Will and Desire

Can you change your desire for money so that it is gone and never returns? Or your desire for power or prestige which you are pursuing so vigorously? You cannot. What would you change it to anyway? The desire to be honest all the time?

Of course you can say you do not want to change, meaning you do not desire to; which means you desire the desires you’re already pursuing. You cannot change while you desire.

Your strongest desires dictate what you do. They are the key that winds you up like a toy rooster that struts around for a few minutes imagining it is doing what it wants; at the same time imagining it is being honest because it is obeying the mechanical law which is its very existence.

You may say that you do things you do not desire to do. But that is an example of imagination and lack of self-knowledge. While you desire to exist, you have to put up with all that is involved in that desire.

If you renounce anything, you renounce nothing. Renunciation is a reaction of desire and a part of the original desire itself. By renouncing something all you do is change the direction of your desiring and continue with the same drive as before.

You cannot change your desires; they change themselves under the following circumstances — when they are fulfilled, no longer appear to offer satisfaction, or some alternative means of fulfilment has appeared; when you realise the desire is false or it causes so much pain that a desire to avoid it replaces the original desire.

The basic driving desire for power can never be fulfilled. But it can cease to exist when you experience most of what power stands for, and see with an indescribable realisation that it is nothing, that what you have always been chasing is just a road to nowhere.

A man falls overboard from a ship into a cold ocean and swims around all night before he is picked up. It is incredible how he was able to keep going. Will-power? No. Desire-power. His desire to survive was stronger than his desire to give up.

A businessman loses everything in a financial crash, begins again, working fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, and in three years rebuilds his business. Will-power? No. Desirepower. His desire to be a success or to possess money and power was stronger than his desire to be a good family man or husband or anything else.

A fat woman known for her gluttony goes on a diet and in three months reduces to trim proportions. Will-power? No. Desire-power. Her desire not to be fat was stronger than her desire for food.

There is nothing wrong with desire-power, for it is life itself. But desire-power is not will-power.

Desire-power is easily identified: you will always imagine that you stand to gain something by using it. The greater the desire-power, the greater the effort or sacrifice. But because desires vary with every individual, and because ways of achieving these desires also vary, one person may display tremendous desire-power where another does not.

You will notice that we do not use the expression will-power when a person saves another’s life. We say he was brave or fearless. If he does it without thinking it is an act of love, but if he thinks before he acts it is because he imagines there is something in it for him, even if it is only that his desire not to be called a coward is stronger than his desire not to go to the rescue. A man who thinks never goes to certain death to save another. If he does, he thinks he will make it.

Man’s development from a machine into a conscious man depends upon his discovering and understanding the principles of will-power and love. Understanding of will-power leads to understanding the principle of love.
Will is the power that overcomes desire.

Will-power is equilibrium, the absence of desire or reaction. Anything that is equalised is in balance, at rest.
Life is held together by will-power.

Desire can be said to manifest in all living things and to reach a peak of expression in man, but it utterly fails to affect the equilibrium of what is. Every single thing that desires dies, is inevitably annihilated. And life goes on, untouched and serene. Whatever it is that holds life together has obviously overcome desire.

The results of desire-power are tangible and enviable; but you will not be seen to gain anything desirable from applying willpower. There is nothing at all in it for the man-machine.

Will-power can be exercised only in yourself. It cannot be inflicted on anyone or anything outside; not even on your own body. If you try to do that you will be using desire-power.

Will-power is an energy; the finest and most combustible energy in the human organism and the first energy to be destroyed in anger and other emotional reactions.

You tap into will-power, and start overcoming desire, when you observe yourself getting angry or impatient and can smile, let go of the emotion and die to it, because you see its futility.

Will-power does not mean suppression, which is merely a reaction of desire.

Being able to use will-power depends first on your alertness in being present when the emotion is actually rising in you. Second, it depends on your ability to counterbalance the emotion by immediately understanding that you are identifying with your desire; that the emotion is imposing a false claim on you.

No desire is individual. Desire is the stamp of the herd, the unconscious mass. The desire of the body for food is the desire of all bodies, which means the desire itself is not individual. But you will insist on associating your individuality with pursuit of the common desire for power, possessions, position or prestige. Only the instant understanding of this false claim it is making on you as an individual can enable you to cut off from it and be free of it without frustration.

You can assume for the purpose of discovering will-power that virtually everyone you know except yourself is moving in an eternal mechanical circle and believes with a conviction as strong as life itself that it is the only practical way to live. You either go with them, or you go against them, but they will feel it. No will-power is needed to go with them, only desire-power, and not much of that. Anyone who falters will be dragged along.

Everyone has desire-power. But will-power is buried under it. Until you have started to realise the pain and futility of living as desire, will-power remains hidden and involuntary. The first sign of it beginning to show through is when a person pauses, stands back for a few moments from identification with the busy world and sighs ‘Where am I going? What’s it all about?’ If this occurs in the midst of sorrow caused by frustration, disappointment or loss, nothing is likely to come of it. But if it occurs at all sorts of times, especially in moments of success and gain, the person is ready. And the next sign is when you see that you are not free; and that you, and you alone, are to blame.