Desire is different from will? Desire is different from will, yes. Desire is conditional. Will is transcendent. We have a will to survive. A knowing that we are meant to survive. If it were just a desire, the desire to survive could be satisfied and then we would be content to die.

Ah yes, this often pushes forward in a person who desires suicide, but then they can’t go through with it. Will intervenes? Yes, and will often transcends what people consider to be “proper intellect”. The most die-hard rationalist has to resort to “I just do” more often than a supposed rational validity would permit.

Will is something we are not conscious of necessarily? We are not necessarily conscious of will. It’s a precursor of consciousness and our consciousness is possible because of it. The pattern that is observable in our consciousness is will.

I’m not sure what will is then, if it’s not the driving force like will to survive? Will is what many call spirit, and spirit is the driving force. But it’s not personal in that it is not defined by the ego. No concept of self can encompass it adequately. This is why people so often say, “I don’t know what made me do that. That’s just not me!”. The me they speak of is a limited cognitive construct that belies any true sense of self. The will is the true self, and it is the only thing though it is no “thing” that you can have real knowing of. I should contrast knowing to comprehension. Comprehension means you can take the compass of, ascribe boundaries to. You can experience the will or true self, but it has no boundaries.

Does the true self have desires? The true self “has” desires to the degree it is possible for it to be aware of the dynamic of desire, but it is not attached to any short list of desires in any absolute way. If the true will ran contrary to desire, you could not experience desire. But there is no virtue to being without desire. The liberation is in being without attachment.

So desires as we understand them belong to the little “me”? Correct, but in fact, there is a reason for being free of attachments, and it is not the back handed egotism of being spiritually “pure”. You don’t become a Saint by being free of attachments.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~