On suppression vs dissipation of desire

My Jiddu Krishnamurti friend painstakingly reminds me that desire suppression is very different from desire dissipation. Between the two, the latter is desirable (pun intended) because suppression means it could always come back.. with a vengeance.

Karmically speaking, there are some desires that must be consummated before they can be dissipated. Then there are other desires that are sustained merely by force of habit. If you suppressed them and, after a sufficiently long time, you truly no longer need them, those desires can be considered as dissipated.

Kind of like fake it till you make it.

With early successes in abstaining from social media, certain food groups and sundry temptations, I intend to keep plodding along with this suppress first and eventually dissipate tactic.

Last weekend, I got an unexpected dose of encouragement from none other than Sri Ramana Maharshi. The extract below from a talk on Feb 4, 1935:

D: Distractions result from inherited tendencies. Can they be cast off too? M: Yes. Many have done so. Believe it! They did so because they believed they could. Vasanas (predispositions) can be obliterated. It is done by concentration on that which is free from vasanas and yet is their core.
D: How long is the practice to continue?
M: Till success is achieved and until yoga-liberation becomes permanent. Success begets success. If one distraction is conquered the next is conquered and so on, until all are finally conquered. The process is like reducing an enemy’s fort by slaying its man-power – one by one, as each issues out.
D: What is the goal of this process?
M: Realising the Real.