Passion is a very strong desire. A mild desire becomes a strong passion by frequent repetition or frequent enjoyment. In a broad sense, passion means any strong desire. There is passion in patriots for service to the country. There is passion in first-class aspirants for God-realization. In some people, there is a strong passion for novel-reading. There is passion for reading religious books. But generally, in common parlance, passion means lust or a strong sexual appetite. This is a physical craving for sexual or carnal gratification. When any sexual act is repeated very often, the desire becomes very keen and strong. The sexual instinct or the reproductive instinct in human beings involuntarily prompt them to engage in sexual acts for the preservation of the species.
Passion is the instinctive urge for externalization through self-preservation and self-multiplication. It is the diversifying power, which is directly opposed to the force that moves towards the integration of being. Desire is all-pervading in the body. Every cell, every atom, every molecule, every electron is surcharged with passion. There are undercurrents, cross-currents, inter-currents and submarine currents in the mighty ocean of passion. You must completely annihilate each one of them. You must completely destroy passion in all places.
Passion is a modification that arises from the mind-lake when the physical attraction predominates. Non-Vegetarian food such as meat, fish and eggs, profligate dress and the extravagant way of living, scents, novel-reading, cinema, talk on sensual things, bad company, liquor, intoxicants of all description, tobacco—all these excite passion.
Passion in children, the youth and the aged
Passion is in a seed state in young boys and girls. It does not give them any trouble. Just as the tree is latent in the seed, so also, passion is in a seed state in the minds of children. In old men and women, passion gets suppressed. It cannot do any havoc. It is only in young men and women who have reached adolescence that this passion becomes troublesome. Men and women become slaves to passion. They become helpless.
There is not much difference in sex between a male and a female, a boy and a girl, when they are very young. When they attain puberty, there is a drastic change. Feelings, gestures, body, gait, talk, look, movements, voice, qualities and demeanor change altogether.
The whole mango tree (with all its branches, leaves and fruits) is contained in a subtle form in the seed. It takes time for manifestation. Even so, the desire of lust lurks in the mind when you are a boy, manifests at eighteen, fills the whole body at twenty-five, and works havoc from twenty-five to forty-five and then gradually declines. Various forms of wrong-doing and mischief are committed by human beings between twenty-five and forty-five. This is the most critical period of life.
Sexual thought in sages, spiritual aspirants and householders
In a spiritual person, the sexual craving is entirely eradicated or remains well controlled. In a householder, when not controlled, it does havoc. It exists in him in its fully expanded state. He cannot resist it. He yields to it helplessly on account of his weak will and lack of firm resolution.
In a sage, no sensual thoughts will crop up in the mind. There will not be any difference in feeling when you see a beautiful young counterpart, a child or an old one. You will see the one underlying, eternal, immortal Self in a female and a male. You will not have any difference of feeling when you touch a book, a log of wood, a piece of stone and the body of an opposite section. There is no idea of sex in a sage. Such must be the condition of mind of a person who is established in celibacy.
In an aspirant, there will be occasional sexual thoughts, but they are kept under check. They cannot do any havoc in him. A passionate householder, however, becomes a prey to sexual thoughts. A passionate person of the world wants the constant company of the spouse. The idea of sex is ingrained in the personality itself. It is very powerful. He wants everything to be done by his wife. Then only he is pleased. This is simply due to passion. After the death of his wife, he never relishes his food, even when it is prepared by expert cooks. Such persons are thoroughly unfit for the spiritual line.
If you keep lemon juice or tamarind juice in a golden cup, it is not spoiled or tainted. If you keep it in a brass or a copper vessel, it gets spoiled and becomes poisonous. Even so, if there are some sensual thoughts in the pure mind of a person who practices constant meditation, they will not pollute the man and induce passionate excitement. But if there are sensual thoughts in persons with impure minds, they cause immediate excitement in them when they come across sensual objects.
In the vast majority of persons, the sexual craving is very intense. They have got extreme sexual hankering. In some, the sexual desire occasionally comes, but passes off quickly. There is mere agitation only, of a simple nature in the mind. By the proper method of spiritual working, this also can be completely eradicated.
Lust in men and in women
Though a lady appears to be gentle and soft, yet she becomes rude, rough and distinctly masculine when she becomes angry. The feminine grace vanishes when she comes under the influence of wrath, indignation, fury and resentment. Have you ever seen women fighting in the streets? Women are more jealous than men. They have more passion. They are eight times more passionate than men. Women have more power of endurance. They are more emotional. Males are more rational.
