Chapter 3: What Is Lust?

 

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 feel 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.

We Are Accountable

The choice of God or mammon is always up to us. Although we may blame external forces for our addictive, manipulative or selfish activities, we cannot escape our own ultimate responsibility. Even in extreme cases where people actually become possessed, hear voices or fall into a trance as the body moves uncontrollably, these apparent victims of demonic energies are accountable for their situation. Although they may explain, truthfully, that their behavior was beyond their control, they forget that they did make prior choices that led to this condition in the first place. Negative forces are attracted wherever there is a receptive lower consciousness.

Even in less dramatic situations we make excuses, saying that “something came over” us, that we were subjected to demonic influences, or that we fell under the spell of maya—another name for illusion. But despite appearances, we are always responsible for our actions. Would we try to rationalize our behavior in a court of law by explaining, “Judge, it wasn’t my fault. The devil made me do it”? Of course not. The judge never says, “Well, that’s all right. I’ll just put the devil in jail instead of you.”

What causes one person to act immorally while another does not? Both individuals may face the same temptations, yet one succumbs while the other resists, or one gives in occasionally while the other yields on a regular basis. The difference can be found in each person’s level of commitment to spiritual life, which increases the level of resistance to the negative influences.

If we open ourselves to the Lord, we are acting spiritually. When we elevate our consciousness, our love and spirituality act as a block to keep negativity away. But if we open the door to sin, then we become possessed by a sinful consciousness. Sin can never be considered greater that righteousness. If we say that the “devil” made us behave badly, we are implying that the devil is more powerful than God. This is never true, and only seems to be so at times because of the impure state of our consciousness.

The Gradual Path of Degradation

How did we become so impure? As the Lord explains in the Bhagavad-gita (Bg. 3.37): “It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material modes of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring sinful enemy of the world.” Because lust causes us to lose our sanity, we often behave in ways beneath our original nature, and then our lust becomes compounded with anger. Let us see how this works.

If we do not give and receive love in a natural way that is in alignment with our spiritual birthright, our love turns into lust, which forces us to act in ways that we would not normally accept. Because we feel forced, we become depressed, demoralized and unfulfilled and, consequently, we become angry. Deep down, we know that lust can never fulfill us, but we become addicted. It is a vicious cycle: the more we give in to lust, the more we grow accustomed to it and the greater become its demands.

It is similar to taking a drug. At first we may yield to temptation just to see what will happen. We may even have to force ourselves to tolerate such a damaging substance, but after we become habituated we begin to enjoy it. Eventually, we find that we need more of the drug to get the same level of stimulation as before. Lust is like that. The more we succumb to it, the more it takes control, until finally we no longer engage in sinful actions for the pleasure, but just to avoid the pain.

For example, someone who smokes a cigarette for the first time may feel sick, and a person taking a first drink often does not like the taste. Do you remember trying these substances? When you took your first cigarette, you probably huffed, puffed, coughed, choked or lost your breath. Most likely your first drink tasted terrible or made you feel nauseated. However, if you kept smoking or drinking, you may have started liking the taste and enjoying the side effects. We become quickly conditioned to these habits because they are socially acceptable, even “cool,” and because we experience a state of altered consciousness that makes us feel more relaxed than usual. Eventually our lust takes control of us to the point that we become addicted to the experience and cannot easily give these substances up.

We do not realize that lust has seduced us into a dependency that will ultimately destroy our health and well-being. In the beginning, we may simply be struggling to cope with life or to create a sense of belonging, taking a drink or ingesting a drug in order to numb ourselves, to feel better or to gain acceptance in a group. But the power of lust is so great that eventually we lose control and our addiction takes over. Indeed, lust has destroyed many people who thought they “had it together,” causing them to lose their businesses, their political positions, their families, their sanity and even their lives.

People naturally want access to higher levels of consciousness and intense experiences beyond the normal or the mundane. In contemporary society, where genuine love is a rarity, is it any wonder that so many of us seek artificial stimulation to fill the void? Genuine love can be intoxicating. A person in love is single-minded, determined and sometimes a bit giddy. For example, immediately after talking to our beloved on the phone, we may find ourselves skipping and dancing, and if someone we care about does us a favor or pays us a compliment, our spirits are high. But when love is absent, we may seek intoxication by other means, such as alcohol, drugs or sex.

