The Problem of Desire in Yoga
Desire and the Reproduction of Suffering
Written By: Balraj Persaud
Desire is not simply one problem among others in yoga philosophy—it is the structure that organizes experience before any particular problem comes into view. Every tradition identifies desire as the source of suffering; almost none keeps it consistently in view. This essay examines why desire is so difficult to hold in view, why the pursuit of invulnerability—including through yoga practice itself—can reproduce the very suffering it seeks to subvert, and what it means for a practice to keep desire genuinely in focus.
Desire and Lack: How Striving Often Reinforces the Very Problem it Wants to Subvert
Many Eastern contemplative traditions feature desire prominently in their teachings, often identifying it as the source of the perpetuation of suffering. It is then set aside, often by desire itself—a single-minded focus on engaging in whatever techniques a particular tradition offers that promise to rid me of my personal suffering, or by a non-negotiable attachment to my specific desire—i.e., the specific thing(s) I know I need to have/do/become in order to be rid of my suffering: the money, the status, the healing, etc.. Regardless, despite the attention given to desire in talks and theory, it is quickly set aside by a network of desire—the aspirant to heal/solve their life, the tradition to offer (and receive money/praise for) their techniques, etc. We speak about desire, but rarely return to the desire that is active in the very attempt to practice, improve, heal, awaken, or become free. Desire is named, then quickly displaced by desire itself. (And interestingly enough, in the end, the striving is for the end of striving—to no feel longer compelled to strive for anything ever again.)
Of course, the more intensely we crave something to make us feel better, the less we feel we have it. Desire, in other words, doesn’t produce the feeling we want; rather, it amplifies the sense of lack we feel. The more desperately we want to be rich, the poorer we feel—the more things seem to remind us of how much money we don’t have; the more desperately we want to feel recognized, the less we feel we matter—the more things seem to remind us of how much status we don’t have; the more desperately we want to be healed or enlightened, the more incomplete we feel—the more things seem to remind us of the so-called defects that plague our inner lives, and the more intolerable our inner life becomes.
And we become hypersensitive to the things we fear, the things that signal our lack: the more we try to avoid shame, the more we (unknowingly) train ourselves to detect it—we become skilled at how to prevent it, manage it, or hide it—and, as such, become even further entrenched in the very structure that keeps us bound to it.
The more we need the world to relieve us of our discomfort, the more our lives become organized by that discomfort—and the pursuit of invulnerability is guaranteed to reproduce our suffering. Some of us primarily run toward whatever we think will fill up our sense of self, add “weight” to our individual existence, make us matter more in the eyes of others, secure our identity, or command recognition. Some of us primarily run from whatever threatens to expose our insufficiency, shame, dependence, uncertainty—the disgust/fear drives us to want to shed the weight of the burdens of our inner life.
The problem isn’t wanting progress—the problem is wanting a final solution to our suffering; the problem is striving for a permanent sense of material/social/emotional security. Wanting a final conclusion to our suffering is what amplifies our desperation. Perhaps most importantly, a final conclusion is simply impossible: we are forever “inside” of an ongoing stream of appearing or experiencing that is not subject to our will. Whether we like it or not, we cannot retreat to some place outside of experience to author(ize) whatever shows up; there is always more appearing, always more that shows up that we didn’t produce and cannot have pre-decided how we will feel about. We cannot stand outside of our experience and decide in advance what will be allowed to arise. While we can train how we might respond to what appears, we cannot control the appearing itself.
But this is only part of the story of our vulnerability. We are, whether we like it or not, our existence as individuals depends on the very things that we seek to transcend—our dependence. We are irrevocably relational, contingent, and shaped by forces beyond our control (e.g., embodiment, memory, culture/language/history, relationships, aging/death, etc.). We are not—and could never be—fully in possession of ourselves. Our desire for invulnerability is to be rid of the very conditions that make us the kind of thing that can read and understand this very article—the kind of thing wants to end their suffering.
For this kind of being, its security is always in question. It did not produce itself. It requires— continuously—other people’s recognition, its body’s cooperation, circumstances outside of its control. A self that depends on conditions it does not govern is structurally exposed. Not just occasionally, not just when things go wrong—but always, as a baseline feature, as the background context of what it is to exist this way. Security is always in question because the things that constitute its security—health, reputation, relationships, inner stability—are never fully in its command. And so for this reason, the pursuit of security is the (impossible) pursuit of eliminating its dependence.
(To be sure, on this path, progress is, indeed, possible. But when charged with the impossible task of making us invulnerable, no success will ever feel like it’s enough.)
Desire, in other words, doesn’t produce the feeling we want; rather, it amplifies the sense of lack we feel. The more desperately we want to be rich, the poorer we feel... the more desperately we want to feel recognized, the less we feel we matter... the more desperately we want to be enlightened, the more incomplete we feel—the more things seem to remind us of the so-called defects that plague our inner lives, and the more intolerable our inner life becomes.