Though females are more passionate, yet they have more power of restraint than males. After enticing men, they keep quiet. The real culprit is man only. He is aggressive. It is he who tastes the ‘forbidden fruit’ first. He is active. He goes out of control and loses his intellect, power of understanding and judgment when he is under the grip of passion and becomes the sporting lap-dog of woman. When once man falls into the trap or net spread out by woman, there is no escape for him.
Woman is passive. She only tempts and deludes man. She inflames and excites the heart of man. She smiles and glances and then keeps quiet. She waits. But man is the aggressor. He is the real culprit. Man is the worst culprit. He is the real seducer. He is the aggressor. He is the violator. He must be corrected and molded first. He has not got so much self-restraint as women have. Women are eight times more passionate than men, but possess eight times more strength of control over the impulses or the urge. This is the weakness of man, though he may be physically and intellectually more powerful than a woman.
Women flatter, coax and cajole you. They are experts in the art of blandishment. They have made you a slave by their winning expressions, actions, youthful charm, coquettish glances, gestures and smile. A considerable portion of your life has been wasted pursuing the phantoms of flesh. Women appear charming only for a short time, but turn destructive of health and happiness soon after. Beware of these temptresses who entangle you by their blandishments. Pass your remaining days at least on the holy banks of some river in silent meditation.
The scorpion has the venom in its tail, the cobra in its fangs, the mosquito in its saliva and the scandal-monger in his tongue. Woman has poisoned arrows in her eyes. She sends the message of passion to the lustful youth and pierces their heart through the poisoned arrows that dart from her piercing glances. But, she cannot do any harm to a discriminating person who is always on the alert and who sees the merits and demerits of a woman.
There are tongues and telegraphic instruments in the eyes of young passionate ladies. They send their love shafts and love messages through their smiling glances to passionate young men and thereby allure and bewitch them. Those young men who have no discrimination are excited by these love messages and become a prey to lust.They become pleasure-deer or sporting lap-dogs of ladies, though they possess academic education and hold high position and title. Reason, will, intellect vanish altogether. You should not sacrifice a noble ideal of life for the sake of pleasing a bewitching woman. Think of the composition of the body. Keep the mental image of the dead body of a woman or a skeleton whenever passion troubles you. You will slowly gain strength to subdue the passion. The cause for attraction towards women is the presence of subtle desires in the mind. Wipe them out. There will be no attraction. Those who have renounced women and money have really renounced the worldly pleasures. God has given you a definite period to enjoy the materialistic matters. Thereafter, you will get real enjoyment in your spiritual pursuits only.
It is in your Imagination only
Sex is the distinction between male and female. It is a mental creation. It is an imagination. There is no sex in the five elements of which the body is composed. The human body is nothing but a combination of the five elements. How, then, has the sex idea come? The sex idea is illusory. It is a trick of the mind. It is a jugglery created by God for procreation. It is a notion. The sex-idea is deep-rooted. Man can never think that he is a female. A female can never think that she is a male.
For a liberated sage, this world is full of Godliness only. For a passionate man, this world is full of woman. He falls in love with a wooden post if it is wrapped in a silken gown or a beautiful cloth with attractive clothing. Passion is a terrible curse. When a man is under the influence of passion, excitement and the impulse or force destroy his understanding and reason, overwhelm his mind and make him utterly helpless. A householder who has rightly understood the magnitude of the sufferings tries to get rid of the materialistic life. Whereas, a bachelor full of passion imagines that he is very miserable on account of the absence of a wife and children and tries to get married. This is a mental trick.
A passionate bachelor is ever thinking: "When can I live with a young wife?" A dispassionate householder in whom discrimination has dawned is ever thinking: "When can I disentangle myself from the clutches of my wife and retire into the forests for contemplation on self?" You must think over the difference.
Beauty is a mental concept
Woman is not beautiful, but the imagination is beautiful. Sugar is not sweet, but the imagination is sweet. Food is not palatable, but the imagination is palatable. Man is not weak, but the imagination is weak. Understand the nature of mind and become wise. Curb this imagination of the mind by right thinking.
Beauty and ugliness are false imaginations of the mind. Mind itself is a false illusory product. Conceptions of the mind also must therefore be false. They are all like a mirage in the desert. What is beautiful for you is ugly for another. Beauty and ugliness are relative terms. Beauty is only a mental concept. It is only a mental projection. It is only a civilized man who talks much of the symmetry of form, good features, graceful gait, elegance of manners and graceful form. An African Negro has no idea of all these things. Real beauty is in the Self only. Beauty resides in the mind and not in the objects. Mango is not sweet; the idea of mango is sweet. It is all mental deception, mental conception, and mental creation. Destroy all this; beauty vanishes. The husband stretches his own idea of beauty in his ugly wife and finds her very beautiful through passion. Shakespeare has rightly expressed this in his "Mid-summer-Night’s Dream": "Cupid is painted blind. It finds Helen’s beauty in the brow of Egypt".