Other Ways Lust Tricks Us

It is easy to become addicted to substances, such as cigarettes or alcohol, even if they are initially unpleasant. In other circumstances, sinful activity may appear extremely attractive right from the outset, and we may succumb without thinking of the consequences. For example, if we see a beautiful diamond ring that we want to own but cannot afford, our desire may become so strong that we forget about anything else. We think only, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have that ring? How wonderful it will look on my finger! How envious people will be!”

The mind has convinced us that owning the ring will bring great pleasure, and so we steal it without thinking of the consequences. However, circumstances change quickly. Once we have left the store with the ring, feeling entranced by our new possession, a police car suddenly pulls up beside us on the street. The jeweler has sounded the alarm, and we are unceremoniously arrested and thrown in jail. As we sit in our cell, we have plenty of time to wonder, “Mind, how did you get me into this mess?” We are left in an even more painful situation than when we started.

Although we may have been unhappy without the ring, we are far more miserable for having stolen it and suffered the consequences. The end result is similar to the one encountered by alcoholics. A person who becomes accustomed to the taste of alcohol may drink to enjoy an altered state of consciousness and forget life’s troubles. Although the experience is initially pleasurable, eventually it becomes a painful addiction. Then the alcoholic drinks to maintain a precarious sense of balance, to keep from feeling sick, to numb the pain or to stop the shaking. Whether we steal, drink or indulge in other forms of sense gratification, the ultimate outcome is often far worse than the original condition we were trying to escape.

This is how lust keeps us trapped. Once we give in, the mind tricks us again and again. It knows our weaknesses and whispers to us seductively, “Here is your chance.... You know you want to.... Go for it!” If our mind does not have access to our intelligence—the faculty of discernment—we will repeatedly fall prey to these temptations. Some people have been trying to stop drinking for years, resolving every morning not to take another drink. Yet before the day is over, they have reverted to their old habits. Others have spent most of their lives in jail, because every time they are released, their passion and lust cause them to commit crimes again despite all resolutions to the contrary.

Triumphing over Lust

We must watch ourselves carefully if we are to escape the clutches of lust. To halt the downward progression of our consciousness, we must not allow our lust to degrade into anger and self-perpetuating illusion, from which it is extremely difficult to escape. People who have conquered lust can accomplish amazing feats, because their self-control connects them with the energy of love. They become empowered spiritual warriors who are extremely difficult to defeat. On the other hand, those under the influence of lust are easily manipulated. For example, a boxer may deliberately try to make his opponent angry in order to cause him to lose control and lunge, with no thought for the consequences. This is just what the fighter wants: to have his opponent open and undefended, ready for defeat.

Material energy, in the guise of the devil or maya, likes to make people lose control so that they become easy prey. Consequently, we must monitor ourselves, being careful not to allow lust to make us lose mastery over any situation. Like the boxer just mentioned, a warrior who loses control becomes a casualty. A soldier who gets angry on the battlefield may suddenly leap out of his foxhole and run toward the enemy, shouting, “I’m going to kill everybody!” Of course, it is he who will soon be dead.

To avoid falling into these traps, and to live fully as human beings, we must learn to control our lust by regulating the senses. Lust hides out in the senses, looking for a chance to take advantage of us. It can cause us to lose every ounce of equilibrium and stability we have and can drive us to commit the most heinous actions, even murder or suicide. As we have seen, the more we give in to lust, the more difficult it is the next time to resist, and the more enslaved and conditioned we become—to the point that we may spend the rest of our lives in its clutches.

The senses function in an interesting way. They can be compared to horses pulling a chariot, each one straining in a different direction to make the chariot move. Any one horse pulling too strongly can cause disaster. The senses are so powerful that any unregulated or improperly controlled situation can cause an individual to commit sinful actions.

What holds our senses—the horses—in check? It is the mind, governed by the intelligence when it is in contact with the soul. The intelligence, as just mentioned, is our faculty of discernment. Human beings function according to an ascending hierarchy in the following order: the senses, the mind, the intelligence and finally the soul. Like a skillful enemy, lust hides out in the senses, the mind and the intelligence, waiting for an opportunity to dominate us and cover our awareness of the soul.

The mind serves as an intermediary between the intelligence and the senses, and accepts or rejects stimulation from the environment according to the quality, caliber and strength of our intelligence.

In response to the environment, the senses—the eyes, nose, ears, mouth and genitals—send messages to the mind, demanding that the mind arrange for their gratification. The mind is constantly engaged in accepting one demand and rejecting another—accepting, rejecting, accepting, rejecting. An insufficiently strong mind will give in to the senses repeatedly. However, a strong mind will refuse to become a slave to the senses.

