1. Selfish Desires and Passions
World Scripture
The Noble Truth of the Origin of suffering is this: It is craving that leads back to birth, bound up with passionate greed. It finds fresh delight now here and now there, namely, craving for sense pleasures, craving for existence and becoming, and craving for non-existence.18
Samyutta Nikaya 56.11 (Buddhism)
Lust, hatred, and delusion ruin the man of wicked heart. They are begotten in himself like the lush growth of pith in the stem.
Itivuttaka 45 (Buddhism)
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one; but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death.
James 1.13-15
What causes wars, and what causes fighting among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
James 4.1-3
No more deadly curse than sensual pleasure has been inflicted on mankind by nature, to gratify which our wanton appetites are roused beyond all prudence or restraint. It is a fruitful source of treasons, revolutions, secret communications with the enemy. In fact, there is no crime, no evil deed, to which the appetite for sensual pleasures does not impel us.
Cicero, De Senectute 12 (Hellenism)
Arjuna: What is the force that binds us to selfish deeds, O Krishna? What power moves us, even against our will, as if forcing us? Krishna: It is selfish desire and anger, arising from the state of being known as passion; these are the appetites and evils which threaten a person in this life. Just as a fire is covered by smoke and a mirror is obscured by dust, just as an embryo is enveloped deep within the womb, knowledge is hidden by selfish desire—hidden, Arjuna, by this unquenchable fire for self-satisfaction, the inveterate enemy of the wise. Selfish desire is found in the senses, mind, and intellect, misleading them and burying wisdom in delusion.
Bhagavad-Gita 3.36-40 (Hinduism)
Confucius said, “I have never seen anyone whose desire to build up his moral power was as strong as sexual desire.”
Analects 9.17
They say that woman is an enticement. No, No, she is not so. They say that money is an enticement. No, No, it is not so. They say that landed property is an enticement. No, No, it is not so. The real enticement is the insatiable appetite of the mind, O Lord Guheswara!19
Allama Prabhu, Vacana 91 (Hinduism)
Five are the robbers lodged in this body— Lust, wrath, avarice, attachment, and egoism.20
Adi Granth, Sorath, M.3, p. 600 (Sikhism)
Blinded are beings by their sense desires spread over them like a net; covered are they by cloak of craving; by their heedless ways caught as a fish in the mouth of a funnel-net. Decrepitude and death they journey to, just as a sucking calf goes to its mother.
Udana 75-76 (Buddhism)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
What is the greatest danger in our life? It is getting pulled off the right track. Think: what can pull you off the track? There are two aspects of vulnerability, external and internal. Externally, the number one temptation is probably money, followed by knowledge, and then power. Any of these can pull you off the track. Will you succumb to the temptation of money? Under what conditions does money tempt you? This has to do with the internal aspect—your greed and ambition. I am speaking of self-centered greed and ambition. Ambition is not necessarily bad, but when it is self-centered, it is bad.
(90:9, December 5, 1976)
People feel joy when their desires are fulfilled. The word “desire,” however, is often not understood in its original sense, because in the present circumstances our desires tend to pursue evil rather than good. Desires which result in injustice do not emanate from a person’s original mind… Has anyone realized the joy in which the original mind delights by pursuing evil desires? Whenever such desires are sated, we feel unrest in our conscience and agony in our heart. Would a parent ever instruct his child to be evil? Would a teacher deliberately instill unrighteousness in his students? The impulse of the original mind, which everyone possesses, is to abhor evil and exalt goodness.
(Exposition of the Divine Principle, Introduction)
Human beings are God’s substantial object partners. Therefore, God wants to rejoice through us. However, if we are defective partners, always expressing our fallen nature as jealousy, envy and arrogance, how can God feel happiness through us?
(Way of God’s Will 2.2)
The human condition has been such that love of the flesh—which is external—betrays God’s love, and betrays the ideal and eternal origin of life based in the mind—which is internal. Therefore, to establish unity between mind and body, we have to eradicate this external love—satanic love—and in its place inherit internal love—God’s original love.
(20:179, June 9, 1968)