Desire: A Careful Analysis

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In our society and culture, we are powerfully, repeatedly programmed to believe that the way to happiness is, "Desire much, get much (fulfill your desire), and be happy." But a careful study of history demonstrates that there is no relation between material wealth and happiness (contentment, satisfaction, fulfillment, joy). But the entire advertising universe is based on this premise. And it involves millions of people and many billions of dollars.

We have all received of, or have been imprinted with, this program. The average teen has heard over 150,000 commercials during her short life.

The advocates of increased desire are everywhere, and every store, every bank, every financial institution, supports them. "Desire more and more" is the universal message.

That is why people actually expect that more dollars mean instant happiness. But interviews with lottery-winners prove that they are often stunned and shocked due to their disappointment at profound feelings of unhappiness after having won major lotteries! With all the money that they could ever spend, they have not found happiness.

Our entire society is a witness to the failure of this program. For unhappiness is ubiquitous and pervasive. Even chronic depression is common, the number one psychological disorder in this very wealthy country.

Radical problems require radical solutions. So, in a quest to understand the very, very important connections between desire and happiness, we must take a very careful look at alternative views.

One of these is the view of people of the Enlightenment Tradition
(mysticism) down through the ages. Whether Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, or from nature-traditions, all mystics agree about this. They all say:

The Way to full happiness is the turning away from, the decrease, even the final renunciation (rejection) of desire. This seems so very odd that it deserves closer examination.

What is desire? By definition, it is a state of dissatisfaction, unfulfillment, incompletion. These factors are more readily associated with unhappiness than with happiness. Advertisers, for example, have only one job: They must make you feel dissatisfied, incomplete. Then, they say, buying their product will make you feel satisfied and complete!

So, desire creates unhappiness. For a person who is completely happy and utterly fulfilled, absolutely satisfied, desires nothing. Desire is a "wave" upon the placid mirror-lake of the calm, tranquil, happy mind.

Let's look at a parable: A little girl was given a red wagon for her birthday. She had been wanting, and hinting, for many years that she wanted a blue bicycle. When she received the wagon, she was miserable.

But the wagon did not make her miserable. It was a fun, fine toy. No, what made her miserable was the desire for the blue bike.

So, events in themselves do not make us unhappy. Instead, it is the desire for them to be different that creates misery. So, if you train yourself to accept whatever occurs in your life, you will have one of the greatest secrets to happiness!

Another parable can illustrate: Two women were born in the same neighborhood on the same day. Each married at age twenty. Each climbed the ladder of "success" to a moderate executive position. But the one, always focused on what she did not have, and what she could not do, was always miserable and complaining. Impressing others, she thought, was a key to "happiness," and she struggled endlessly to impress everyone-- including strangers whom she would never see again! The other, who always thought and spoke about what she did have, and what she could do, was a study in happiness and serenity.

Again, material things do not create happiness. Nor does status, position, or power. Happiness is an attitude, and is internal; it cannot be created by anything external.

Those who, like the happy lady in the parable, diminish and lessen desires require less to satisfy them. They are more easily happy. So, as a rule, those who minimize their desires tend to be happier, while those who follow the dictates of our crazy society, amplifying desires, multiplying them, are more miserable.
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A Cause of Unhappiness

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Spiritual people, through the ages, have identified many psychological factors that create, or that block, happiness. One of these psychospiritual elements is very surprising; it is one that most of us would never imagine, or even think of, on our own, that is a major cause of unhappiness.

This factor is personal desire. When you think of it, objectively and scientifically, advertisers have as a major goal to create dissatisfaction, very closely related to frustration, and to unhappiness. For an advertiser knows that she has little hope of getting you to purchase her services or products if you are completely happy, content,and satisfied.

To get you to buy, she must make you at least a little, at least momentarily, discontent-- or, unhappy. This unhappiness is the "grip" that an advertiser gets on your psyche, before telling you how to "solve" your "problem" by purchasing her services or products.

