Today’s culture glamorizes lust as the source of immediate and immense pleasure. 

However, such glamorization impoverishes our existence, depleting three of its vital dimensions:

Spirituality: The more we become obsessed with lust, the more our consciousness gets locked to the physical levels of reality, where we hope to gratify that lust. Thus, we become increasingly incapable of pursuing any spiritual purpose or even perceiving our spiritual essence. We end up blinded to our spirituality. 

Humanity: The more we become maddened by lust’s promise of pleasure, the more we lose touch with the humanity of those with whom we are engaging sexually; we may see them merely as bendable bags of seductive shapes and colors meant solely for our gratification. As we diminish their humanity by objectifying them, our own consciousness and conscience become diminished. Such diminishing takes people down a slippery slope that ends with sexual predators — they seek gratification by any means, however inhumane; thus, they lose touch with their own humanity.

Sexuality: Biologically, sexuality is a natural function for ensuring the reproduction of various species. Additionally, for us humans, our sexuality is a divine benediction that provides us the opportunity to experience the Divine, by becoming co-creators with God (07.11). That is, while God is the ultimate creator, we become an agent for him in manifesting life in this world. When we thus help bring forth new life, we can fulfill our deep-seated need for nurturing as an expression of our loving nature. But uncontrolled lust blinds us to these higher potentials of our sexuality, reducing it to a source of titillation divorced from procreation.

Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (03.37) cautions that unrestrained lust is a voracious enemy; stripping us of our spirituality, humanity and sexuality, it can reduce our life to an exercise in emptiness and meaninglessness. 

One-sentence summary: 

Uncontrolled lust is a voracious predator that can devour our spirituality, our humanity, and even our sexuality.

Think it over:

  • How can lust devour our spirituality?
  • How can lust devour our humanity?
  • How can lust devour our sexuality?

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03.37: It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material mode of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring sinful enemy of this world.