On Lust
Ashtฤvakra Gฤซtฤ 3.4-3.6
"After hearing oneself to be Pure Consciousness and surpassingly beautiful, how can one yet be deeply attached to sensual objects and thus become impure?
It is strange that one abiding in the supreme non-duality and intent on liberation should yet be subject to lust and weakened by the practice of amorous pastimes!"
These words pierce strongly the earnest seeker who still battles and struggles with biological urges.
However hidden within is also a solution , the deeper understanding of lust itself and not running away from it ---
1) Recognizing that engaging in biological and psychological pleasures ultimately only weakens the body-mind, is itself a good start
2) recognizing that the Original Sin -- not sex or lust, but duality which took our "selves" away from "God", is the impurity. Hence, when one engages in those pastimes which reinforce duality (" the feeling of separation between myself and the other, the subject and the object") they become impure, not as a judgement of morality or socio-religious sanctioning but merely a compassionate admission of the fact of the matter.
3) the psycho-biological urge is but a pulse of the soul, of creation, to reunite, to integrate, to include and diffuse away into the void. This expresses as fundamental Beauty. This is Satyam Shivam Sundaram. When we recollect this, that indeed the urge is merely a signal to experience Beatitude, we get re- focused on our goal. And to engage more in conscious processes where we get to experience such Beatitude -- the dissolving of the little self, through flow-work, through love, through inquiry, through meditation, the urges may perhaps gradually fade away because the body impulse has been fulfilled.
Let us honor our bodily impulse and try to redirect repeatedly, no matter how many times we fail. ๐ฅ
Image credits :- ChatGPT
