As difficult and shocking as it may be to consider, within us dwells a certain level of unconscious desire that loves... to not want. It has but one purpose: This part of us "lives" to resist anything that doesn't live up to its expectations. Why would anything want to live like that? Because what this dark nature likes most of all is being negative!
In truth, most of us know very little about this negative side of desire because each time it rises up to reject something, we're inwardly directed to look at what it blames for our pain. And by this misdirection we're blinded to the fact that this nature is - in and of itself - the source of the discontentment we're given to feel.
Now, contrast this nature to the more familiar and "friendly" side of desire that we all know and embrace: it "lives" to want; this is a feeling we all know quite well, including the fact that if not momentarily content in the embrace of something it "loves" - this nature is already looking around for what's "next." We accept, even lionize this level of self that exists to pursue and to possess what it imagines will make it feel whole and happy. After all, it seems harmless enough to want what we want, to give ourselves freely to this warm and fuzzy side of our desires. But, taking all of these facts above in hand, we can see what few before us have had eyes to see:
Desire is a "coin" with two faces. One side is known, and embraced freely; its appearance welcomed for the pleasures it promises. However, the flip side of this coin, its unseen face, belongs to desire's dark twin who - being the opposite of her sister - lives only to resist. This nature, the essence of denial itself, conceals its painful presence within us by speaking to us in our own voice, telling us why we feel discontent, even as it whispers to us the reasons why we must suffer accordingly.
Let's summarize these discoveries and welcome their revelations, even if they may point to something momentarily disconcerting:
It's impossible for us to identify with the pleasure of wanting something, without encountering the pain of not wanting whatever will come to stand between that desire and its fulfillment. In other words: On the flip side of that invigorating feeling called "Yes, I want (this)" - is that debilitating state called, "No! I don't want (that)."
It is exactly this unsuspected divided state of desire to which Christ referred when he told his disciples, "You cannot serve two masters, for you will love one and despise the other." Within all forms of desire dwell these twin "masters" - one concealed in the other; and neither of these "masters" can ever be permanently satisfied, any more than you can marry fire and ice. Personal experience validates this finding:
No matter what we give to desire, it's never enough. One way or another, by its very nature, desire always wants more... which leads us to this next astonishing revelation:
Our inevitable sense of dissatisfaction (with life) is inseparable from whatever desire has sent us out to claim in the name of some lasting contentment to come.
The nature of desire can never know lasting contentment because it is literally set against itself; it is a "house divided" - in the truest sense of the words - and it only "stands" for as long as it can keep us shoring up its constantly collapsing sides. This higher self-knowledge - and the new actions it calls for through the truths it makes evident - is the key for which we've been looking. It reveals the true cause of our captive state by showing us how we've been deceived into an unseen consensual dependency. Learning to welcome this light of higher understanding is the same as embracing a new order of consciousness that can't act against itself, let alone be tricked into relying on anything outside of its own timeless and incorruptible wisdom.
We've reached a critical point in our inner journey. Yes, to acknowledge the truths we've gleaned is a good thing; but, if we wish to extract the gold from them, then we must learn what it means to act on this knowledge. When it comes to self-liberation there is no substitute for the right kind of inner struggle thus required to gain true self-knowledge. Only by being fully engaged - moment-to-moment - in the work of realizing the truth of ourselves do we come to the grand interior discovery that is the ground of freedom itself:
Who we really are, our True Self can't be harmed, let alone be made a prisoner of some passing desire.
