Selfish Desires and Fallen Nature

Passion, greed, covetousness, hatred, lust: these emotions dominate the soul, causing blindness and leading to destruction.

Every major religion recognizes that suffering and evil are caused by excessive desires or desires directed toward a selfish purpose. Buddhism has summed up this principle in the second of the Four Noble Truths and denotes these desires by the term “craving.”

Craving is a fetter: poisoning the heart, deluding the mind, and binding us to evil courses of action. While all religions view selfish desire as baneful and the cause of much suffering, they differ in explaining these selfish desires in relation to human psychology.

Buddhism and Jainism reject the desire of all kinds, even the grasping for existence itself, as harmful and a source of bondage.

In the monotheistic religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and in some texts from Sikhism and Hinduism, the passions of the flesh—which are evil—are distinguished from the healthy ambition for goodness and the passion for God.

Chinese religion condemns only excessive desire and selfish desire: Desires themselves may be good if they are in harmony with the Tao. This is also Father Moon’s teaching: God created desire that people might aspire to goodness, but it was perverted into self-centered grasping as a result of the Human Fall.

Father Moon teaches that selfish desires are manifestations of ‘fallen nature,’ satanic qualities and attitudes that were implanted into Adam and Eve at their fall.

Various scriptures testify to the fact that humans have corrupted their original nature and deviated from their true calling. Instead, we have sunk to the level of beasts, or even lower. Beset with inner contradiction, we allow arrogance, violence, greed, and lust to dominate our lives.

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 a 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)

Human nature is analogous to water: originally, it is pure. If we fill a clear vessel then the water will be clear, but if we fill a dirty vessel then the water will be sullied. Its original purity is always there, but once it becomes dirty or turbid it is very difficult to regain its purity. Chu Hsi (Confucianism)

God made man upright, but they have sought out many devices. Ecclesiastes 7.29

Delusion is a sort of demonic force. People’s original mind is pure but it becomes perverted due to delusion and other karmas. Kundakunda, Pancastikaya 38 (Jainism)

I enquired what iniquity was, and found it to be not a substance, but the perversion of the will, turned aside from Thee, O God, the Supreme, toward these lower things, and casting out its bowels and puffed up outwardly. Saint Augustine, Confessions 7.16 (Christianity)

Satan said, “I will take of Thy servants a portion marked off; I will mislead them, and I will cre- ate in them false desires; I will order them… to deface the fair nature created by God.” Whoever, forsaking God, takes Satan for a friend, has of a surety suffered a loss that is manifest. Satan makes them promises, and creates in them false desires; but Satan’s promises are nothing but deception. Qur’an 4.118-20

Your mind, having become diseased and bewildered because of the false sense-conceptions accumulated since beginningless time, has developed many desires, attachments and habits. From these there have arisen, incident to the ever-changing processes of life, arbitrary conceptions concerning self and no-self and as to what is true and what is not true.

These arbitrary conceptions have not developed in a normal way from your pure Mind Essence, but in an abnormal way because of the prior false conceptions that had their origin in the sense organs, like the sight of blossoms in the air that come to diseased minds. They falsely appear to have had their origin in the enlightening and Essential Mind but, in truth, they have arisen because of diseased conditions. Surangama Sutra (Buddhism)

Slight is the difference between man and the brutes. The common man loses this distinguishing feature, while the gentleman retains it.
Mencius IV.B.19 (Confucianism)

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it? Jeremiah 17.9

And recite to them the tidings of him to whom We gave Our signs, but he cast them off, and Satan followed after him, and he became one of the perverts. And had we willed, We would have raised him up, but he inclined towards the earth and followed his lust.

So the likeness of him is as the likeness of a dog; if you attack it it lolls its tongue out, or if you leave it it lolls its tongue out. That is that people’s likeness who cried lies to Our signs… They have hearts, but understand not with them; they have eyes, but perceive not with them; they have ears, but they hear not with them. They are like cattle; nay, rather they are further astray. Those—they are the heedless.
Qur’an 7.175-179

That man in whom there never kindles One spark of the love of God, Know, Nanak, that his earthly vesture Is no better than that of a swine or dog! Adi Granth, Slok, M.9, p. 1428 (Sikhism)

Most men, and men of the most vulgar type, seem (not without some ground) to identify the good, or happiness, with pleasure; which is the reason why they love the life of enjoyment.

