Time And Desire

Lets say someone wants something they really truly desire it... but then they have only been desiring it for a moment or for say a week... be that the case, if there general desire is the opposite then isn't that what they really want...

In other words what I am saying is that what a person truly desires shouldn't be considered in a particular moment within their life but rather the entire moment of their life... and thus what a person truly desires can only be known to be that which is the average desire in regards to that matter over time.

Quote :

Abstract wrote:

Lets say someone wants something they really truly desire it... but then they have only been desiring it for a moment or for say a week... be that the case, if there general desire is the opposite then isn't that what they really want...

In other words what I am saying is that what a person truly desires shouldn't be considered in a particular moment within their life but rather the entire moment of their life... and thus what a person truly desires can only be known to be that which is the average desire in regards to that matter over time.

As human beings, we experience many desires over a lifetime though there is one perhaps which is the ultimate desire closest to our heart which points to our destiny.

We can either see the others as unimportant/invalid or we can choose to examine them in light of our relationship with our main goal/desire. To dismiss them is to lose the whole picture or much of it that is important.


There does not have to be conflict within what appears to be different though. Our desires and needs do change over time. We need to discover what we really feel and want.. We change... at times we are not aware of that - so to dismiss out of hand something we may feel/desire in the Moment because it appears to be counterintuitive to our soul's main desire - sacrifices the vision of the whole picture. All desires MUST BE looked at in order to know ourselves and our journey.

Perhaps you and I are saying the same thing here but using different words.

EDITED: February 2, 2012

Since this thread is concerning desire, I thought I would place the below in here which was written by Rowan Williams….a very clear distinction between pure and unpure desire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_Williams

The ‘impure’ heart is a heart which never wants anything enough to be intolerant of substitutes. Beneath its readiness to make do with less than reality is the fear of real desire.

For real desire means the candid acknowledgment that I am incomplete and need something in order to be real myself.

Impure desire, on the other hand, assumes that I am solid and important: I take things to myself as my fancies suggest, as much as I want of this or that, so as to keep myself solid and steady. I consume things – to stop myself being consumed by real desire, which shows me my lack of solidity, my need to find and nourish my identity in and with others.

Pure desire is desire that longs to grow endlessly in knowledge of and rootedness in reality and truth.

Impure desire desires to stop having to desire, to stop needing; it asks for a state where, finally, the ego can relax into self-sufficiency and does not have to go stuffing bits and pieces of the world into itself in order to survive.

Real desire can live with an unlimited horizon – which religious people call God (feel free to change/substitute that word-VT)) – while unreal desire stumbles from moment to moment trying to gratify an immediate hunger, without accepting that hunger is part of being human and so cannot be dealt with or understood by an endless succession of leakplugging operations.

Fundamentally, I agree with those concepts except that I use more precise conceptual definitions.

I see those states as "decisive" and "indecisive".

The foundation to the decisive state is a heart felt, high priority goal/aim.
The foundation for the indecisive state is not having that goal/aim.

The word "desire", as used in the OP could be taken to mean many things so trying to say when something should be distinguished as "the real desire" is a little tough. Certainly the most fundamental or longest reaching aim "should" umbrella all others, but seldom does due to confusions that spawn divisions of priority. Divisions in priority result in the indecisive state in turn resulting in persuasibility as pointed out in the Presumption and Indecision thread.

VaerosTanarg wrote:

Quote :

Abstract wrote:

Lets say someone wants something they really truly desire it... but then they have only been desiring it for a moment or for say a week... be that the case, if there general desire is the opposite then isn't that what they really want...

In other words what I am saying is that what a person truly desires shouldn't be considered in a particular moment within their life but rather the entire moment of their life... and thus what a person truly desires can only be known to be that which is the average desire in regards to that matter over time.

As human beings, we experience many desires over a lifetime though there is one perhaps which is the ultimate desire closest to our heart which points to our destiny.

We can either see the others as unimportant/invalid or we can choose to examine them in light of our relationship with our main goal/desire. To dismiss them is to lose the whole picture or much of it that is important.


There does not have to be conflict within what appears to be different though. Our desires and needs do change over time. We need to discover what we really feel and want.. We change... at times we are not aware of that - so to dismiss out of hand something we may feel/desire in the Moment because it appears to be counterintuitive to our soul's main desire - sacrifices the vision of the whole picture. All desires MUST BE looked at in order to know ourselves and our journey.

Perhaps you and I are saying the same thing here but using different words.

