Stuart Sandberg abstract

The precarious freedom of human consciousness lies in its ability to desire. Since what any person or community desires can lead to the promotion of wholeness and life or disintegration and destruction, understanding the nature of desire is central to any interpretation of what it means to be human. Through his careful reading of literature, anthropology, psychology and the Bible, Rene Girard has uncovered the formative role that imitation plays in virtually all human desiring. While imitation is evident in the behavior of other species, the expanded capacity of human consciousness for what Girard calls mimetic desire plays a major part in every aspect of being human.

As opposed to the more common understanding of desire as linear, in which a subject directly desires an object, Girard sees desire as triangular. A subject desires the object that another desires but also desires the others desire. What Girard reveals as the root of all desire is a lack of being or what he calls metaphysical desire. A desired object is only a means to acquire the being of the mediator who desires it. As Girard says, Imitative desire is always a desire to be another. (Deceit, Desire and the Novel, p.83) Since the closer the subject and the model come to attaining the object of desire the more they imitate and come into conflict with each other: Neither model nor disciple really understands why one constantly thwarts the other because neither perceives that his desire has become the reflection of the others. Far from being restricted to a limited number of pathological cases as American theoreticians suggest, the double bind a contradictory double imperative, or rather a whole network of contradictory imperatives is an extremely common phenomenon. In fact it is so common that it might be said to form the basis of all human relationships. (Violence and the Sacred, p.147)

Responding to those who would claim that he is scapegoating desire, in an interview with Rebecca Adams he says, I would say that mimetic desire even when bad is intrinsically good, in the sense that far from being merely imitative in the small sense, its the opening out of oneself.(Violence Renounced, p.282) The paradox of mimetic desire is that it can only achieve the being or the reality it seeks by imitating Jesus, the one whose love is self empting in his imitation of the Father. As Girard says, There is no acquisitive desire in him. As a consequence, any will that is really turned toward Jesus will not meet with the slightest of obstacles. His yoke is easy and his burden light. With him we run no risk of getting caught up in the evil opposition between doubles. (Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, p.430)

In the teaching of the Irish Benedictine, John Main, what Girard describes as the opening out of oneself that is implicit in all desire, it is possible to achieve through a practice of meditation. As he describes it, The beauty of the Christian vision of life is its vision of unity. It sees that all mankind has been unified in the One who is in union with the Father. All matter, all creation, too is drawn into the cosmic movement towards unity that will be the realization of Divine harmony. The central task of our lifeis to come into union, into communion. Putting this from the point of view where most of us start, it means going beyond all dualism, all dividedness within ourselves and beyond the alienation separating us from others. (Word Into Silence p.vii)

He introduces his way of mediation saying, It is our conviction that the central message of the New Testament is that there is really only one prayer and that this prayer is the prayer of Christ. It is a prayer that continues in our hearts day and night. I can describe it only as the stream of love that flows constantly between Jesus and his Father. This stream of love is the Holy Spirit. We are summoned to see with the eyes of Christ and to love with the heart of Christ, and to respond to this summons we must pass beyond egoism. In practical terms this means learning to be so still and silent that we cease thinking about ourselves. When we are at prayer we must become like the eye that can see but that cannot see itself. The way we set out on this pilgrimage of other-centeredness is to recite a short phrase, a word that is commonly called today a mantra. The mantra is simply a means of turning our attention beyond ourselves a way of unhooking us from our own thoughts and concerns. The general rule is that we must first learn to say it for the entire period of our meditation each morning and each evening and then allow it to do its work of calming over a period of years. (Moment of Christ, pp. x-xi)

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