Spiritual point of view of "Lust"

Lust is the result of unnecessary over-contemplation over a particular sensual experience. Whether you need to be lusty or not is your call and accordingly cause and effect cycle will continue for you. If you want to get over it: first leave all your digital gadgets for a few days (use only when needed but not for entertainment) try to sit for 30–40 mins minimum silently and then either just be aware of your thoughts as you are watching any movie or focus on your natural breath. If possible, sit with nature (greenery) around you or under the sky. keep your room clean because our mind feels cluttered when we see clutter around us. Believe me, self-talk helps most.

And always remember, thoughts are like waves in the ocean of your consciousness. As wave arises and then dissolves again, similarly, thoughts arise and then dissolve again automatically provided you do not pay your attention towards that because your attention acts as the thread that holds a particular thought. And when you give attention to the thought, your mind gets deluded that it is the current reality and accordingly emotions and chemicals get released in the body. And why thought arises?

Because subconsciously you do not know what to do or what not to do or do you even need to do anything or not etc so, it is you who out of ignorance keep searching for something to do because you do not know. And in that search, when you get bored, you try to remember the best memory that you have (that might be porn or wrong understanding etc) and then you contemplate upon that. If you can experience this not as a story but as a reality, you are free because if you can see anything, you cannot be that, eg: if you can see a phone, you cannot be a phone because you existed when the phone was not there, you exist when it is there and you will exist when it won’t be there in future.

Sitting silently, witnessing your thoughts as you are watching a movie, no judgment while watching your thought, acknowledge that such and such bad thought arose but that is not your reality but it arose because of the memory and limited understanding about something and it is not your fault, being aware of the whole game including the breath, presence of thought, absence of thought, wandering of mind, what you keep speaking all day, and the silence. Practise all the points mentioned above and you are completely free.

Lust: a very strong sexual desire. Lust is synonymous with The Life Force Of Earth. Without lust, you wouldn’t be here. It’s perfectly healthy, enjoyable, and necessary under certain pretenses. Whenever we wonder how to “deal with” things, there is an implication that the ‘thing’ in question is deemed problematic by us. To “deal with” can mean one of two things: Getting rid of completely; or finding a way to tolerate/make peace with. To get rid of lust completely, we’ll have to find a neurosurgeon that is willing to slice that part of our brain off, or overdose us on some drug that renders it inactive.

To find a way to tolerate/make peace with lust (or anything else for that matter), we first need to check whether it is actually an issue or not. An uninformed, innocent, recently pubescent, catholic-raised teen might falsely attribute the natural rising of his wee wee to demon possession. But an informed teen who’s had quality sexual education would not panic at all. Always check for overreaction first, it’s a common tendency of the human brain Some pointers for when lust is an issue: It is leading us inside other people’s orifices, without their consent. It is leading us to choose watching stimulating content over doing work. It is flooding our daydreams in a way we do not appreciate. It is leading us to compulsively objectify friends and strangers, and on the extreme end - family and animals.

It is guiding our behavior to serve itself more than our personal goals. Acquaintances are able to detect our struggle with lust even before we tell them. We reach out on Quora for help. Spiritually speaking, lust, or any other mental activity, is seen as just that - mental activity. And so the only advice is to meditate upon the problem until you realize its illusory nature. In doing so, you drain it of its power to convince you it is real, thus changing your mental state for the better.

But spirituality can’t fix broken legs. Spirituality has always been about seeing through the illusion of the self and about being open to the state of the Universe as it is. Its focus has never been on issues like lust/greed/jealousy et cetera. So personally, I would recommend going to a specialized professional for help instead of looking to spirituality for answers. Theoretically, yes; spirituality can solve literally any non-physical psychological problem. But for problems other than a painful ego, looking to spirituality is the equivalent of choosing a butter knife for surgery over a fully functioning scalpel. It’s just unnecessary.

Lust is one of the six passions of the mind, the others being - anger, attachment, pride, greed and envy. These are inherited over time, over several births. And as per Ramana Maharishi, lust is one of the most basic vasanas and perhaps the last to vanish in our quest for self realization. Since the inherent nature of a living being is to reproduce or multiply, it is automatically connected to lust. After several births, when one attains a human birth, it manifests in a much stronger way in the form of a pleasure seeking animal. When this desire is not met, anger manifests and many a times results in violence as well. We can see that in several cases in the current environment.

While the other passions can be controlled by continuous practice of yoga (not just Hatha yoga, I mean Yoga in its entirety), the lust factor is a longer and tough struggle. We can see this in several examples of so called sanyasis or holy men (of all faiths and religions), who after seemingly giving up all materialistic pleasures or desires, fall for this one strong latent desire. Vishwamitra is an example from the old era, and I am sure you know examples from the current era.

Even in a strong willed person, lust lurks like a snake and he/she doesn't know when it will strike. Even while practicing celibacy, it can be observed and several people will confirm that physical celibacy is much easier than mental celibacy. Desire manifests in our thoughts, dreams and when unfulfilled, results in behavior and action to fulfill the desire. Some may suggest that lust should be overcome by indulging or by saturation. Alas, there is no saturation point for desires. Ramana Maharishi says "controlling lust by indulging further is akin to pouring fuel over fire". It will add to the flame. A real Guru or a truly realized Master alone can guide one in this path. That is why the path to self realization has been termed as walking on a razor blade. Cheers!