EDITED: February 2, 2012

Yes we definitely should not dismiss are momentary desires... I guess that what I am thinking of though is when I run into people asking me what good is whenever I use the word as if amongst philosophers it is a bad word... always asking well what is good... when I simply mean it in general... And it comes down to what i find might be "best" for say humanity or "good" would be the average thing that is considered good over time... and as such you approach a limit perhaps that can be called, but not quite, the objective good...

VaerosTanarg wrote:

Since this thread is concerning desire, I thought I would place the below in here which was written by Rowan Williams….a very clear distinction between pure and unpure desire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_Williams

The ‘impure’ heart is a heart which never wants anything enough to be intolerant of substitutes. Beneath its readiness to make do with less than reality is the fear of real desire.

For real desire means the candid acknowledgment that I am incomplete and need something in order to be real myself.

Impure desire, on the other hand, assumes that I am solid and important: I take things to myself as my fancies suggest, as much as I want of this or that, so as to keep myself solid and steady. I consume things – to stop myself being consumed by real desire, which shows me my lack of solidity, my need to find and nourish my identity in and with others.

Pure desire is desire that longs to grow endlessly in knowledge of and rootedness in reality and truth.

Impure desire desires to stop having to desire, to stop needing; it asks for a state where, finally, the ego can relax into self-sufficiency and does not have to go stuffing bits and pieces of the world into itself in order to survive.

Real desire can live with an unlimited horizon – which religious people call God (feel free to change/substitute that word-VT)) – while unreal desire stumbles from moment to moment trying to gratify an immediate hunger, without accepting that hunger is part of being human and so cannot be dealt with or understood by an endless succession of leakplugging operations.

Yes it seems these days in many of the 1st world countries people are consumed by consumption or in other words the unreal desire... satisfying perhaps their inner spiritual desire or perhaps more accurately the desire to be fulfilled to have all that one needs by means of momentary desires and avoidance of primary goals... but then what is it that we all desire what is it that makes us seek for spiritual fulfillment...what is it that we really want... if we wish to be fulfilled what is it that on average people seek to be filled with... perhaps it is the knowledge as we do not know that

Abstract wrote:

Lets say someone wants something they really truly desire it... but then they have only been desiring it for a moment or for say a week... be that the case, if there general desire is the opposite then isn't that what they really want...

In other words what I am saying is that what a person truly desires shouldn't be considered in a particular moment within their life but rather the entire moment of their life... and thus what a person truly desires can only be known to be that which is the average desire in regards to that matter over time.

I understand the concern that you have that would bring you to seek a way of determining how to weigh that momentary desire in respect to how things have been for that person overall, but I can't help but feel like the idea of measuring against the average is too arbitrary. Desires can arise and fall in relation to change that produces itself in one's life, and perhaps something has truly changed that means the new desire really does represent the entirety of that individual. These things are best analyzed on a case-by-case basis because they depend too much on the specific nature of the individual in question and the situation in which they find themselves.

James S Saint wrote:

Fundamentally, I agree with those concepts except that I use more precise conceptual definitions.

I see those states as "decisive" and "indecisive".

The foundation to the decisive state is a heart felt, high priority goal/aim.
The foundation for the indecisive state is not having that goal/aim.

The word "desire", as used in the OP could be taken to mean many things so trying to say when something should be distinguished as "the real desire" is a little tough. Certainly the most fundamental or longest reaching aim "should" umbrella all others, but seldom does due to confusions that spawn divisions of priority. Divisions in priority result in the indecisive state in turn resulting in persuasibility as pointed out in the Presumption and Indecision thread.

Hmmm, I don't particularly see those two states JSS in terms of 'decisive' and 'indecisive'...although perhaps to a much lesser degree, you can say that.

I see them more in terms of awareness and unawareness. Those with 'impure' desires live in unawareness and conflict with what he/she truly desires...and lives in fear/unacceptance of what his humanity creates within him/her. What they experience within is a lack of honest seeing . Thus, they choose NOT to see their true entire selves - a question of belief, settle for less and in reality live a lie.

Those with 'pure' desire live in awareness of the human dynamic and thus their desires become tools which serve them in their creative growth and becoming and do not hinder them. They desire to know themselves within all of their aspects.

Perhaps it can be seen like a puzzle, JSS. The more pieces (or desires) which can be intuited and then seen by looking under a microscope of honesty and felt to be connected and 'fit' ought to eventually point the way to a clearer more precise image of what one's 'real' and ultimate destiny (fulfillment of one's grestest desire) is.

It all comes down to 'vision'.

