Understanding Desire

What does it mean to desire? How does one understand the nature of desire? One feels a sense of emptiness, so there is longing. The mind wants to be constantly occupied. It is this fear of emptiness that drives desire. Wanting to be somebody, wanting acknowledgement. This accumulation gives a sense of permanence and continuity to our existence. We are slaves to desire because we want to be attached to ideas and objects which give definition to the image we have of ourselves. Desire is the illusion of fullfillment of escape from emptiness, the escape from nothingness. The reality is that we are impermanent, we are in actuality nothingness. Desire provides the escape. We are in fact the essence of non-existence, but mind creates the illusion of materiality. One is unable to understand the nature of mind because one is caught in the activity of knowing of cumulative knowledge. We are attempting to understand ourselves through the accumulation of knowledge. The more we accumulate the more we want to accumulate. It feeds on its self because we never get to a point of satisfaction, of arrival, of understanding. There is frustration with life, because the emptiness is still there. We are caught in the circle of Karma.

What ever we acquire only leads to the desire to acquire more. We may realize that we a going no where, so we may seek answers in religion, in ancient teachings. But that is still the mind that desires. It is still the escape from emptiness. Is there a movement that is the source of desire? Can one understand desire as isolated from the source of desire? Desire emanates from memory, which is the accumulated self. One associates the present with a memory and from that association, desire is formed. The self can only 'know' desire and what ever is known is a contradiction. Desire is the function of self of ego. All desire is conflict, whether one desires the material or the spiritual. If one is intensely aware of thought, just watching without motivation or seeking, then one may realize the sublety of desire. How that every thinking moment translates into some form of desire. The desire is to be, to become that which is the content of ones conditioned consciousness. When one is aware of the 'I' the one who desires, then with that awareness comes understanding, the one who is aware is the desire and that he is not separate from desire. The self, the one who desires is the outcome of desire.


To understand desire is to understand the self. Understanding is its own action. One does not need to engage in any activity of promotion, which is only another form of desire. When one has the realization that the one who desires is in fact that which is desired, then one may realize truth through meditation that is without the desire for a result. Meditation that is not an activity of self. Meditation that is simple awareness of the moment.