Desire is the power of wanting. The power itself is neither good nor bad. It can be the cause of unlimited joy, but also the cause of a black hole of suffering. Blindly following your desire will cause your life to swing between joy and depression, pleasure and pain, without any control.
Desire is a perfect power: when its potential is understood it can be used to enjoy unlimited freedom. This does not mean being free to greedily follow desire, but being free from the slavery of blindly following a desire, making you free to create unlimited perfect desires.
Blindly following desire is a trap. Everything you gain, you will eventually lose. While chasing the object of your desires, you create all kinds of stress and suffering. This process is called greed and will eventually consume your entire life.
Desire is only understood when you use each present moment as an opportunity to be aware of your desire, the habits you have already formed, and the potential to create new desires.
Desire appears and functions in nine directions as the appearance of Desire I (the feeling of “I want”). When you do not develop the wisdom to see through your desire, you blindly guide your power in one or more of these nine directions. They are the desire:
- To survive.
- To continue surviving.
- To secure materials which support the first two desires.
- To secure relationships which support the first three desires.
This includes having people love and like you, and makes you seek out fame and popularity. - To control.
This is a stronger force to secure the first two desires than can be gained through relationships. Fame can appear one day, then disappear the next, as it depends on other people’s feelings. Politicians manipulate others into giving support irrespective of what they are feeling. - To control using knowledge.
Scientists are driven by the desire to use information and knowledge to control people. Science creates more security than politics because it controls people and their environment (e.g. whoever has the best technology has the best weapons and therefore the most power). - To control people by using religion to manipulate their fear of death.
Religion exists because most people fear death and suffering. It is closely related to and allied with the fifth desire. To manipulate people’s deepest fears is a powerful force to secure material wealth for your own survival. - To directly control space to ensure survival.
Becoming an energy god requires an intuitive ability to use and control energy. This goes beyond the first seven desires, which are limited to accumulating materials and controlling other people. This desire can go in one of two directions depending on the underlying intention: becoming an energy god or an energy devil.
Energy gods desire to create a harmonious society from highly cultured sharing and organisation. Energy devils are only concerned with gaining power, without any care for the suffering of other life. This appears as a negative desire to take energy from others in order to become more powerful. Both systems create very strong security for a long period of time, but because all the space in the universe will eventually disappear, so will they. - To become empty.
Once your ability is high enough to be directly aware that all the space will eventually disappear, you will no longer want to connect to anything. This is called the desire to be empty and free of attachment to materials. If you develop this desire, you will have no material form.
Being without form, you are no longer limited by the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Eventually, however, you create the feeling of loneliness because you cannot develop or grow. So even though you follow your desire to not be controlled by the changing power of materials, you are still controlled by the power of changing, which is Ego.
All of these nine desires cause suffering because they come from blindness. Only when you are aware of your desire habit and able to see that it is blind will you be free from suffering.
Written by Simon.