VaerosTanarg wrote:

Since this thread is concerning desire, I thought I would place the below in here which was written by Rowan Williams….a very clear distinction between pure and unpure desire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_Williams

The ‘impure’ heart is a heart which never wants anything enough to be intolerant of substitutes. Beneath its readiness to make do with less than reality is the fear of real desire.

For real desire means the candid acknowledgment that I am incomplete and need something in order to be real myself.

Impure desire, on the other hand, assumes that I am solid and important: I take things to myself as my fancies suggest, as much as I want of this or that, so as to keep myself solid and steady. I consume things – to stop myself being consumed by real desire, which shows me my lack of solidity, my need to find and nourish my identity in and with others.

Pure desire is desire that longs to grow endlessly in knowledge of and rootedness in reality and truth.

Impure desire desires to stop having to desire, to stop needing; it asks for a state where, finally, the ego can relax into self-sufficiency and does not have to go stuffing bits and pieces of the world into itself in order to survive.

Real desire can live with an unlimited horizon – which religious people call God (feel free to change/substitute that word-VT)) – while unreal desire stumbles from moment to moment trying to gratify an immediate hunger, without accepting that hunger is part of being human and so cannot be dealt with or understood by an endless succession of leakplugging operations.

I wonder how to interpret this in terms of self-valuing. What would pure desire mean when we do assume that a being is sufficient to its being? It seems to come down to a hierarchy, wherein a being with impure desire is secured of its existence and regular confirmation thereof, and a being with pure desire is challenging its own existence as the ground of its being, by acknowledging that it needs to move toward something else, which is unattainable, in order to be proper to itself.

Surely, thereby the impure one is freeer to move, to become. But it still has the constancy of the desire itself, which accounts for its being-incomplete, its being, which has as a quality an incompleteness.

So, what is incompleteness? What does it mean? What does completeness mean?
Perhaps it means peace, stillness -- and perhaps peace mans non-being. But it surely does not mean chaos, which is no-thingness, the primordial void e assume behind our logic.

We have space for a juxtaposition of two un-reals:
one the one hand chaos, from which being-incompleteness arises from which first impure, then pure desire arise,
then, from pure desire, which is deliberately aimed at a non-existent peace so as to be able to move forward as being-incomplete, ever toward completion but never completing, we can infer another possible unreal, that is to say unattainable but still conjecturable -- the finalization of the pure desire, which would mean true, lasting completion ; God.

Perhaps such a state is in fact attainable, when all cells in ones being are aligned in the longing, striving for perfect completion in the acceptance that its reality is in the striving and not in the completion, that a completeness of alignment, or a perfect alignment is attained. In such a state one would feel an extacy that is beyond all completion we could have dreamt of from the perspective of incompleteness. I imagine this would be a perfection within an overflowingness, a state wherein the consciously perceived/experienced fulfillment is being fed by a much larger source of energy, a well of purified energy that could never in its totality be allowed into the consciousness of a human perspective.


There would be no more terms left in which one could not self-value. I wonder if in such a state a notion of will could still survive. Perhaps only as the lightest of lightest ways -- play. Perhaps this is then how to communicate with so called "angels", hypothetical beings who have attained the oneness within hunger, wherein lack is experienced as a positive, as a bestowing of inequality within oneself, whereby progression is attained, leading up to experience and beyond.

[quote="Fixed Cross"]

VaerosTanarg wrote:

Since this thread is concerning desire, I thought I would place the below in here which was written by Rowan Williams….a very clear distinction between pure and unpure desire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_Williams

The ‘impure’ heart is a heart which never wants anything enough to be intolerant of substitutes. Beneath its readiness to make do with less than reality is the fear of real desire.

For real desire means the candid acknowledgment that I am incomplete and need something in order to be real myself.

Impure desire, on the other hand, assumes that I am solid and important: I take things to myself as my fancies suggest, as much as I want of this or that, so as to keep myself solid and steady. I consume things – to stop myself being consumed by real desire, which shows me my lack of solidity, my need to find and nourish my identity in and with others.

Pure desire is desire that longs to grow endlessly in knowledge of and rootedness in reality and truth.

Impure desire desires to stop having to desire, to stop needing; it asks for a state where, finally, the ego can relax into self-sufficiency and does not have to go stuffing bits and pieces of the world into itself in order to survive.

Real desire can live with an unlimited horizon – which religious people call God (feel free to change/substitute that word-VT)) – while unreal desire stumbles from moment to moment trying to gratify an immediate hunger, without accepting that hunger is part of being human and so cannot be dealt with or understood by an endless succession of leakplugging operations.

