How to Overcome Lust?

Lust is like a hydra-headed monster, with its several heads spraying poisonous venom on the prey, to kill it. Lust, with its several heads, devours everything. In the past, it has devoured many kingdoms. Lust results in death, the death of the higher being in man, being entangled in lower animalistic pleasures. Lust bring us to the level of the animals, and people often commit gruesome crimes when they are taken over by lust.

Hydra headed Lust. 

'Atman' is the real nature of our being. All struggle against nature is to attain this state. In fact, man cannot remain entangled in lust forever, as lust is the material condition of life; whereas, man is the pure infinite being. Therefore, the struggle is the natural course of action to overcome lust. All beings struggle to overcome it.

To overcome lust one has to know its origins. Fighting lust, without knowing its origins, is like fighting an invisible enemy. So one has to know clearly of what lust is, and where its origins are.

The general perception of lust is that it originates from the picturization of the opposite gender in an obscene manner. But this is only a tip of the iceberg. But lust originates even from a very simple and trivial things as well, which we generally ignore. Slowly the trivial thing snowballs into an avalanche and appears in the form of lust. There are hundreds and thousands of such trivial things around us which trigger lust.

For example, excessive sleep can trigger lust, excessive food can trigger lust, spicy food can trigger lust, an impure food can trigger lust, excessive talk can trigger lust, excessive surfing in the net can trigger lust, not taking bath can trigger lust, restlessness of the mind can trigger lust, too much of external engagement can trigger lust, a climate change can trigger lust, travel can trigger lust, roaming can trigger lust, uncleanliness can trigger lust, a trivial sense pleasure can trigger lust. Likewise, there are hundreds of factors around us that triggers lust.

So how does it work?

For example, an excessive sleep can generate a kind of residual heat in the body and this heat alters the heat and cold patterns prevailing in the body. This alteration of the heat and cold patterns in the body has a direct relation in maintaining the life fluid in the body.

When the residual heat acts upon the life fluid, it triggers a kind of picturization of the opposite gender. And here the gender part comes into play. The mind is made to take up forcibly certain picturization to alter the status quo of the life fluid. If the thing doesn't happen in the waking state, then the mind takes up the picturization in the dream state. If it doesn't happen in the dream state, it wears down in a natural way.

So the habits in us can trigger lust and not the gender in reality. Though the gender has a direct role, all other factors too count in an equal measure. People who are prone to lust don't have clean habits in general.

The first major thing to overcome lust is to overhaul our habits completely. The first thing would be cutting down our sense pleasures which has a direct relation to the lust. Cutting down all sensory enjoyments and desires had to be done based on the individual impressions.

One has to take care of the food, sleep, and recreation and orient them properly in a measured way to conquer lust. It's just like a bowler finding a right line and length to take the wicket. The best way to overcome lust is to progress towards higher spiritual goals. Meditation and chanting the name of the Lord directly takes away one from the plane of lust.

These are the three simple tips for overcoming lust.

1.  Do not look upon a gender, and if you happen to look  at them look them in the attitude of brother, sister,  and so on.

2. Overhaul your habits completely. Find out the source  of triggers and get rid of them.

3. Know that you are the atman and meditate upon it.  Avoid all sense impressions and sense enjoyments.

Thank You.

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