We often have difficulty keeping the mind under control, even when we manage to refrain from speaking inappropriately or to stop ourselves from taking an unwise action. Everything in our lives is based on quality of mind: who we are now, who we were before, who we are going to be and to what degree we are bound or liberated. The mind either interferes with self-realization or serves the soul. It can be our greatest enemy or our greatest friend. Nothing is more devastating than a mind out of control, because the mind knows all of our secrets. An enemy who is this close to us can be very destructive! But a mind under control becomes our greatest friend for the same reason: it knows us intimately. A close friend is a source of great comfort and support. The mind’s choice of direction is up to each of us.

How do we develop a strong mind? We do so by backing up the mind with the intelligence, which acts as the moral factor. The senses may have a particular desire and give the mind orders to arrange to have that desire fulfilled. However, the intelligence warns the mind, “But if you do so, these are the consequences.” When the intelligence is connected with transcendental knowledge, it has sufficient power to harness the wild mind. In such circumstances, the mind will calm down and regulate the senses properly. But if the intelligence is weak, the mind will not listen. Instead, it will fall prey to the dictates of the senses.

When we have gained sufficient mastery of the senses by developing a strong mind and intelligence, we can elevate our consciousness. On the other hand, if we lack mastery, we will find ourselves on a downward slope toward animal—like behavior. Animals are extremely concerned with territorial rights, attacking others to protect their sovereignty. Humans in a low state of consciousness act in the same way. We attain a significant point in our evolution when we can break out of these animalistic shackles. We do so by developing our intelligence and tempering it with humility. Humility is a powerful weapon, because it opens us up to greater love, concern and compassion, so that we naturally become more interested in the welfare of others. Without humility, we fall prey to an inflated idea of our own importance and seek unabashedly to fulfill our egocentric desires.

Regulation of our senses steadies us in such a way that we can deal calmly with any situation without losing our higher consciousness. Each challenge simply becomes an opportunity to use the mastery we have developed. If we have such mastery, God will always give us an opportunity to practice it. If we really want to love God more and more, He will give us many challenges and tests that allow us to grow. If our mastery is weak or if our motivations are mixed, we will not pass these tests and will quickly revert to our bad patterns.

Spiritual Strength Conquers the Senses

Ultimately, then, we control lust by spiritual means. The intelligence, mind and senses must be subject to direction from the soul. As the Bhagavad-gita (Bg. 3.43) explains, “Thus knowing oneself to be transcendental to the material senses, mind and intelligence...one should steady the mind by deliberate spiritual intelligence and thus—by spiritual strength—conquer this insatiable enemy known as lust.”

Our physical bodies are actually prison suits not directly associated with God. In the Bible, the Book of Corinthians says that we have a terrestrial form and a celestial one. While we are in the terrestrial body, we are away from God. The body—with its senses, mind and intelligence—makes relentless demands upon us, and our soul has to deal with this continuous onslaught. That is why the scriptures warn us to master our senses and not to identify with our immediate environment. If we do not control our senses, identifying with our material surroundings instead, we will be pulled in many directions simultaneously and lose our balance. The qualities of simplicity, renunciation and austerity, which are a part of all spiritual systems, can help us detach from such temptations and overcome lust. They allow the soul, rather than our senses, to direct our actions.

The Supersoul in the Heart

Whenever the soul is in charge rather than the senses, it is because we have become receptive to the Lord’s will. Indeed, the Lord never abandons us. An active, loving presence of God listens, watches, observes and guides us from within—if we are willing to listen. In Christianity, this presence is known as the Holy Spirit, and in the Vedic tradition it is called the Supersoul. The Supersoul communicates with the individual soul within each of us whenever we make ourselves available. This is a wonderful state of affairs, because it means that God is close enough to hear us when we are lonely and to appreciate us when no one else seems to care. In fact, the Lord’s presence in the heart is the only real comfort we have. External supports may disappoint us when we need them the most, but God will never fail us—although we may fail God by not taking advantage of His love and protection.

Clinging to our own personal will only causes one problem after another. Ultimately, the way to gain mastery over the senses and begin the transformation of lust into love is to surrender to the Lord, praying, “Thy will be done.” In this way we become receptive to the guidance of the Supersoul. When we practice this prayer of surrender, we become more detached from our own will and more available to God.