Quote :

I wonder how to interpret this in terms of self-valuing. What would pure desire mean when we do assume that a being is sufficient to its being? It seems to come down to a hierarchy, wherein a being with impure desire is secured of its existence and regular confirmation thereof, and a being with pure desire is challenging its own existence as the ground of its being, by acknowledging that it needs to move toward something else, which is unattainable, in order to be proper to itself.

But as was said in the quote, pure desire is desire that longs to grow endlessly in knowledge of and rootedness in reality and truth.

If a being would see itself as being sufficient to its being - sufficient as in 'satisfied' with self, where would the motivation come from in order to grow? If we value ourselves, we wish to grow, we do not wish to become stagnant human beings, stagnant in our old beliefs and thoughts, not questioning reality as we 'presuppose' it. Self-valuing is a form of self-love wherein we want to stretch ourselves beyond our limitations... in order to become...more and more. We are never perfect nor are we ever complete...except for those certain wonderful moments where we feel we are but they do dissolve. 'impure desire' is one which is happy with the status quo out of fear and would never want to rock the boat.

I don't see it so much as a hierarcy as I see it in terms of self-awareness vs. unawareness. Is that a hierarcy?

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Surely, thereby the impure one is freeer to move, to become. But it still has the constancy of the desire itself, which accounts for its being-incomplete, its being, which has as a quality an incompleteness.

How is the 'impure desire' freer to move when it sees itself as self-satisfied? It wishes to see itself as complete because it fears its own incompleteness whereas one with a 'pure desire' senses and knows its own incompleteness, embraces that while at the same time, goes beyond that seeing because it does value itself, knowing that it will never be 'complete' but can only reach toward more of a process of becoming.

I don't see one with impure desire as being freer to move though perhaps they may sense a certain amount of delusional freedom. But doesn't real freedom carry a sense of responsibility and a human spirit that wishes to transcend itself? The other which you see as 'freer to move' may move but goes nowhere...like a dog chasing its own tail which I tend to think is an apt expression here.

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So, what is incompleteness? What does it mean? What does completeness mean?

To me, incompleteness simply means that we recognize that we are a process of becoming. Incompleteness is hardly a negative...it is just what it is - a being in process.

Completeness to me means for instance those rare moments when we sense our true self at our core - and everything in the universe becomes as one but only for a few moments. I don't know as I would want to have a sense of completeness about me - then what happens to the joy of being able to become more...the challenge of it...the transcending of self and nature?

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Perhaps it means peace, stillness -- and perhaps peace mans non-being. But it surely does not mean chaos, which is no-thingness, the primordial void e assume behind our logic.

I suppose you might say that a sense of 'completeness' feels peaceful - but it goes much deeper than that. I feel moments of peace while at the same time knowing I am an incomplete person. That's harmony and balance.

Chaos does not mean no-thingness in my book. If anything, we may be more aware of our existence through our chaos than through our peace. Didn't Freddie say that we must have chaos in order to give birth to the star (PP). So in looking at it that way, chaos might be seen as everything-ness.

Our human logic is not capable of beginning to sense the primordial void.

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We have space for a juxtaposition of two un-reals:
one the one hand chaos, from which being-incompleteness arises from which first impure, then pure desire arise,
then, from pure desire, which is deliberately aimed at a non-existent peace so as to be able to move forward as being-incomplete, ever toward completion but never completing, we can infer another possible unreal, that is to say unattainable but still conjecturable -- the finalization of the pure desire, which would mean true, lasting completion ; God.

Perhaps that chaos eventually arises because we do not see our incompleteness. That chaos can be a good thing, a creative thing...though extremely painful.

I don't think that pure desire aims at a non-existent peace - (you can explain that to me) -for me, its wish is to see only that which is 'real' but its aim IS to move forward through seeing reality into becoming more complete as you say...or becoming what it is our destiny to become...and we can't know that yet.

And some would say that the ultimate and lasting completeness is God but wouldn't you say that that is the problem we have now...feeling complete in a god instead of through coming to know our selves and others? We may not feel any sense of completion through a god but we may through a sense of solidarity (not dependency) but inter-dependency with our neighbor. Unless I am misunderstanding your meaning here...which I might be.

Unless you are saying until we become like gods. If there is a god, who knows but that perhaps that is the reason we have been created...to become One in heart/mind/spirit - one loving energy.Hmmm...

I'll respond to the last two paragraphs when I have more time.