Understanding desire is one of the most important aspects of spiritual development and its often one of the most confusing aspects of spiritual development.We are often told that desire is undesirable for spiritual development and that we should not have any desire.
However, desiring not to have desire is itself still a desire. So even not-desiring to have desire is a form of desiring, which can be rather confusing.
So understanding desire is not as simple as choosing not to express a desire or resisting desire. It’s a little more complex than that.
Desire Motivates You to Survive
So first of all, let’s look at the normal and natural function desire plays in our human life.
When I feel hungry, there isn’t a powerful energy of desire within me to eat food. However, my brain and body do still create a desire within me to influence me to obtain food for myself.
If I were hungry, starving, and there was a shortage of food, then my body will create a powerful energy of desire to compel me to find food, and it will sharpen my mind, brain, and senses to help me obtain that food.
This is a natural and normal desire that is created to ensure we obtain what is required for our body to survive.
We have a natural human desire that drives us to obtain what our body needs for our survival and that desire will always drive us.
However, we also have desires that influence our behaviour so that we move in a certain direction in life.
So desire can also be a form of guidance. For example, you had a desire to watch this video, which influenced and motivated you to watch it.
Desire will ensure your human body receives what it needs, and it will ensure you are motivated to move in a certain direction in life.
So there is nothing wrong with desire, from that perspective.
And those desires can be mild and relatively unnoticeable, or they can be very intense and self-consuming.
We do not want to block desire, repress it, or otherwise try to not feel it. Your desires exist and surface for a reason.
So desires should be felt, experienced, acknowledged, and understood, rather than pushed down into the shadows and out of sight.
What is very important, is the perception you have of your desires.
Are Your Desires Guiding or Misguiding You?
You need to know if you are a slave to your desires, or if your desires are guiding you down a productive path. And therein lies the real challenge with desire.
Are you’re allowing your desires to control your behaviour, or are you allowing your desires to guide you down a positive life path?
To give you a negative example of desire, desire controlling someone’s behaviour could be a sex addict who cannot control their desire for sex and whose thoughts, feelings, behaviour and actions are out of their control due to the intensity of their desires.
To give you a positive example of desire, your desire may guide you towards connecting with a person to establish a new romantic relationship.
Both of these examples may appear the same to the casual onlooker, so only the person expressing the desire knows whether their desire is controlling them, or guiding them.
This makes acute self-awareness a necessary state of being to maintain so people are aware of what force is driving them through life.
Religion Warns Us of the Perils of Desire
If we now look at desire from a spiritual perspective, we can see that many of the worlds major religions speak about the hazards of desire.
Many of the worlds religions caution us about the pitfalls of desire.
If you deeply reflect upon feelings such as fear, envy, lust, anger, worry, greed, anxiety, dissatisfaction, and sadness, you will see that all of these states of being have their roots in desire.
All of these states of being are born from a desire to avoid pain, or a desire to seek pleasure.
And desire, in many of the worlds major religions, is seen as a barrier to self-realization and a barrier to knowing God.
It’s even been said that ‘those who desire to find God will never find him’, which is hinting that it is desire itself that keeps us separated from God, The Source.
The question is, why is that?
How does desire keep up separated from God, The Source?
Doing and Non-Doing
In the deepest spiritual sense, the path of spirituality is the path of ‘non-doing’.
So what does non-doing mean?
There are three stages of ‘doing’ and ‘non-doing’ that we go through to get to the point of non-doing.
Stage One – ‘Doing’
The first stage is being aware of our programmed reactions.
This is when we become aware of our automatic reactions to people and our environment which cause us to experience emotions such as fear, envy, lust, anger, worry, greed, anxiety, dissatisfaction, and sadness.
We don’t choose these automatic reactions, instead, these automatic reactions happen to us.
However, we are the ones who are ‘unconsciously doing’, while in this state of being.
Stage Two – ‘Doing’
The second stage is being aware that we do not have to be controlled by our automatic reactions to people and our environment and that we can consciously choose how we respond to people and our environment.
In this second stage of awareness, we are the ones who are ‘consciously doing’ by expressing a chosen response.
Or in other words, we are in control of our person, however, we are the one ‘doing’ because we are exercising control, choice, or desire.
Both of these first two stages are forms of ‘doing’, whether we are doing unconsciously, or consciously.
Stage Three – ‘Non’Doing’
The path that leads to ‘non-doing’ involves opening our heart to The Source, surrendering to The Source, and surrendering our human will to The Will of The Source.
When we do this regularly, in prayer and meditation, and we surrender without expressing the energy or desire, we allow the Will of The Source to flow through us and to guide us.
This is the path of ‘non-doing’.
The path of non-doing is when we are not exercising control, choice, or desire, and we no longer feel as though we are ‘doing’ anything.
We exist in the flow of Source Will which moves us and guides us without us having to consciously control and choose our direction in life.
When The Source flows through us, we become aware that we are the non-doer, we are the observer of our human body having an experience, and we agree to participate in that experience.
In this state of being, we have transcended our human person, our human person is no longer being unconsciously controlled, and we are no longer consciously controlling it.
Instead, we are fully present and in the experience, however, we are observing the experience.
Non-Doing and the Creative Power of The Source
When non-doing, the creative force of The Source is acting through you, rather than you having to desire, control, and choose to do anything yourself.
You just go with it, and go with the flow, without being the one who is ‘doing’ anything.
If you are painting a picture in this state of non-doing, you are not desiring, controlling, and choosing each movement of the brush.
The picture is being painted through you and you are experiencing and observing it happen in free-flowing motion while you are fully immersed at that moment.
If you are dancing in this state of non-doing, you are not the one desiring, controlling, and choosing each movement of the dance.
The dance is happening through you and you are experiencing and observing it happen in free-flowing motion while you are fully immersed at that moment.
If you are playing a musical instrument, you are not the one desiring, controlling, and choosing each movement to play that instrument.
The instrument is being played through you and you are experiencing and observing it happen in free-flowing motion while you are fully immersed at that moment.
There is no desire, no control, no choosing, no thought, and no ‘doing’.
You are the one observing your human person as the creative force of The Source flows through you and guides your movement without you having to consciously do anything.
Artists, dancers, and musicians will know very well the experience of flowing with the force of creativity without intending to consciously do anything, or take control.
It just happens, as we experience the creative flow flowing through us, moving us, and guiding us.
This same creative flow that we may become when painting, dancing, or playing a musical instrument, is the same state of ‘non-doing’ we can experience in every moment of our lives when we intend to open and surrender our whole heart, being, and life to the creative power and guidance of The Source.
We are not the one who is ‘doing’ the action. The action is being done through us as we observe without resistance.
We are not expressing want, desire, control, or ego, we instead flow through life participating in the experience of it as The Source guides our every movement without us resisting by expressing our own ‘doing’.
There is no effort required. We just flow through life and observe without want, desire, control, ego, effort, or resistance.
In this state of being, we are in a state of ‘non-doing’, however, desire does still exist, and we will continue to experience desires for different purposes.
It’s your responsibility to be self-aware, to be aware of your desires, and to be aware of what force it moving, driving, and guiding you through life.
And you can be in this state of non-doing, at every moment in your life. It’s a beautiful, peaceful, and deeply freeing way to experience life.
To realize the state of non-doing, open and surrender your heart, being, and life to The Source, and allow yourself to be moved and guided.
