Once upon a time I merely wanted. Desire has greater depth; more meaning; wellsprings that cast it in a spiritual light. We say: to desire the presence of a friend, to desire a lover; to desire the companionship of God.
But there is a conflict between healthy ambitious desire and the desire for spiritual completion.
I say this is so because some spiritual disciplines talk about killing desire; that we are victims of desire. And certain Christian sects have had some very strange ideas about sexual desires.
The two major spiritual forces that washed up in the US from the East seem to have this conflict about desire. On the one had you have Hinduism and then you have Buddhism. Given their common roots, I view them as two branches of one tree although Hindu’s have at least one God at the top of the hierarchy and the Buddhists have air way up there; which is appropriate given that the flame of desire is to be blown out.
So at the upper end, these two spiritual paths lead off in different directions - but they both talk about enlightenment although when they do I'm sure they mean different things. They both also talk about desire in complex and sometimes disparaging ways. But everyone understands desire, so they must be talking about the same thing. You could come away confused about which way to go but thinking that desire is the devil's doing, to borrow a Christian phrase. This dislike of desire seems to be a main point of agreement, perhaps universally so.
Although to be fair, I have to say that the Tantric School of Yoga provides an interesting spin on certain aspects of sexual desire.
I feel uncomfortable, although merely human, with all this discomfort with what I now think of as the center of life. Almost the whole point of life and the one thing that moves us forward and from one experience to another. To desire is to be human in a participatory sense, and I feel it is unfortunate to be beckoned into a life without that. Which is probably why I left those two religions.
Now I believe that desire can also be thought of as formerly forbidden fruit bringing forth such amusing pleasure that it utterly seduces the soul into loving itself and enjoying it's glorious pastimes. To be merely human is a wonderful and glorious thing; vastly underrated.
