The Anatomy Of Desire

Almost all spiritual paths (not just Taoism and Buddhism) describe desire as the trapdoor to the cravings and dependencies that keep the soul, the self, in bondage and enslaved to the object of desire. It is in this slavery, they say, that true freedom is lost. And if one is not inwardly free, spiritually free, then it is impossible to be happy which, in spiritual terms, means peaceful and contended. For most people this is challenging territory in which to find clarity not least because our global culture runs on and is dependent on ‘desire’. It is desire that drives the consumer to consume, it is desire that keeps the producers producing and therefore, according to almost every economists, politicians and business persons perception, it is desire that keeps the world going round.

It is the desire to achieve that gets the athlete up early in the morning, slogging miles a day to become fit enough to ‘win’. It seems to be desire that gets us through our education. It is desire that drives us towards career success, or business success, or any success, as we embody the modern mantra ‘you have to want it badly enough’

However it’s not difficult to see how desire can easily become one of the symptoms of self obsession, the basis of an individualistic ‘me first’ culture and even a lifetime of joyless striving, struggling and stressing under the illusion that happiness is not possible until all the ‘objects of desire’ are acquired or achieved.

By now you probably sense the inference that desire is not such a good thing!