Progress, Security, and the Quest for Invulnerability
The problem isn’t wanting progress—the problem is wanting a final solution to our suffering; the problem is striving for a permanent sense of material/social/emotional security. Wanting a final conclusion to our suffering is what amplifies our desperation. Perhaps most importantly, a final conclusion is simply impossible: we are forever “inside” of an ongoing stream of appearing or experiencing that is not subject to our will. Whether we like it or not, we cannot retreat to some place outside of experience to author(ize) whatever shows up; there is always more appearing, always more that shows up that we didn’t produce and cannot have pre-decided how we will feel about. We cannot stand outside of our experience and decide in advance what will be allowed to arise. While we can train how we might respond to what appears, we cannot control the appearing itself.
But this is only part of the story of our vulnerability. We are, whether we like it or not, our existence as individuals depends on the very things that we seek to transcend—our dependence. We are irrevocably relational, contingent, and shaped by forces beyond our control (e.g., embodiment, memory, culture/language/history, relationships, aging/death, etc.). We are not—and could never be—fully in possession of ourselves. Our desire for invulnerability is to be rid of the very conditions that make us the kind of thing that can read and understand this very article—the kind of thing wants to end their suffering.
For this kind of being, its security is always in question. It did not produce itself. It requires— continuously—other people’s recognition, its body’s cooperation, circumstances outside of its control. A self that depends on conditions it does not govern is structurally exposed. Not just occasionally, not just when things go wrong—but always, as a baseline feature, as the background context of what it is to exist this way. Security is always in question because the things that constitute its security—health, reputation, relationships, inner stability—are never fully in its command. And so for this reason, the pursuit of security is the (impossible) pursuit of eliminating its dependence.
To be sure, on this path, progress is, indeed, possible. But when charged with the impossible task of making us invulnerable, no success will ever feel like it’s enough.
Deeper Than Any Individual Desire: Desire and Self-Consciousness
If yoga practice is to keep desire in view, it cannot concern itself only with explicit, self-conscious desires. It must also concern itself with the more primitive structure of desire that is already operative before any particular object of desire comes into view.
Our everyday experience of the world is a kind of desire-based experience, one that defines things, people, places, and situations in terms of their relevance or irrelevance for our own projects—including (especially) our most primary project of permanent self-security. In desire, I am defining reality in terms of my own needs and not on its own terms. The self’s anxiety about its dependence—its gnawing sense of dis-ease—is not caused by the dependence itself, but rather by the self’s refusal to tolerate its dependence—its permanent and non-optional lack of self-existence. And these anxiety is reproduced precisely by its craving for self-existence.Most basically, we are only ever really paying attention to what is relevant to or for ourselves.
The desire to escape (or “transcend”) the insubstantiality of our ego—to literally become something, become a(n independent) thing—is deeper than any individual desire. This most primitive desiring precedes our explicit self-conscious desires (such as, I want a new car/house/partner/job/body, and/or more money/fame/status, etc.). It is desire—which is the most primitive form of our self-consciousness—that confirms my existence to myself (even if I’m “unsuccessful” in becoming something).
Desire confirms my existence as a real, active thing with determining power: it is the experience of being compelled beyond myself, to transcend myself, to consume. And desire is not something I learn to do/have but is rather always already “there”, even before I am explicitly self-conscious. Desire also confirms my existence as a real, passive thing that can be compelled/impelled: desire strikes me (as something that is not me) but does so from within—it appears to me as my desire. In desire—this most basic relationship to appearing—I find myself, I find a self, so to speak.
For this reason, the yogin isn’t primarily concerned with explicit, self-conscious desire. Any analysis of desire that begins with explicit, self-conscious desire is already too late. Desire, in other words, is not an imaginary thing that one may or may not have, but is rather constitutive of having a self. If I find myself impelled to rid myself of desire—if “I want to get rid of my desires”—this wanting only confirms the very thing I am trying to subvert.
The self’s anxiety about its dependence—its gnawing sense of dis-ease—is not caused by the dependence itself, but rather by the self’s refusal to tolerate its dependence—its permanent and non-optional lack of self-existence. And these anxiety is reproduced precisely by its craving for self-existence.
Desire in Yoga Practice
This is why yoga practice cannot simply be another strategy for becoming finally secure, complete, or permanently beyond discomfort. Any practice—postures, breath control, meditation, mantra, devotion, inquiry—can be taken up as part of the attempt to secure oneself against dependence, to become complete, pure, in control—invulnerable.
The purpose of yoga practice is, strictly speaking, not to produce anything—such as more relaxation, “more” consciousness, etc.—nor is it to destroy anything—such as painful emotions, unwanted thoughts, even suffering—and even desire. The experience of desire is not optional. And, again, if I find myself compelled to get rid of my desire, this desire to get rid of desire only confirms the very thing I am trying to subvert. Furthermore, if I try to get rid of my desire or my shame or my lack of status, I remain ensnared in the dualism of desire/desirelessness and, as a result, I become hypersensitive to my desires or shame or lack of status and hypercritical of myself for having them.
