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James Jayce

Open any sacred book and in no time we will be reading about the consequences of desire. In Biblical times David said, "The cords of my sins, which are my desires, have constrained me round about." The Buddha felt so passionate about desire and how its fruits form the basis of all human suffering, that his first sermon, The Four Noble Truths, were all about our "wanting" and how to combat it, and subsequently a world religion was built around this one concept.


St. John of the Cross, a Christian mystic and Doctor of the Catholic Church said, in paraphrase; "Two opposites cannot dwell in one person -- God and desire. Desire must be gotten rid of first in order for God to enter and union to take place. The soul is wearied and fatigued by desire because it is wounded, moved, and disturbed by desire as water is moved by the wind. In just the same way the desires disturb the soul and won't let it rest."


The profound simple premise is that wanting, itself, gets us into all kinds of trouble, but too often the subject of desire is discussed dryly. Westerners are arguably impatient, and anything too a course in miracles

or historical is dismissed as irrelevant in this me driven world. We like learning lessons for ourselves, regardless of the inconveniences involved.


So a fresh approach is called for, something spontaneous that relates easily to our everyday foibles as we invariably stumble into all kinds of cravings. But beyond making us feel good and pointing out that we all make the same mistakes and suffer from them, we need something that goes further than merely calling our attention to our hankering ways. We need unique ways to relate to these desires precisely in each moment where we live and like to hang out, and where our lives have a chance to make that turn toward simplicity and happiness.


Before we go to any great lengths to change our behavior, we need a heck of a lot more than just good reasons to do so; we need to be convinced that this might be the most pressing problem in the world, and according to spiritual leaders throughout history, it is! Whenever serious problems are addressed, however, the dreadful prospect of everything falling into a cave of appalling weightiness will surely come to mind.

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James Jayce
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