Bg 3.38

dhūmenāvriyate vahnir
yathādarśo malena ca
yatholbenāvṛto garbhas
tathā tenedam āvṛtam

Word for word: 

dhūmena — by smoke; āvriyate — is covered; vahniḥ — fire; yathā — just as; ādarśaḥ — mirror; malena — by dust; ca — also; yathā — just as; ulbena — by the womb; āvṛtaḥ — is covered; garbhaḥ — embryo; tathā — so; tena — by that lust; idam — this; āvṛtam — is covered.

Translation: 

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.

 

BG 3.38

What kind of enemy is lust and how does it attacks…

Lust (3.38) 

  • Analogy 
  • Species
  • Nature of covering
  • Fire-smoke
  • Humans
  • Thin & Penetrable
  • Dust-mirror
  • Animals
  • Thick &tough to penetrate
  • Womb-child

 
  • Plants
  • Super-thick and penetrable only after long effort
Plant cannot do anything it will take time.

Is lust a thing or it is just a desire / feeling, it is both, Krishna is talking that it is a thing as it covers and it is our enemy. There are lusty impression which is stored in the mind and there are lusty desires which are triggered in the mind. Lust impression means we have seen some images or heard something. Because of porn available on internet people are having different garbage in the mind… Impression is already there but that doesn’t mean we should have feeling and allow to take controls by those feeling, we cannot say hording should not be there or stop people in dressing in a provocation way but we can control us we should say no to those proposals of our mind, we cannot stop people, we can avoid our exposing too much. When internal provocation starts proposing we should say no to them. 

This is a covering, it makes us spiritual forgetfulness, there are Avarnatmika Sakthi covers and Prashepastika Sakthi which pushes. Avarnatmika Shakti covers us and make us forgeful about spirituality identity and Prashepastika drags us towards material illusion. E.g. People go to watch movies in theatre there are two stages in the progression of illusion first is when lights are turned off makes people forget reality and the when movie starts it drags people. 

So lust covers us and pushes us towards material.