We are familiar with the words "behind will stands desire"; also with the injunction "Desire nothing." We are also aware that desire, which in human beings is mainly rooted in Kama, the emotional wish for some object or experience, is the motive power in our life. How then can we become desireless without becoming apathetic?

It is useful, in studying any practical topic, to go to the metaphysical teachings of Theosophy, for ethics, or true living, is simply applied metaphysics. In The Theosophical Glossary, we find "Kama" defined as "evil desire, lust, volition; the cleaving to existence. Kama is generally identified with Mara, the tempter." It is significant that, following this definition, the Glossary gives us the real meaning of the inner aspect of Kama—the spiritual aspect, as against the purely material aspect. We read under "Kamadeva":

Kama is pre-eminently the divine desire of creating happiness and love; and it is only ages later, as mankind began to materialize by anthropomorphization of its grandest ideals into cut and dried dogmas, that Kama became the power that gratifies desire on the animal plane.

Therefore, when we read that "Desire first arose in IT, which was the primal germ of mind," we need to try to understand what this Desire is, to get a grander idea of the primeval spiritual aspect of Kama. We can do this because we are told that "Sages, searching with their intellect, have discovered in their heart" that this primal Desire is "the bond which connects Entity with non-Entity, or Manas with pure Atma-Buddhi."

It is therefore necessary for us to search in our own heart as well, and to learn just what was and is this Divine Desire. We are told that it is

the first conscious, all embracing desire for universal good, love, and for all that lives and feels, needs help and kindness, the first feeling of infinite tender compassion and mercy that arose in the consciousness of the creative ONE FORCE, as soon as it came into life and being as a ray from the ABSOLUTE.

What this creative ONE FORCE is, and how it works can be gathered from this quotation from The Secret Doctrine (I, 328):

Manvantaric impulse commences with the re-awakening of Cosmic Ideation...concurrently with, and parallel to the primary emergence of Cosmic Substance—the latter being the manvantaric vehicle of the former—from its undifferentiated pralayic state. Then, absolute wisdom mirrors itself in its Ideation; which, by a transcendental process, superior to and incomprehensible by human Consciousness, results in Cosmic Energy (Fohat). Thrilling through the bosom of inert Substance, Fohat impels it to activity, and guides its primary differentiations on all the Seven planes of Cosmic Consciousness...which in the course of the increasing heterogeneity...differentiate into the marvellous complexity presented by phenomena on the planes of perception.

Another wonderful description of the unity which prevailed after the first urge is given in this quotation from an Occult Commentary:

The nucleoles are eternal and everlasting; the nuclei periodical and finite. The nucleoles form part of the absolute. They are the embrasures of that black impenetrable fortress, which is for ever concealed from human or even Dhyanic sight. The nuclei are the light of eternity escaping therefrom.

It is that LIGHT which condenses into the forms of the "Lords of Being"—the first and the highest of which are, collectively, JIVATMA, or Pratyagatma....From these downwards—formed from the ever-consolidating waves of that light, which becomes on the objective plane gross matter—proceed the numerous hierarchies of the Creative Forces....

Thus there is but one Absolute Upadhi (basis) in the spiritual sense, from, on, and in which are built for Manvantaric purposes the countless basic centres on which proceed the Universal, cyclic, and individual Evolutions during the active period. (S.D., II, 33-34)

We are, each one of us, a basic centre of this LIGHT or FORCE. If we wish to transform our evil desire into the all-embracing desire for universal good, we have the steps given. Kamadeva is at the heart of each basic centre, and to develop it after searching for it is our task.

As that primal Desire is for universal good, we must put into practice the teaching—"To live to benefit mankind is the first step." Any desire of ours which negatives this must go. There is no place for both higher desire and lower desire. We have to start on this journey without conditions! Unless the Paramitas are practised for the purpose of making ourselves better able to help others, it is all a waste of time.

The way to reach the highest Desire is to look at the desires we have in our ordinary daily life. What is desire? How do we fulfil it? What brings it to fruition? At present our desires are rooted in the kamic principle, in our idea of ourselves and what we want to possess or to be. But desires by themselves can accomplish nothing. We have to think about them, to build them in our mind, to plan for their operation. But if that planning is weak we turn to another desire and the first one fades away through lack of attention, or will. The desire must be strong enough to force the will into action, after the plans are made. Therefore will comes before desire.

A weak-willed person is one whose desires are not strong enough to force his will to realize them. A strong-willed person is one who can find ways to fulfil his unselfish and noble desires.

True desirelessness is the operation of the one Desire to free oneself from all other desires so that the inherent characteristics of Life itself can show forth and one can become a living, conscious "basic centre" of LIGHT. Unless one can sense the LIGHT in the hearts of all creatures and in very grain of sand, one will cease to be a basic centre and will merge back into the Absolute when the "embrasures of that black impenetrable fortress" becomes once again the Darkness with the withdrawing of the Light. Our hope is to follow the Sages and discover, by searching with our own intellect, that the Divine Desire does in very fact lie in our own heart. After lives of effort we shall thus find our Manas merged into Atma-Buddhi, which, by that merging, makes of Atma-Buddhi the only vehicle for itself. And that one vehicle is the Absolute Upadhi "in the spiritual sense, from, on, and in which are built...the countless basic centres on which proceed the Universal, cyclic, and individual Evolutions during the active period." The world grows I!

It is astonishing how the world makes way for a resolute soul, and how obstacles get out of the path of a determined man who believes in himself. There is no philosophy by which a man can do a thing when he thinks he can't. What can defeat a strong man who believes in himself and cannot be rediculed down, talked down, or written down? Poverty cannot dishearten him, misfortune deter him, or hardship turn him a hair's breadth from his course. Whatever comes, he keeps his eye on the goal and pushes ahead.

Self-reliance which carries great, vigorous self-faith, has ever been the best substitute for friends, pedigree, influence, and money. It is the best capital in the world; it has mastered more obstacles, overcome more difficulties, and carried through more enterprise than any other human quality.

I believe if we had a larger conception of our possibilities, a larger faith in ourselves, we could accomplish infinitely more. And if we only better understood our divinity, we would have this larger faith....

The fact that you believe implicitly that you can do what may seem impossible or very difficult to others, shows that there is something within you that has gotten a glimpse of power sufficient to do the thing.

—Orison Swett Marden