If one takes the time to investigate desire, it will, in the end, reveal itself to be an attempt by the individual who expresses that desire to maintain or obtain the promise of survival. It is only apparently obscure because it is so intellectualized and rationalized in order to remain undiscovered. There is no getting around this, even the holiest of desires is the instinct to survive. After all, what is heaven, but survival. What is re-incarnation, but survival. Even desire for “enlightenment” is desire for power, the power to change one’s life from suffering to joy, and subtly, indirectly, to persist in that state. And so forth. In contrast to this, the selfless acts that occur in dire situations and courageous moments, are just that - selfless - there is no desire involved at that moment. And if done for any other reason than through selflessness, then it is desire once again, and its motive is survival. If one interviews these people who have done such extraordinary selfless acts, they will without exception, state that they were not “there” when doing it. It was not a “conscious” act.
So, anyway, when one fully understands this basic premise, that we are motivated by the need to survive, one finally escapes the tyranny of desire and can see it for what it truly is. And let's face it, desire relentlessly drives us throughout our lives, and in turn, causes much suffering and unhappiness. (Granted, the momentary achievement of a desire will bring about happiness, but it is short lived and temporary, and is actually, I believe, experienced because of the momentary ceasing of desire for a short period of time, and within that moment, we experience peace, which we interpret to be happiness.) Without understanding the basis of desire, one is a prisoner of the instinct to survive, however pleasantly, or unpleasantly, this instinct may express itself.
There is no activity based upon desire that I can find, that does not, at base, seek to provide security against personal destruction. Thus, I say it again, UG had a point: survival is our basic motive in all we do as individual human beings, and the discovery of that, and the acceptance of that, is liberating to the extent it is revelatory of one’s motivations. Once uncovered and revealed, the desire and motive behind it no longer holds one prisoner, one is essentially liberated from that imperative, it does not bind one any longer. That is, of course, all it does, but that kind of liberation is nothing to sneeze at, in my mind. One becomes free of an awful lot of conditioning in that very realization.
Incidentally, UG died this past spring at 88. Of course, who or what died, and who was UG?