Yoga is not the destruction of vulnerability; yoga is what remains once we abandon the quest to destroy our vulnerabilities once and for all. This means that our primary question about our practice is less about what practices we perform, and more about whether our practice is still serving the very fantasy it is meant to expose. For this reason, the central discipline is not merely performing a practice, but keeping in view the desire that may already be organizing it. Regardless of the specific form of practice—posture, prayer, meditation, devotion, inquiry—the question remains whether or not this practice motivated by or exposing a desire for some version of exemption, perfection, or invulnerability. The moment desire escapes our view, practice is again enlisted in the pursuit of self-security.
It remains true that certain practices are more conducive to the cultivation of awareness; in this way, meditation and breathwork were central components of nearly all traditions of yoga. But searching for the “right” method may be a symptom of an underlying desire for some version of invulnerability—bulletproof mental health, financial freedom, self-mastery, union with God, etc.. The desire for the method, the desire for progress, the desire for the right experience, the desire for the result, the desire for certainty that the practice is working—these are all ways the very thing practice is meant to illuminate may already be organizing the practice itself. If we allow our practice to lose sight of desire—if it is no longer oriented toward noticing whatever version of perfection, invulnerability, or exemption we are pursuing—we are, in a meaningful sense, no longer doing yoga.
Detachment is also central—so as to be able to see our pre-reflective patterns of desire without our seeing being a symptom of our desire. Detachment is not indifference or the forced elimination of desire, but is rather the practice of becoming aware of how awareness is absorbed, preoccupied, or determined—particularly by mood, which isn’t optional—and in this noticing, no longer being fully consumed by it.
Awareness and Self-Awareness
The practices of yoga are simple. You always already have the only thing you ever need: your attention. Everything else is nonessential.
In yoga, we cultivate awareness so that we may become aware of—before becoming consumed by—the pre-reflective (automatic, unthinking) habits of thinking, feeling, acting, and perceiving—the very habits that prevent us from seeing how our efforts to acquire peace might be reinforcing the very suffering we are trying to escape. What we most want to secure is also what keeps us from seeing the truth of our situation, including the unrelenting pursuit of self-security that structures it. When you notice a pattern, you are no longer inside it; just as when you notice that you are daydreaming, you are no longer daydreaming.
Instead of focusing on explicit, self-conscious desires, the yogin relies on practices that foster direct awareness of self-consciousness itself as always already produced by desire. The yogin is interested in making its way to the original impulse to be (a) something, to self-exist, to secure itself as an independent entity, to the pre-personal appropriative impulse or habit/activity of ahaṃkāra: I-making. But the yogin is not interested in making contact with this primitive impulse in order to eliminate it, but rather just to notice it (and become comfortable with the sense of inner lack that it produces and reifies) so that its awareness is freed of this appropriative quality that does not permit contact with Reality, that does not permit contact with oneself. In this sense, yoga practice does not require the elimination of desire, but an ongoing vigilance regarding the ways desire recruits the practice itself into the pursuit of whatever version of invulnerability/exemption.
In yoga, the cultivation of inner stability is simultaneously the cultivation of a kind of selflessness. Less consumed by our “default” modes of being, we are better able to see not only our personal, habitual ways of thinking, feeling, acting, and perceiving (particularly our automatic habits of avoiding uncomfortable thoughts/feelings and clinging to whatever we think will destroy them) but also the non-optional dimensions of experience (the true dimensions of “transcendence”) on which we are irrevocably dependent (and in which we are irrevocably embedded): including embodiment, memory, time, mood, other people. In yoga, this self-awareness is self-transcendence. It is in bearing witness to the ways in which we are determined that we realize the part of ourselves that is essentially undefined.
This means that our primary question about our practice is less about what practices we perform, and more about whether our practice is still serving the very fantasy it is meant to expose.
Further Reading
FURTHER READING:
In the context of our everyday lives, cultivating the capacity to become aware of our instinctive patterns before becoming consumed by them gives us choice—even if we ultimately decide that our habitual response is appropriate. Awareness doesn’t give us certainty or control; it just permits no longer being ruled by what we never noticed was ruling us.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Commentaries on the theme of pre-personal desire abound in the texts of the Dharma religions. For those looking to explore the theme of pre-personal desire in western philosophy, see Section B (entitled, “Self-Consciousness”) of G.W.F. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Related, Canadian philosopher John Russon provides a rich and accessible discussion of desire in each of his three books on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: The Self and its Body in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (1997, see pp.53-76), Reading Hegel’s Phenomenology (2004, see pp.59-69), and Infinite Phenomenology: The Lessons of Hegel’s Science of Experience (2016, see pp.14-15 and pp.77-95, the latter in which Russon also considers Deleuze & Guattari’s study of desire in their 1972 book, Anti-Oedipus).
For more on the basic articulation of the problem of anxiety and the ego, see the work of David Loy. For spiritual aspirants looking for an introduction to Loy’s thinking, consider either of his 2008 book, Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution (Wisdom Publications), or his Lack & Transcendence: The Problem of Death and Life in Psychotherapy, Existentialism, and Buddhism (2018 [1996], Wisdom). Both books can be found via Loys’ author page at Wisdom Publications.