How do we attain a state of surrender that seems so remote from our current situation? Several steps are available to us. First of all, we must become more willing to abide by the laws of the spiritual world. We must also associate with spiritual people who can guide us and remind us of our commitments. Finally, we must not allow anything or anyone—including our own mind and intelligence—to impede our progress toward the goal of loving and serving God.

Sometimes, even our closest friends may prove to be obstacles. At other times, the obstacle may take the form of money, and on other occasions our own husband, wife or children may stand in the way. Their resistance may become so intense that every time we engage in spiritual activities, they complain, “Why are you always reading spiritual books? Why do you always meditate? Why do you just want to go and pray or chant whenever we want to do something?”

Such people are really saying, “Why does it have to be God all the time? Why not me?” A husband who wants his wife to devote all her attention to him may try to push God out of the way. A wife may behave in a similar manner. But no one can compete with God, and we are all held responsible for our choices. Our environments have been arranged by the Lord as part of our tests to ascertain our behavior in each situation.

Passing the Lord’s Tests

Do we put God first in all circumstances? The Lord will test us to find out. We should not think that the great spiritual leaders of history were the only ones to be tested! Just as Job, in the Bible, underwent severe trials, we all have challenges that give us the opportunity to demonstrate the level of our commitment to spiritual life. The stories about Job’s many difficulties are not merely about events that happened to somebody else. They are for us to study and ponder in order to be better prepared for our own trials. If we analyze and understand Job’s ordeals, we can learn how to be successful despite our own difficulties. Then when challenges arise, we can smile, realizing, “Here is my chance to get more mercy from the Lord. Here is my chance to prove my dedication and to demonstrate that I’m in the world, but not of it.”

Of course, we can also fail our tests by remaining attached to this world, which means that we are not yet receptive to God’s will. Remember, the Lord tests us to discover whether we are willing to put Him first no matter what. That is why we should remain calm if we have no money, no food, nobody to talk to most of the time, nobody to laugh with or nobody with whom to share our lives. This has all been arranged by the Lord, and there is a reason for the situation we are facing that is higher than we can discern. If there were no greater reason, God would be making a mistake in our circumstances. If we accept that proposition, then we must believe that God acts foolishly and cheats us sometimes. No; it is we who make mistakes, not God.

There is a divine order in the apparent inequality of one person’s great abundance and another’s unending misery. The Lord notices what we do with what He gives us. He also wants to see how we behave if He takes something away. When everything seems to be going well, we should be careful not to fall into the trap of saying selfishly, “All praises to You, Lord! You are so wonderful! Now, bring me more stuff!” If we maintain that attitude, we are apt to curse the Lord, or wonder if there really is a God at all, when He takes everything away.

The Temptation of Jesus

Remember the story in the Bible of Satan’s efforts to tempt Jesus? When Jesus had fasted for many days, preparing to accomplish his greatest works, Satan tried to distract him with ideas of material gain, saying words to this effect: “You’re supposed to be a son of God, and you’re hungry. If God loves you, certainly you can turn these rocks into food.” If Jesus had been a materialist, he might have agreed and used his powers for personal sense gratification. In more recent times, communists also exploited this approach, saying to hungry people, “So, you are spiritual? Then pray to your God for bread.” Then they would provide bread from the market, saying, “Here. Now where is your God? Who is your real well-wisher?”

If we give priority to material life, we can easily become distracted, because temptations will bewilder us over and over again. But Jesus was not upset by his situation in the desert, nor was he disturbed by the devil’s temptations. He did not seek mystic powers, but instead offered himself unconditionally to the Lord without expectation of reward. Consequently he was unmoved by Satan’s admonitions.

Accounts of the temptations of spiritual masters can serve as examples to prepare us for our own trials and to teach us how to remain calm and steady in happiness or distress. When we can remain equipoised in all situations, we no longer need to be tested, and the Lord will place us in more pleasing circumstances. However, if we keep finding ourselves in painful circumstances, suffering from intense loneliness, for example, then we should understand that we have not resolved certain entrenched negative patterns.

Normally, we notice what we lack. We think, “Lord, I’ve been fasting; I’ve been praying; I’ve been crying my eyes out. When are You going to notice me? You can tell that my eyes are red, my voice is choked up and my knees are sore. How long does it take you to give me what I want?” The thought never crosses our minds that the Lord might be giving us what we need, even though it may not be what we desire. Our lack of gratitude only prolongs our suffering. We should try to discover the Lord’s mercy in all our circumstances, however difficult they may be. He is offering us an opportunity to grow.

