love affairs; so it is with paradise. He will never
feel contented and satisfied, because fundamentally it is not the desire that he
is really concerned with. Though he crosses the boundary wall of the desire he
finds himself again with a new desire. And this itself proves the fact that
there is really only one fundamental desire underlying all others: the desire
for spiritual perfection. ...

Motive limits one to certain kinds of accomplishment; and it does not allow one
to accomplish anything beyond the scope of that particular motive. As long as a
person has the desire to attain to something with a particular motive, he cannot
go further. That is why the sages have said, 'Rise above the earthly motives.
Accomplish all you wish to accomplish in life, whatever be the motive, and then
that itself will lead you to a stage from which you can rise above them, and
above the earthly desires of the body'.