The Laws Governing Our Wishes

The Fifth Law of Wishes: Previous Experience of a Desire

Previous experience is a perquisite for wishing for something. As we explained in the article, “The Wish that We Know,” we want and wish for something that we are familiar with. Now we are going to prove that our desire depends on the previous experience of a phenomenon. But what exactly does this mean?

Our mind uses various ways to know phenomena, one of which is classification. Classification helps us to find common characteristics among different phenomena and to acquire a general knowledge of them. Have you ever heard a name so strange and unfamiliar that you could not even place it into any of your familiar mental categories? In this case, you will not gain any knowledge about it until you find the right category. But as soon as a brief explanation is added to that name, your mind starts categorizing it and figures out how to deal with this new phenomenon.

For example, how do you react when you hear words like mangosteen,[1] hala,[2] and tamarillo?[3] If you have not heard these names before, your mind is confused among the broad categories of plants, animals, and places. But as soon as the word “fruit” is used alongside these names, the initial categorization takes place. This initial classification gives us some partial knowledge which is consistent with our understanding of fruits as a whole. This general knowledge sparks our wishes and desires. We know fruits and have already used them; as a result, now we have a desire to try tergil, hala, and tamarillo. If we had no previous experience of eating fruits, hearing these names could not produce any desires in us. In other words,

• It is impossible to want or desire something that we have not experienced before.

Therefore, an object of desire is always known to us, so there must be a certain level of knowledge or experience to desire something. Our wishes and desires dictate how we should live our lives, how much we strive in life, what we think about, or even what makes us happy or sad. But the main question is: What is the root and source of human desires and wishes?

So far, we have explained four out of the five principles of desires, and in this article, we are going to discuss the last law of the universal laws of wishes. The fifth law of wishes states that

• “Desiring something is secondary to having a previous experience of it.”

Desiring, a Product of Previous Experience

In the first four principles of desires, we realized that if we want something, it certainly exists. We also learned that there must be compatibility between us and the thing we desire, and that if we do not have the capacity to receive the desired thing, there will not be any desire in us. Finally, we knew that desiring something requires at least a little bit of knowledge about it. Now, let us explore the fifth law of wishes: Desiring something depends on previously using it.

That is, if we hear the words “chocolate cosmos,”[4] “durian candy,”[5] and “lake of mummies,”[6] and we feel a desire for and an inclination to them, it is because we are familiar with flowers, candies, and lakes. We had the experience of using them before. We have already smelled a flower and enjoyed its beauty, tasted candies, and experienced being on the shores of a lake. Just like a child who has already tasted chocolate, and when we offer him chocolate, he remembers its taste and comes towards us. So the fifth law of wishes says:

• If we wish to have something, we must have experienced using it before.

We desire something that we already know and are familiar with. We not only know it, but we have somehow used or enjoyed it. Only then we feel the desire to re-experience that pleasant feeling and strive to repeat that experience. For example, if we have already experienced enjoying knowledge, power, beauty, wealth, etc., we will wish to experience that joy again.

Why Universal Laws of Wishes?

While going through this series of articles, you may wonder why we have emphasized the phrase “universal laws of wishes” and chosen it to refer to the principles of desires?

In fact, the answer lies in the question: These laws are universal, and all wishes, whether big or small, in the whole world follow these laws. All these five laws are found in the wishes of all people worldwide. A correct understanding of these universal principles can definitely influence our self-understanding. In the next article, we will deal with this topic and extract some principles from these universal laws. These principles are related to our desire for infinity and its origin.

In this article, we discussed the fifth law of wishes and learned that it is impossible to desire something without previously using it. In other words, desiring something is secondary to previously experiencing it. So if want and desire something, it means that we have definitely experienced or used it before wishing for it.

Now let us review the five universal laws of wishes together:

• If we wish for something, then it definitely exists.
• If we wish for something, then there must be some compatibility between us and our wish.
• If we wish for something, then we must have the capacity to receive it.
• If we wish for something, then we definitely know it.
• If we wish for something, then we must have the experience of using it before.

Now, if you would like to know how these laws help us to know our true beloved, we suggest you read the article “Does the Infinite Being Exist?”

[1] . a tropical evergreen tree with edible fruit native to tropical lands surrounding the Indian Ocean

[2] . This fruit is native to tropical and subtropical regions of Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Eastern Australia and has been growing wild since ancient times

[3] . a small tree or shrub in the flowering plant family Solanaceae (the nightshade family)

[4] .a rare plant, native to Mexico

[5]. a popular candy in Southeast Asia

[6]. Lake Natron in Tanzania