It all begins, then, by putting you in a state of dissatisfaction, or unhappiness. This unhappiness is created by the scientific manipulation, and stimulation, of your personal, even though artificial, desire. Professional psychologists have discovered what saintmystics have known for centuries: Personal desire creates frustration, a state of dissatisfaction or unhappiness.

This is relevant because most people are unhappy. Or, at the very least, they often feel vaguely that they are not quite as happy as they should be, at their best. With ages of observation and experimentation, the spiritually enlightened of every age and place have discovered that the minimization of personal desire, which the ancients often called "will," is a major key to real and lasting happiness.

Their recommendation: Replace personal desires with the desires of Love. And their name for the "desires of Love" was the "will of God."

But we often feel that, to minimize our personal desires will "impoverish" us. We fear that we might be somehow less if we let go of personal desires. But remember that we have all been heavily, and repeatedly, programmed by commercials and the world of money to believe that the "way to happiness" is to desire more, and to get more!

The problem is, this has never worked! For, historically, there is no relationship at all between happiness and material wealth. Some of the most magnificent homes are inhabited by the miserable, and some of the most pathetically unhappy are the very wealthy. Material riches, it has been proved by studies of lotto-winners, do not create any form of lasting happiness. For wanting is a lot more fun than getting!

But how can a person live in this world, practically, without personal desires? How would such a person even get enough food, a place to live, etc.? These things are wanted out of selflove, and so, are desires of Love, not merely personal desires. So, a spiritual person works independently to provide for herself the reasonable necessities of life.

When personal desire becomes a demon or dragon is when it is out of control: You need shoes to protect the feet; but you do not need twenty or thirty pairs. You need clothing to cover yourself; but you do not need fifty changes of clothing; you need even things of beauty to please the Soul; but you do not need five-thousand-dollar rings or works of art. It is excess that drives us into unhappiness, by creating subconscious guilt and anxiety.

It is when need becomes greed that we are in trouble. And it is at this point that reasonable personal desire becomes a dragon or demon of unhappiness: For you can never get enough. The great Chinese writer Lao Tzu writes, "She who knows that enough is enough always has enough."
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Tao

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Since you showed some interest in the Way of Taoism, thought a little follow-up might be nice:

Tao (pronounced "dow") is an indefinable, great, and mysterious Power or Mind that runs and controls the cosmos. Tao is manifested in pattern. Designs on butterfly-wings and tortoise-shells are two of many, many examples.

This same Tao is also manifest as the activities of the physical body, especially in natural nanotech: The Tao transforms dirt, water, and sunlight into fruits and vegetables, and then, in yet another nanotech "miracle," transforms these foods into your physical body.

We see Tao in action every day, in the beating of your heart and the rising of the sun. So, belief in this Power does not require "blind faith."

The Taoist, or Taoist mystic, is the person who, on a practical level, develops trust in this unseen Power. In the West, this is "faith." Jesus taught pure Taoism when he told his disciples, in Matthew, chapter 5, to live like birds and flowers -- without worry, fretting, or fear.

The Taoist's main jewel is the absence of all personal desire. She wants many things, but they are all what Love wants. She does not eliminate all desire, but only all personal desire. This gives the famous Taoist tranquility, and guarantees the absence of greed. Like the cosmic Lovemind of many other systems of mysticism, the Tao can work only through a mind that is still and quiet, as in meditation, and a mind that
is not continually troubled with, stuffed with, personal desires.

Also, believing in this Power, the Taoist gives up all control, or attempts to control, the activities of others, or the outcome of her life. She must control the car, or the chainsaw, of course. But she does not control the world; even the control of her own body she gives up to the mysterious Power of Tao. This greatly lessens anxiety, increasing serenity.

Instead of grasping control, she seeks to become a "vessel" or "instrument" of Tao, or the great Mind. In terms of other forms of mysticism, she becomes a tool of Love. Like Jesus, her longterm goal is to become an "incarnation of God (Love)."

Just a few ideas to think about, from an aspiring Taoist!:)
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