Selfish Desires and Fallen Nature

Passion, greed, covetousness, hatred, lust: these emotions dominate the soul, causing blindness and leading to destruction. Every major religion recognizes that suffering and evil are caused by excessive desires or desires directed toward a selfish purpose. Buddhism has summed up this principle in the second of the Four Noble Truths and denotes these desires by the term “craving.” Craving is a fetter: poisoning the heart, deluding the mind, and binding us to evil courses of action.

While all religions view selfish desire as baneful and the cause of much suffering, they differ in explaining these selfish desires in relation to human psychology. Buddhism and Jainism reject desire of all kinds, even the grasping for existence itself, as harmful and a source of bondage. In the monotheistic religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and in some texts from Sikhism and Hinduism, the passions of the flesh—which are evil—are distinguished from the healthy ambition for goodness and the passion for God. Chinese religion condemns only excessive desire and selfish desire: Desires themselves may be good if they are in harmony with the Tao. This is also Father Moon’s teaching: God created desire that people might aspire for goodness, but it was perverted into self-centered grasping as a result of the Human Fall.

Father Moon teaches that selfish desires are manifestations of ‘fallen nature,’ satanic qualities and attitudes that were implanted into Adam and Eve at their fall. Various scriptures testify to the fact that humans have corrupted their original nature and deviated from their true calling. Instead, we have sunk to the level of beasts, or even lower. Beset with inner contradiction, we allow arrogance, violence, greed, and lust to dominate our lives.