Why Desire Deserves To Be Satisfied

     In our indulgence and guilt culture, the importance of desire has been diminished to some level just above crime and punishment.  Diminished by some distant echo of puritan piety which values denial and control over daring and experimentation.  Desire, rather being some kind of sneaky temptation, is actually a divine gift, which drives us to leave the isolation of the self  seeking newer and fresher energies abroad.  Once fear is overcome, the excitement of exploration takes us by the scruff of the neck and forces us into all that is ‘other’: other bodies, other hearts, other minds, other landscapes, other cultures and cuisines.

      This is more apparent when looking back at village and farm life of say, three hundred years ago, admittedly something that much of the planet is still mired in.  But in our modern, citified, technocratic life, with opportunities at every juncture, some criminal, some transgressive, some exciting disapproval, it is more difficult to see the long term benefits.  Many will quote the now famous line by 18^th century English poet William Blake:  “the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”, and as a fine and simple assertion it takes some beating.  Others will point to the life of rural isolation, the conscious hermit turning in on themselves to see the universality of their thought processes and moods.  That can and does work for some, usually older souls filled to the brim with ‘outer’ experience who are more than ready to simmer it all down to some small package of wisdom.

     But for the younger more timid soul, the exploration of desire, once the fences of moral guardians have been torn down and passed through, can be the royal road to graduation.  Travelling the path of loose morals and casual acquaintance for the temporary pleasures of heart and flesh can be most instructive in the long haul, battered and bruised though you may be, just as travelling by road, rail, sea, bus, bike or foot, working one’s way with casual labour, through the almost endless varieties of ‘foreignness’ now available to the curious, can unveil the truth of universality in seemingly disparate slices of humanity.  Seeing that pretty much everyone loves their country, culture, landscape and children creates a vaster and more embracing understanding of family.

     Overindulgence in any drink or food will teach its lessons, just as manic deprivation of same while seeking some enlightenment has its own rewards.  Personal ambition, one of the commonest cloaks of desire, when sacrificed to, can often lead to the satiation of desire, when the cartload of wealth and power fails to ignite anything more than spiritual emptiness.

     Fear of desire, on the other hand, can easily limit the soul’s growth to a full blossoming of potential, the potential we are all birthed with every time we show up to participate in the game of life.  In the archives of past life and between life regressions, vast at this point for those willing to look, there are numerous accounts of those who trapped themselves in timidity for several incarnations and are now asking their guides for help in busting out of that comfort zone cage.  Some past life friends will often volunteer to be rascals, bullies or villains to facilitate that expulsion.  But of course, many will forget their initial commitment and while relishing the fruits of the role will go quite overboard in bad behaviour.

     Of course we assist in each other’s desire paths:  hero, villain,  princess, pauper, supporting cast.  All take planning and careful execution, with just enough gaps to quit in a huff or exit stage left.   But let it be known: desire and ambition propel the whole show.  Desire to be born, desire for experience, desire to die, desire to disappear from form and be an invisible essence at one with the life force.

     Which perhaps leaves the question: is the life force itself, consciousness in action,  but another brand of desire?  I suspect not.  I suspect the life force of consciousness, that which propels perpetual change on all levels from the microscopic to the cosmic, is the basic indefinable which underlies all matter and energy.  Desire is one of its many products, and an endlessly useful one at that.  I say ‘indefinable’ as the second you try to categorize it with descriptions it effortlessly escapes, laughing.