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What is Lust ?
From Spiritual Warrior II
Transforming Lust into Love by HH Bhakti Tirtha Swami Krishnapada
(Part 1 of 4) Submitted by Manoj
The ancient Bhagavad-gita takes the form of a long conversation between the Lord and the warrior Arjuna. As Arjuna inquires about the spiritual truths of existence, the Lord offers important insights into the nature of lust. Arjuna, a great disciple of the Lord, is rebelling against his responsibility to fight a major battle because many of the enemy are his family members, mentors and friends. At the last minute, poised for battle, Arjuna refuses to fight. Paralyzed by grief and anguish, he asks the Lord, who is playing the role of his charioteer, to explain what he should do. In one particular verse (Bg. 3.36), Arjuna inquires: "By what is one impelled to sinful acts, even unwillingly, as if engaged by force?" Arjuna wants to know what causes human beings to act in harmful ways despite their good intentions.
Indeed, do we not all wonder at times what causes us to act against our better judgment? Have we not all said to ourselves, "Why did I do that? Why did I hurt that person? Why did I fly off the handle?" We want to be ethical and moral, and we want to live an exemplary life, no longer taking drugs, drinking, insulting our spouse, being a chauvinist or abusing others. But despite the fact that we promise ourselves never to engage in such behavior again, we still persist in the same undesirable patterns. Arjuna wants to know what provokes such contrariness.
In the next verse of the Bhagavad-gita, the Lord gives the answer, explaining to Arjuna that "lust only" is the cause of our sinful behavior. Originally, we come into contact with lust just by being born into this world, a place where our eternal love of God turns into lust simply by its encounter with material energy. That is to say, our inherent, natural love for God becomes lust just as milk turns into curd when it comes in contact with lemon juice. Lust is actually an egocentric misdirection of the love that is our birthright-a love inherent in all creation. Because we are part and parcel of a loving God, in our natural state we share in that love. Here in the material world, though, we are not in our natural state, and the self centered energy of lust has caused us to forget our birthright.
Suffering in the Material World
Suffering is an inherent aspect of being born into the material world. In the kingdom of God, the problems of old age, disease and death do not exist. How can there be imbalance or disorder in the kingdom of God? Our miseries are consequences of our physical embodiment, not of our spiritual nature.
Imagine that someone said to you, "I want to send you to an interesting place. It's one where people constantly kill each other, races fight one another, tribes struggle against each other and men and women compete against one another. It's a place that becomes so hot you can have a sunstroke and die, or so cold you can freeze to death. You can be harassed by insects, rats, snakes and spiders. One species is constantly devouring another just to eat." This is the nature of our present environment; it is very hellish. An intelligent person who has a choice would not want to come to such a terrible place.
Sometimes we can see a bird in our own back yard swoop down and grab an insect for dinner. Just imagine how it would I to be that insect. One afternoon in Lagos, Nigeria, I was sitting quietly on a porch, when my eyes fell upon some ants and a beetle. As I watched, the beetle quickly ate the ants, and immediately a grasshopper appeared and ate the beetle. Then
all of a sudden a bird flew down and ate the grasshopper. This little drama occurred in a matter of minutes, and it gave me an even greater realization of how constantly one species abuses another in a universal struggle for survival.
The Material Universe Is Not Our Home
This earthly realm, so filled with suffering, cannot bring us happiness. That is why the Bible tells us not to love this world or the things of this world. All bona fide prophets, including Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha and many other great teachers, deliver the same threefold message. Using different terminologies, they teach us to love God with all our hearts, to love our neighbors as ourselves and to seek the kingdom of God, which is our true home.
Jesus said, "Our Father, who art in heaven." By saying, "Our Father," Jesus has made it clear that each of us has connections in the spiritual world just as he does. We all have a common origin and home. But as long as we are covered by lust, we forget this truth and live like criminals sentenced to a long prison term, reincarnating over and over again as we search for peace and happiness in all the wrong places.
Since in our original state we are all pure servants of God, whatever else we have become is temporary, part of the contamination that we have imposed upon ourselves lifetime after lifetime. Once we identify with the material world, we are subject to its problems and errors. If we become too attached to the things of this world, we cannot have sufficient love for God, because we cannot serve God and mammon simultaneously. If our minds are filled with lustful thoughts of material pleasure, there is little room for spirituality to enter our consciousness. That is why the saints have told us throughout millennia to simplify our lives with simple living and high thinking. We should always engage in purifying our consciousness. If we do not, we will not have room for higher realizations.
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