For there are, we may say, three prominent types of life—that just mentioned, the political, and thirdly the contemplative life. Now the mass of mankind are evidently quite slavish in their tastes, preferring a life suitable to beasts. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.5 (Hellenism)

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken: “Sons I have reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not understand.” Isaiah 1.2-3

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
When God’s one son and daughter, who should have been the true ancestors of humankind, committed sin, they were expelled from His Kingdom. From that moment, all men and women lost their potential to become God’s temples.

Instead, they became dens of Satan, headquarters of selfishness. (219:117, August 28, 1991)

Human beings were degraded by the Fall to a status lower than the things of creation, as it is written, “the heart is deceitful above all things.” (Jer. 17.9) (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Restoration 1.2.1)

Have you heard that when an ocean-going ship is about to be wrecked, the rats on board the ship try to escape along the mooring ropes to the land, seeking safety?

Even lowly creatures are aware of their destiny in terms of life and death, but what about human beings, who are the masters of all creation? Having fallen, they became as dull as a baby squid. (215:53, February 6, 1991)

Our mind and body can become completely one through the power of God’s love, but we have never really experienced that oneness because of the division between them that resulted from the Fall of the human ancestors.

If not for the Fall, our mind and body would have completely united based on God’s intrinsic love. In the world of love centered around that intrinsic love, there would be no need for moral education.

God would suffice as a teacher. People would know love without being taught. When the mind and body become one, we understand everything. There would be no need for education about how human beings should live.

There would be no need for instruction in ethics and the rules of morality. Do the animals need to be taught moral lessons? They know how to protect themselves and group themselves among members of their own species.

Why are human beings, the lords of creation, so ignorant in this regard? It is because of the Fall that we fight and struggle. (162:223, April 12, 1987)

We have fallen nature. What are the four aspects of fallen nature? They are arrogance, jealousy, anger, and lying. We should remove all of them. (150:126, September 4, 1960)

Eve inherited from the Archangel all the proclivities incidental to his transgression against God when he bound her in blood ties through their sexual relationship.

Adam in turn acquired the same inclinations when Eve, assuming the role of the Archangel, bound him in blood ties through their sexual relationship.

These proclivities have become the root cause of the fallen inclinations in all people. They are the primary characteristics of our fallen nature.

The fundamental motivation which engendered these primary characteristics of the fallen nature lay in the envy the Archangel felt toward Adam, the beloved of God.

How can there be anything such as envy and jealousy in an archangel, whom God created for a good purpose?

The Archangel was endowed with desire and intellect as a part of his original nature. Because the Archangel possessed an intellect, he could compare and discern that God’s love for human beings was greater than the love God gave to him. Because he also possessed desires, he had a natural yearning for God to love him more. This desire of the heart was naturally conducive to envy and jealousy.

Envy is an inevitable byproduct of the original nature, like the shadow cast by an object in the light. After human beings reach perfection, however, they will never be induced to fall because of incidental envy.

They will know deep inside that the temporary gratification they might feel by attaining the object of their desire is not worth the agony of self-destruction that would ensue.

Hence, they would never commit such crimes… The primary characteristics of the fallen nature can be divided broadly into four types: The first is failing to take God’s standpoint. A principal cause of the Archangel’s fall was his failure to love Adam with the same heart and perspective as God; instead, he felt jealous of Adam. This led him to tempt Eve.

An example of this characteristic of the fallen nature is when a courtier feels jealous of the king’s favorite instead of sincerely respecting him as one whom the king loves.

The second is leaving one’s proper position. Seeking more of God’s love, Lucifer desired to enjoy the same position of love in the human world.

This unrighteous desire caused him to leave his position and fall. People are induced by unrighteous desires to step beyond the bounds of what is right and overreach themselves because of this primary characteristic of the fallen nature.

The third is reversing dominion.

The angel, who was supposed to come under the dominion of human beings, instead dominated Eve. Then Eve, who was supposed to come under the dominion of Adam, dominated him instead…

The fourth is multiplying the criminal act. After her fall, had Eve not repeated her sin by seducing Adam, Adam would have remained whole. The restoration of Eve alone would have been relatively easy.

However, Eve spread her sin to others by inducing Adam to fall. The proclivity of evil people to entangle others in an expanding web of crime stems from this primary characteristic of the fallen nature. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Fall 4.6)

We now know the characteristics of fallen nature: The Fall began, first with self-centered ownership; next, speaking lies; next, an immoral relationship; next, taking all things from God; and finally, in the second generation, murder.

All dictators throughout history lied, violated love, stole others’ possessions, and murdered good people. Considering this, we should not follow the same pattern of historical error.

We wish to inherit a heavenly tradition of love by overcoming these transgressions within ourselves. (121:257-58, October 27, 1982)