Lust - The Desire Hypnosis

“10 Mistakes” is a series I’m sharing with you. Read this with an intent to self-realise. Read each word well. As you do so, your mind may try to distract you or reject what you read. It might even trigger your critical thinking and make you sceptical. On the other hand, it might make you believe in everything you read and make you a follower. Be aware of the games your mind will play! 

While I have tried to write in a simple manner, different people with varying intellects will find the writing simple or complex. Please do not let your mind wander. The idea behind the series is to help you introspect and self-realise. 

While the backdrop and context considered during this entire series is your work, organisation or enterprise, the realisations will always be for you as a person. Once realised, your life will improve in its entirety.

What are Mistakes?

Examine these two situations:

1. We are all born under different circumstances. As we grow, we receive various messages that condition us into who we are. Such that, in our current state of life, we consider our personality as the unshakeable truth. Our mind creates this belief for us. Our perception is hence limited by our mind. This is the beginning of the mistake.
2. We all know we have more potential than we are currently employing. We know that we can be more - happy, peaceful, knowledgeable, wise, wealthy, lovable, content, healthy, famous, attractive, passionate than we currently are. We know this within us. Our life's entire journey is about harnessing this potential.

These two situations are quite in conflict with each other. First one is limiting by nature, while the second one is explorative.

The mistakes we make are rooted in attempting exploration while remaining entangled in the web of our own compulsive personalities.

You CANNOT experience your full potential with your arms and legs tied behind your back, and your mouth gagged with pre-programmed words and a mind that is full of its own convictions.

This entire series outlines the 10 common forms that this fundamental mistake takes in our daily life. It is aimed at helping you identify your inner limitations so you may liberate yourself. I’ll, of course, be happy to respond to any queries or clarifications you may seek. 

This work talks about the first common mistake that we commit while attempting to scale our lives and businesses. This mistake is all about us becoming obsessed with our desires and goals due to our Lust as its underlying reason.

What is Lust?

Lust is often confused with Desires. We always live with desires. Lust is primarily our obsession connected with a desire. It usually has its origins in our sense of inadequacy or incompleteness. Due to such feelings, we become convinced that if we do not have or achieve something, we would simply cease to exist! 

It is a game of proving our worth not just to others but even to ourselves. Think about this carefully. This is a grave mistake we make with our lives. This one is tough to realise because its hypnotic nature consumes us.

 Let’s take some simple steps to get out of this hypnotic trance.

Identify Lust from Desire

Desire is - “I want to own a house”. But when the inner message sounds like, “I must own a certain kind of house, at a certain address, else I won’t get the right status for myself”, you are now experiencing Lust.

Desire can be to own a car because you need it, but it becomes Lust when your inner messages sound like, “Unless I don’t drive a luxury/ sports car, I haven’t arrived in life!”

Desire can be to build a large enterprise, but it becomes Lust when your inner message is, “Unless I don’t have the best and the largest enterprise, I haven’t really proved anything!”

Desire is to help as many people and be liked by many, but it becomes Lust when the inner message sounds like, “I must be recognised as an important person and be offered a special place in the circles that know me, otherwise all my achievements are worthless.”

Listening to the inner messages for the why of your desires helps us identify our lust. These inner messages are purely yours to listen to, and no one else can help you tune into these. The more present you are to yourself, the louder these inner messages become. 

Start by posing some simple questions to yourself. Why should I top my class? Why should my company be #1? Why should my business have the best products? Why should I have safety nets? Why should my company have a certain culture? Why should people recognise me? 

No…. I’m not asking you to resist such desires. That’s not my purpose. My aim is to help you realise your potential. This means you shall fulfil more of your desires and not any less. So… let’s carry on. 

If desire isn’t bad, then why is lusting for a desire bad? Doesn't Lust sound like Passion? 

Lusting for something has multiple implications. Let’s become aware of these first.

Side effects of pursuing Lust

1. Our lust makes us compulsive to such an extent that we need to fulfil our desires at any cost.
2. In order to do that, we manipulate people and situations around us to our advantage. 
3. While we do try and collaborate with those who can help us get there, they soon recognise our lust towards those goals. This makes us vulnerable. However hard we may try and hide our lust; it leaks out of our well-kept facades of pretences. Even if one is able to manage the external appearances for a longer time, the masks eventually come off, and people closest to us abandon us.
4. It obliterates our wholesome and holistic view of ourselves and erodes our self-worth to a point where the foreboding fear of the possible lack of success becomes a living nightmare.
5. Even after achieving the desired result, we remain lonely and incomplete. 
6. People are sceptical about our intentions, they either fear us, despise us, or in turn use us to fulfil their own lusts.
7. We end up paying steep costs in our life’s journey to fulfil our lust with a singular outcome - misery, unhappiness, and broken relationships.

The truth is, we all need to head back to a place we can call home. And one who commits the mistake of driving their life through Lust, ends up with many houses but no homes.

How to avoid this mistake?

Scaling up your business is not a race. Those who get drawn by advertisements of “growing X times in 3 years” are like hapless moths getting lured into a naked flame. Scaling up requires secure and adequate people who are not afraid of sharing. Instead, are happy giving to others. If you truly want to be an entrepreneur, start with the inclusiveness of others’ desires with your own.

Do not make the most common mistake of driving your scaling up endeavour to fulfil your personal Lust for Money, Power, or Fame. You’ll soon be surrounded by people like that. Even before you realise, your life becomes a struggle while you are actually seeking pleasure.

If you want to beat the bell curve, you must scale up over a sustained period of time. Scaling up is a matter of leading people beyond their inadequacies. Each person has strengths and weaknesses. We all make mistakes. We all have the ability to move forward despite our shortcomings. Scale is achieved by those who can enable and inspire people to keep improving and evolving. This requires an ability to accept all things and people, even if they are not perfect. You must embrace them with a mind that has hope.

Remember, when driven by lust, there is only Obsession. True scaling up requires Compassion, Gratitude, and Inclusiveness.

Sameer Kamboj

www.sameerkamboj.com