LUST
How do you view obsession and lust? And how does your devotion to Krishna differ from obsession?
Without obsession and lust there is no pleasure or meaning in life. Actually the living entity cannot exist for a moment without desire and obsession. The Vedic wisdom declares, änanda-moya-bhäsat: The living entity is naturally full of obsession.
What is life? Life means to enjoy. Enjoyment requires desire - the stronger the desire the greater the enjoyment.
Therefore how can the ultimate form of life - the pure spiritual existence - be completely devoid of desire and obsession? It can't.
There is, however, a tremendous difference between material obsession and spiritual obsession, or material lust and spiritual lust. Material lust is called käma, and spiritual lust is called prema. Material lust is defined as the intense want to satisfy one's own emotional/mental/ and physical senses. This material lust appears in different shapes, but it is always essentially selfish. Therefore material lust and material obsession ultimately do not bring happiness, but rather bring more pain - because they are founded upon selfishness.
Therefore, the Krsna conscious idea is to give up all material obsessions and lusts. Ultimately, these desires are not in our best interest. Although we desire to enjoy and be happy in so many different ways, ultimately our material desires bring us frustration. Therefore it would be smart and wise for us to abandon them.
Still, life does not exist without desire. So how is it possible to give up material desire?
"It is easy to say no when there is a deeper yes burning within."
The Krsna conscious way to purify yourself from material conditioings and intoxicating obsessions is to revive your purified, higher desires. Once the spiritual obsessions are awakened - the material ones will gradually fall away, becoming pale in comparison to the bliss desirived from spiritual engagements.
So, material lust is founded on selfish desire, but spiritual obsession and lust is just the opposite. It is called prema, the intense want to satisfy the emotional/mental/physical senses of the beloved. Now, this selfless obsession is still tainted with the mundane world, as long as it is focuses on mundane personalities. The supreme form of obsession is selfless desire to satisfy the desires of the Supreme All-Spiritual personality of Godhead, Çré Krsna.
We must be obsessed - otherwise life is dull. If our obsession remains within the mundane world, our lives fall short. If our obsessions are transferred to their original position, the spiritual world - then our bliss becomes boundless.
Without obsession and lust there is no pleasure or meaning in life. Actually the living entity cannot exist for a moment without desire and obsession. The Vedic wisdom declares, änanda-moya-bhäsat: The living entity is naturally full of obsession.
What is life? Life means to enjoy. Enjoyment requires desire - the stronger the desire the greater the enjoyment.
Therefore how can the ultimate form of life - the pure spiritual existence - be completely devoid of desire and obsession? It can't.
There is, however, a tremendous difference between material obsession and spiritual obsession, or material lust and spiritual lust. Material lust is called käma, and spiritual lust is called prema. Material lust is defined as the intense want to satisfy one's own emotional/mental/ and physical senses. This material lust appears in different shapes, but it is always essentially selfish. Therefore material lust and material obsession ultimately do not bring happiness, but rather bring more pain - because they are founded upon selfishness.
Therefore, the Krsna conscious idea is to give up all material obsessions and lusts. Ultimately, these desires are not in our best interest. Although we desire to enjoy and be happy in so many different ways, ultimately our material desires bring us frustration. Therefore it would be smart and wise for us to abandon them.
Still, life does not exist without desire. So how is it possible to give up material desire?
"It is easy to say no when there is a deeper yes burning within."
The Krsna conscious way to purify yourself from material conditioings and intoxicating obsessions is to revive your purified, higher desires. Once the spiritual obsessions are awakened - the material ones will gradually fall away, becoming pale in comparison to the bliss desirived from spiritual engagements.
So, material lust is founded on selfish desire, but spiritual obsession and lust is just the opposite. It is called prema, the intense want to satisfy the emotional/mental/physical senses of the beloved. Now, this selfless obsession is still tainted with the mundane world, as long as it is focuses on mundane personalities. The supreme form of obsession is selfless desire to satisfy the desires of the Supreme All-Spiritual personality of Godhead, Çré Krsna.
We must be obsessed - otherwise life is dull. If our obsession remains within the mundane world, our lives fall short. If our obsessions are transferred to their original position, the spiritual world - then our bliss becomes boundless.
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