“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.”
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.
Fight with all your strength, Arjuna! Controlling your senses,
conquer your enemy, the destroyer of knowledge and realiza tion. -Hinduism, Bhagavad Gita
In desire is man born;
from desire he consumes objects of various tastes;
by desire is he led away bound, buffeted across the face. Bound by evil qualities is he chastised. -Sikhism
Have you seen him who makes his desire his god, and God sends him astray purposely, and seals up his hearing and his heart, and sets on his sight a covering?
Who, then, will lead him after God has condemned him? Will you not then heed? -Islam
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. -Christianity
The man who gathers flowers of sensual plea sure, whose mind is distracted and who is insatiate in desires, the Destroyer brings him under his sway. -Buddhism
Confucius said, “I have never seen anyone whose desire to build up his moral power was as strong as sexual desire.” Confucianism
There is no crime greater than having too many desires; there is no disaster greater than not being content;
there is no misfortune greater than being covetous. -Taoism
Envy and desire and ambition drive a man out of the world. -Judaism