Different Degrees of Lust

Lust touches every living being in this material world. Indeed, we can categorize various species of life according to the degrees of lust that cover their consciousness. The Bhagavad-gita explains (Bg. 3.38): “As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, or as the embryo is covered by the womb, the living entity is similarly covered by different degrees of this lust.”

A tree or any other plant is compared to an embryo covered by the womb. These particular forms of life experience almost total imprisonment. The second category, animal life, is in a position resembling a mirror covered by dust. Animals have a higher consciousness than plants, so that the lust covering them can be more easily removed, just as it is easier to remove dust from a mirror than to bring a fetus out of the womb.

The last classification refers to human beings. Sometimes a fire generates smoke so thick that we cannot see the flames. But if we fan the fire, the flames becomes stronger and the smoke dissipates. Human beings are not as covered over as plants and animals. If we light a match to set a small fire, a strong wind can spread the flames and burn down a house or even a great forest. Similarly, God-consciousness is capable of developing in human beings to grand proportions from a tiny spark. However, if we do not stimulate that potential by “fanning the flames,” the spark will not develop sufficiently to make a fire.

Continuing with this analogy, we have the choice of raising our level of consciousness by means of spiritual activities, or of allowing our spiritual spark to become extinguished. Sometimes a spark leaps out of the fire and burns itself out on the ground. In the same way, when we move too far away from the source—our natural connection with God—we are heading toward disaster.

Importance of the Human Form

Although all life forms on Earth are affected by different degrees of imprisonment in the material world, the human platform is exceptional, and human beings have an important role to play. The Bible corroborates this, saying that humans have dominion over other living beings on this Earth. The word “dominion” here does not imply a right to exploit or abuse, but it does indicate that the human condition has special meaning.

What is so unusual about a human being? According to the Vedas, there are 8,400,000 varieties of life forms that the soul can occupy. Among these, the human form is the only one that can serve as an “escape vessel.” This means that souls can free themselves from the cycle of birth and death only while in a human body. An animal or plant that dies moves up to the next species automatically through the spiritual evolutionary process. According to the teachings, human beings are the only ones endowed with sufficient ability to make inquiries about self-realization and to learn how to obtain relief from suffering, disease, old age and death.

God’s Help Is Always Available

As human beings, we must make intelligent use of this precious opportunity. We can do so if we remember that the Lord is present in our hearts as the Holy Spirit or Supersoul, providing us loving guidance. When we are selfless, the Lord knows. Conversely, as we have seen, the Lord is aware of our improper behavior, too, and we will be held accountable. If we are feeling lonely, depressed, forsaken or overburdened, we must remember that this particular kind of test is being given to us to see how we respond.

As we pass our tests, we experience greater happiness and joy. We are beginning to experience higher pleasures by connecting with the reservoir of all pleasure, the Supreme Lord. To prepare ourselves for going back home to Godhead, we must attune ourselves to the spiritual world while still in this material environment. Such attunement means that we learn to become selfless rather than selfish, compassionate rather than cruel, and free from the clutches of greed, lust and anger.

Lust never fulfills us. We have seen how it works. Lust turns into anger; anger turns into illusion; and illusion attracts us over and over again into the confusion of being separate from God. We can interrupt this endless cycle only by making a firm commitment to convert the lust back into its original form of love.

Questions and Answers

Question: Lust is love, and love comes from God. So if I am feeling lusty, or acting in a lusty way, does this mean that what I really want is God?

Answer: Yes. It means that even the greatest cheaters, abusers, manipulators, alcoholics or drug addicts really want God in their deepest inner consciousness. Their focus is just misdirected. We all want to be with our best friend in the most beautiful environment there is. We all long for perfect reciprocation, perfect love and perfect happiness. Ultimately, we must learn that all such perfection can only be found with God.

Although we are all looking for the same thing, lust improperly directs our energies and distorts our behavior. Because lust is merely misplaced love, nothing exists in this material creation except love in various degrees of disarray. That is why we all feel a little empty: We all long to be more loved. If someone says, “I love you; I love you; I love you,” we respond, “Oh, tell me again. Say it more slowly. Say it more romantically. Say it with more feeling. Oh, please, tell me I’m your greatest love. And promise that I’ll always be the most important person in your life. And keep on reminding me.”

