Human beings, following the nature of the flesh, possess emotions. According to their mood, when things turn out the way they desire, they momentarily feel satisfaction in joy, love, and happiness. But conversely, when things do not turn out according to their will, they become irritated, angry, discouraged, despairing, and sorrowful. In this way, human emotions constantly change according to fleshly desires and moods. The principles of when things go as one wishes and when they do not are always tangled together like a skein of thread, and within emotions, joy, sorrow, anger, and wrath are repeated. From a very early age, human beings have been accustomed in the habits created by their desire to do as they wish. Thus, whenever things do not go according to their will or preference, all people repeat seven emotions: envy, jealousy, strife, lust, falsehood, hatred, and pride. In other words, the essential emotions of the flesh arise from the desire to do according to one’s own will, and from this desire comes greed, and from greed comes sin. Yet no human being can escape desire and greed; rather than pursuing the value of conscience, they follow the emotions and decisions born of desires that bring them personal benefit and pleasure. This is the fundamental life of all mankind.
Even if an action somewhat burdens the conscience, if it brings benefit or joy to oneself, one will habitually pursue that joy without realizing it. In this way, all people have been accustomed to evil habits born of desire since childhood. In early years, one may have a strong sense of guilt and fear about sin, regarding it as important, guarding against it, reflecting, regretting, and resolving to change. But as the years of repeating sin accumulate, the habit of treating sin lightly grows stronger. This habit gradually develops into excuses and tricks that rationalize one’s own sin, until finally one lives without even feeling guilt or pangs of conscience, in shameless stubbornness and hardness of heart. Thus, as people grow older, their conscience increasingly becomes desolate and dies. Those who, for their own benefit, do not hesitate to harm others all alike raise flimsy excuses, holding up their happiness and family as justification—but family, happiness, and peace can never be a true reason to rationalize one’s sin. Such peace, happiness, and love in the home are nothing more than illusions and fantasies produced by the endless desires of man.
In other words, human dreams, hopes, and ideals are nothing but unrealizable fantasies from storybooks—insatiable greed, momentary joys, and fleeting pleasures like a mirage. According to the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the five senses of the flesh, human emotions are tossed about moment by moment. If desires are met, they quickly feel delight, ecstasy, and joy; but if desires are not satisfied, they quickly fall into sorrow and live in habits of envy, jealousy, hatred, pride, anger, and falsehood. All human life is thus lived in such cycles. Because no human can escape the fleshly nature that only pursues illusions born of desire, they cannot possess a truly good conscience; rather, it only leads to devouring the conscience.
Human emotion is the impression that arises from greed produced by desires born of fleshly senses. It is the impression felt when one’s ideals, wishes, plans, and demands for enjoyment—seeing, hearing, eating, drinking, touching, and feeling convenience—are satisfied, or conversely, the sorrow, pain, grief, suffering, and difficulty felt when those desires are not met. In other words, human emotion is the feeling created by greed depending on whether the desires and senses have been fulfilled or not. The reason why the emotions of most people fluctuate wildly and change countless times in a single day is simply that they have many desires, and that the greed born of fleshly desire is great. The life of the flesh is nothing more than a selfish emotional life, pursuing only the joy and pleasure of fleshly desires—chasing dreams, hopes, ideals, plans, and wishes born of them. It is a beastlike life that calculates only one’s own interest and benefit within relationships. It is not a right life of the value of conscience, but an emotional life that pursues only selfish interests within the value of emotion.
Thus, those who follow fleshly desires can only live an emotional life where envy, jealousy, hatred, pride, lust, anger, wrath, and falsehood are repeated. Their emotions rise and fall at every moment according to mood, they are stingy according to their interests, they advance stubborn arguments based on their own standards and center, and they live with calculating thoughts—lenient with themselves while being meticulous in fault-finding and demanding accountability from others. All human beings, following the desires of the flesh, abandon the pangs of conscience in order to excuse and rationalize their own greed and sin, living only by their momentary emotions. Thus, they justify and excuse their sins by putting forward moral and ethical values rooted merely in emotion.