THE THINGS WE CRAVE ARISE FROM OUR SPIRIT'S DESIRE TO FIND GOD
John Erickson
At their core, all of our desires arise from an instinctual
drive to seek out a higher energy supply. Our subconscious mind
is aware of our limited endurance and our need for continual
replenishment. It is also aware that there is some force out
there which created it. So, when our physical urges compel us to
seek out nourishment, shelter, and healthier climates, the energy
contained therein is identified with our original Source of
energy by our physical mind. The Creative Energy of God is the
energy which brought us to life. We do not immediately recognize
this instinct for what it is because our physical nature is
separated from God.
But it is not separated from its immediate
needs - all of which revolve around survival. So,
although we are not born with an intellectual awareness of God,
we are continually drawn to physical representations of God in
the form of food, sex, and acceptance.
These items represent God
to the crude awareness of our physical nature. What, after all,
is food? Energy. It's a transfer of energy from one form, the
food source, to ourselves for the singular purpose of augmenting
our survival abilities. What is God?
To our physical nature, God
is energy: hospitable climates, arable land, and an alliance with
a group of like-minded people with which we can defend ourselves
from any forces which threaten to take the "energy" we've
accumulated. All living things are born with this fundamental
knowledge: that whatever sustains it is good - and are free of
any murky philosophical ponderings about whether or not it is
"right" to pursue it.
Intellectual pursuits are driven by our inborn desire to
influence (or control) the people and environment around us. It's
a product of the "herd instinct," leading us away from the
vulnerability of isolation. Successfully achieving power over
other people makes our survival less threatened by the precarious
availability of material resources. Overlapping the physical
benefits of this "herd instinct" are the emotional needs for
friendship, ego-fulfillment, and the fundamental sex urge.
The sex drive differs from the rest of these energy-seeking
behaviors in that our physical survival is not threatened by its
absence. Although it might seem to be a part of a preservation
drive, sex is sought without regard for personal well-being, or
even preservation. And the "continuity of the species" is not
what's on our minds during intercourse. It doesn't strengthen us
or add to us in any material way. It just seems to exist within
us as an indecipherable compulsion to seek-out people having
particular shapes and gestures which, for no apparent reason,
give us a reason to live or even kill. Now, much has been said on
the matter of sex being some innate desire to procreate the
species, or being rooted in our desire to have ourselves live on
through the birth of a mini-replica of ourselves resulting from
the sex we craved, or some similar poetic nonsense. But that
still doesn't explain the pleasure of the basic urge, nor how the
mind associates it with enhancing our lives or adding to our
energy.
If all of our physical seeking behaviors arise from an
inborn craving for the "energy" of God, then it would logically
follow that the actual presence and appearance of God would have
to be the ultimate sensation. In the natural world, the only
creation the Bible describes as having been made in the image of
God is the human race:
Genesis 1:27 - So God created man [Hebrew: adam: the species
of man, i.e., the human race] in his own
image, in the image of God created he him;
male and female he created them.
"Man" here refers to the human race rather than the male
gender exclusively, so it is the message of this text that the
male and female of the human race were created in the image of
God. And since the two are quite different in appearance, it can
be justly inferred that each gender contains a fractional portion
of that Godly image. The portion of God's countenance existing in
the male is lacking in the female; likewise, the portion of God's
countenance existing in the female is lacking in the male. We are
relatively oblivious to the Godly attributes of our own visage,
but our instincts associate the "image of God" that exists in our
gender-opposite with that ultimate, final energy supply that
we're eternally seeking. The features and characteristics of each
gender make up the components of the Godly image which are not
shared mutually, and therefore make up a physical model of the
highest form of energy, the image of God... and thus forms the
root of sexual attraction.
Before we put any thought into analyzing a person's
character, our gut response to another person's countenance is a
result of our interpretation of the degree of the Godly image we
perceive in that countenance. Acts of friendship, parental love
or sexual love are governed by this instinct to draw ourselves
closer to the supreme source of provision. This is not a
demonstration of devotion to God or anything fundamentally holy.
This is pure animal instinct, a survival device of seeking energy
for survival.
When something, or someone, contains a physical or
behavioral attribute which we instinctually identify with the
Energy Source who created us, we are drawn to it as though our
survival required it. This is not a spiritual action. This is
only the physical response which crudely parallels the attraction
of our spiritual Self to the Source who created it. Yet these
behaviors are generally looked upon as being acts of "love" when,
in reality, they are only attempts to draw strength from someone
other than him-or-herself. And though it is not fundamentally
"good," neither is it fundamentally "evil." It is neutral - a
dumb beast that's been designed to serve our physical well-being.
But it requires the willful, overriding control of our spirit in
order for it to act out of a genuine love impulse.
A spirit cannot have power in this physical earth unless it
has a human being to work with. God had to come in the form of a
physical man in order to effect the transformation which
reconciled man to God. The recurring fantasy in satanic circles
is for a demon spirit to possess a human being. The craving to
control other people is rooted in this, for every time someone
craves absolute control over other people, the satanic
consequence of disharmony and destruction always occurs.
It's the spiritual orientation of the individual that will
determine how their instinctual "love" mechanism will express
itself. When it is uncontrolled by our spiritual Self, our "love"
will gravitate toward controlling other people. Our survival
instinct operates on a fear of shortage - therefore, it has the
naked drive to diminish others' power (and thus their ability to
harm us), and to heighten our power over them. When this drive is
uncontrolled by our God-infused spirit, our "love" mechanism is
then driven in that same fearful direction. It will operate out
of a desire to "take," to draw energy from another. The person
whose spirit has a more complete view of God will see that his or
her needs are amply supplied by their Creative Force. With that
outlook, there is no risk associated with giving, since we
recognize that our requirements are met by God - so we feel no
urgent need to draw energy from somebody else. When the "love"
mechanism is governed by their God-aware spiritual Self, it will
gravitate toward a desire to give, as it feels no loss in doing
so. Rather, it associates it with gain, as the action of giving
parallels the giving nature of the God which this "love"
mechanism has been clumsily attempting to pursue all along.
General "love," parental love, or friendship, spring from a desire to draw energy from another; with our connection to God, it become s a desire to give. Sexual "love" is driven by a desire to posses s (or be possessed by) another body; with our connection to God, it become s a desire to join the other.
Our natural urges, when they're not influenced by the laws
of the Force Who created us, will tend toward the demonic craving
to possess, control and destroy. Worldly (ungodly) "traditional"
analyses of human behavior encourage the free expression of our
natural urges as the way to health. The unseen laws of our
Creative Force escape the view of those whose eye is fixed solely
on the natural world... therefore, what they assess to be
"healthy" is based only on what they see in this impure physical
existence - blind to the Energy who created the undiseased
original form. Health, logically, must be found by following the
nature of the Force Who created us... not the world which
violates his nature.
© John Erickson