The desires and the mind delude you at every moment. They are your real enemies. Beauty is a product of mental creation. Beauty is a product of the imagination. An ugly woman appears very beautiful only in the eyes of her husband. Where is the beauty in the wrinkled skin of an old woman? Where is the beauty when your wife is bedridden? Where is the beauty when your wife gets angry? Where is the beauty in the dead body of a woman? The beauty in the face is a mere reflection. The real un-decaying Beauty of beauties—the fountain of beauties—can be found in yourself only. You have ignored the substance and caught hold of a broken piece of glass. What a serious blunder have you committed by your impure thoughts, impure mind, and impure way of living! Have you realized your mistake? Will you open your eyes at least now?
A beautiful wife is very charming. She is very sweet when she is young, when she smiles, when she puts on beautiful dress, when she sings and plays on the piano or the violin, when she dances in the ballroom. But she is horrible to look at when she loses her temper, when she quarrels with her husband for not getting good dresses and gold necklace, when she suffers from acute abdominal colic or some such disease and when she becomes old.
For a few years Nature bestows on woman her gift of special beauty, charm and elegance in order that she may capture the hearts of men. Beauty is skin-deep only. It will soon fade, the hair will become gray and the skin will soon be filled with wrinkles. The tailor, the weaver, the embroiderer, the toilet maker and the goldsmith make us beautiful for a few seconds. Man, in his excitement, infatuation and delusion, forgets this point. This is an illusion only. Never trust this illusion. Beware. Find out the Beauty of beauties, which is within you, which is your innermost Self.
Have you ever paused and considered what constitutes the basic’ ladies who excite lust in you? A bundle of bones, flesh, blood, urine, fiasco, pus, perspiration, phlegm and other dirt! Will you allow such a bundle to become the master of your thoughts? Will you exchange your birthright of eternal peace and happiness for such a fleeting, filthy mess of pottage? Were your will, your reason and your discrimination given to you only for such an inglorious end? Have you not heard and seen that physical beauty is only skin-deep and at the mercy of every passing accident, illness and year?
Misleading descriptions of a woman’s beauty
Poets have exaggerated the beauty of ladies. They are misguided persons who put young men on the wrong path. Descriptions like "damsels with bewitching eyes", "face like the moon", "rosy cheeks and honeyed lips" are false and imaginary. Where is the beauty in the dead body, in old women, in sick ladies? Where is the beauty when a lady is infuriated? You are aware of this and yet you cling to their bodies! The beauty of a woman is false, artificial and decaying. Real beauty is un-decaying and eternal. His beauty is everlasting and un-decaying. It is ornaments, silken clothing with fanciful borders, dressing of the hair with golden hairpins, flowers, application of powder to their faces, lipstick to the lips and unguent to their eyes that lend a temporary decoration and artificial glittering to the women. Deprive them of their face powders, their ornaments and gaudy dress, and ask them to wear a simple white cloth without any border. Where is the beauty now? The beauty of the skin is a delusion only.
Passion blinds the intellect
Sexual pleasure is an illusion. It is no real happiness at all. It is mere nerve tickling. All worldly pleasures appear as nectar in the beginning. They become poison in the end. Reflect well, Do not be led away by impulses and passion. Nobody has been benefited in this world by this illusion. People weep in the end. Ask any grown-up householder whether he finds even an iota of happiness in this world.
The fly runs towards the fire or lamp thinking that it is a flower and gets burnt up. Even so, the passionate man runs towards a false beautiful form thinking that he can get there the real happiness and gets himself burnt up in the fire of lust. Just as the silkworm entangles itself in its self-woven cocoon, so also, you have entangled yourself in the meshes of your own desires. Tear the meshes by the knife of dispassion and soar high in the realm of eternal peace on the wings of devotion and knowledge.
A passionate man is a real blind man. Though he may be an intellectual man, he becomes blind when he is under the sway of sexual excitement. His intellect proves to be of no use when he suffers from this kind of blindness. Pitiable is his lot! Prayer, enquiry and meditation will eradicate this dire disease and bestow on him the eye of wisdom.
There is no sex in the elements. There is mind in the body, which is made up of these elements. There is imagination in the mind. And that desire for lust is sex desire. If you kill this mind, which is a bundle of desires, you kill lust and everything. Kill that desire. You will have no lust then. Once you are able to do it, you will be successful in your spiritual pursuits after you accomplished your duties towards your spouse. Spouse means your legal married partner.
Be Happy – Enjoy your life in a disciplined manner, it would become more enjoyable. You must your value your passion how good they were, are and should be according to ever changing demands of you and your surroundings as well.
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