We are always looking for love, because love is the only quality that is actually missing in our lives. Unfortunately, because we are covered with lust, we keep trying to find that love outside of ourselves: in drugs, alcohol, prestige, wealth, power or countless other misguided ways. But these substitutes never make us happy. We will only be fulfilled when we discover pure, unadulterated love, which is always available if we know where to look for it.

Question: All around me I see competition and the drive to get to the top. I see it in myself, too. Now that I am listening to you, I wonder: Aren’t we foolish to engage in such behavior when we’re all in such a fallen state to begin with?

Answer: Yes. Actually, from the perspective of more evolved beings in other realms, we are all handicapped and at a primitive level of evolution. Our gross material bodies are not refined, and yet in our egocentric way we are extremely proud of them. Just think about it: our physical bodies are filled with stool, urine, pus, blood and parasites. What is there to be so proud of? It is idiotic to be conceited about belonging to a certain race, or about our physique, the color of our eyes or the length of our hair. Given that we are all in prison, why should we be proud because our prison suit is a little lighter, darker, taller or shorter? It is still a prison suit.

Until we realize our true condition, we can never become properly spiritual. As long as we have difficulty understanding that material life is bondage, we will have to wear prison suits of different qualities until we get exhausted. Many souls do just that, moving from an Asian body to a European body to an African body to an Indian body and back again. That is why the great prophets come into this environment and try to get us out of this place.

We must experience that which we reject or condemn in order to evolve. If we demonstrate a lack of respect for the opposite sex, we must come back again as the other sex to experience that polarity more fully. The most racist people now may be reborn as members of the race they abhor. Many slave masters or people who were involved in the slave trade have had to reincarnate in black bodies to help counteract what they have done, just as many Nazis have returned as Jews and many early American settlers have come back as Native Americans.

Materially speaking, people are not all alike. Everybody is different—even twins. Each soul has an individual identity. But at the same time, as parts and parcels of God, all souls are qualitatively the same, whatever the covering—whether the body is infantile, adult, male, female, black or white. If we are serious about spiritual development, we must focus on the soul. As long as we put the body first, we will continue to be prisoners until we become exhausted with our suffering and are ready to learn how to live like free men and women.

Being free means living as spiritual beings. Spiritual beings do not get caught up in the suffering that the rest of us must experience for our growth. Instead, they learn from it. If you do not want to grow, you might as well admit that you are comfortable in your prison. That is all right; it just has nothing to do with spiritual life.

Question: How can you or other spiritual teachers help us conquer lust?

Answer: In countless ways. Just remember that we are not interested in teaching you how to remain slaves or prisoners. We love you too much to play the illusion game with you. We are not going to pat you on the back about how well you are enjoying your prison house. You have come to the wrong place if you want somebody to stroke you because you have beautiful blue eyes, nice Afro hair, a powerful physique or a beautifully shaped body.

Your body is already starting to fall apart; just look in the mirror. What do you think is going to happen twenty, thirty or forty years from now? You may have trouble walking; you may have difficulty sleeping; you may find it hard to eat. For all the care you give your physical body, sooner or later it will deteriorate. So why should we work overtime helping you perpetuate your attachment to something temporary? It is your soul that will remain with you, and that is what connects you with God.

If you do not want to be beautiful in a spiritual way, do not bother pondering these discussions any further. Our commission—our responsibility as spiritual mentors—is to give you knowledge about how to go back to the spiritual world. If we fail to do that, we are held accountable. Therefore, if we see problems and do not address them, we are not fulfilling our mission and are instead accepting hypocrisy. When ministers, priests, prophets or other spiritual leaders tolerate hypocrisy, they become hypocrites themselves.

We do not coerce; we apply no pressure. But we serve as constant mirrors for you to gaze into, reminding you that you are not this body, that you are spiritual beings connected with God and that you are eternal. We are of no help if we simply reinforce your belief that you are a temporary body. No one is temporary in essence; we are eternal beings who are just carrying some temporary baggage.

If you want to make your temporary baggage a priority, then go where people encourage such a mentality. They may tell you that you are special because of your blue eyes and blond hair, or because of your African-American heritage, or because you were born wealthy. Nonsense. You are special because you are connected with God, because you are His servant. We are all children of the Lord, and everyone is part of the Lord’s family.

Remember, we must put nothing before God. That is the value of associating with spiritual people: they can encourage each other to deepen their love, to put nothing before the Lord and to recognize that the soul is the actual person, not the body. We are all beautiful and we are all eternal.