Do you know this to be true because you’re living proof of it, or because you believe it’s true?
Isn’t it a hormonal matter, the politician of good standing, family man, respected, etc., passing written sexual invitations under the partition in a public toilet to an unknown person…isn’t acting intelligently. Intelligence curbs the sexual desire. But not always. Depends on its strength.
So it can’t “be overcome with intelligence”, but only mitigated.
Would the word “intelligence”, as you use it here, mean practical “street smarts” for staying out of trouble?
Yeah what the society approves of…but the sexual urge can flow right over any boundaries set up to contain it. So what controls sexual desire? Genes?
To anyone. Genes are what is a very deep condition, right? We are talking about us all as humans. Similarly we are talking about a deep human psychology. Nothing in this is a belief, right? We may contest the science, but it is pointless thinking life is limited by types of individuals, limited by knowledge, limited by ability, etc., and nothing to do with me. Sex and lust, are one of these matters we like to think is not me, and if it is, it is some externality.
@Peter @DanMcD @Inquiry @sree @Dominic @presence
Hi all. From Peter’s observations in reply #86, I have few questions about this ‘lust’ and so I invite all to share your observations.
Do ‘humans’ think/see that ‘lust/want’ for anything (i.e. feelings for sex/objects/experience/money/etc…) is different from him/her?
If yes, why is it so?
Is it because,
- Scientific knowledge/statement/fact about genes/etc… or
- Impossible to overcome or
- also seen in other living beings or
- Nature’s beauty or
- God’s will/creation or
- Any other reason?
All these are belief or one sees as a fact that “no one can overcome or choice-lessly aware of ‘lust/want’ as it is different from us”?
Note - Please ignore this reply/question - if not interested, and
I apologize - if you feel question is irrelevant/personal to ask.
Edit - added ‘want’ with ‘lust’ as both are same in context
Just to be clear, we are talking about a deep human psychology. This is not about someone’s ideas and what they might have an opinion about… It is a deep human psychology in the same way that we find it hard to understand any existence free from I, self, ego, etc., except to deny oneself, or devote oneself to some alternative.
So you say that - lust - which is a deep human psychology - is hard to be known/understood like how this creation of universe happens?
i.e. You mean that humans couldn’t ‘observe instantly’ the deep human psychology - but it takes time to understand this ‘lust’ and there is a need for ‘devotion/negation’ to the ‘one’ as it is hard to ‘observe’?
Could you also clear - how you see this ‘deep human psychology (i.e. Lust/desire)’ - is it different from ‘I’?
If it is not different from ‘I’, is it difficult to ‘observe instantly/immediately’ without taking time?
His or her question, will be about how it affects self, or what self can do. What we are doing here is discussing it as the responsible human being.
Yes - that’s why I ask - is the ‘it’ (I.e. Deep human psychology which is desire/lust) is different from ‘I’/‘self’?
Thank you for your invitation, Viswa. Your question is not irrelevant to me because I know what sexual desire is. It is part of my hard-wiring and arises when the condition for it presents itself.
I don’t consider sexual desire Nature’s beauty because it causes violent conflict resulting in injury among animals in the wild during the breeding season. Among humans in society, it is the cause of much suffering and misery. And, I believe, this is the reason why you want to discuss it.
As DanMcD said, to stay safe, we need to use intelligence to curb sexual desire (whenever it is inappropriate in thought, word, and deed).
Sexual desire cannot be eradicated just as we cannot get rid of hunger for food.
In itself, sexual desire - something natural - is not a bad thing. It only becomes a problem for you when it arises at the wrong time, in the wrong place, with the wrong person. Therefore, the issue you need to be discussing is not sexual desire but the unnatural way of life we have invented for ourselves. I am not advocating sexual freedom which is the celebration of lust. The rejection of social morals leads to depravity.
Is there a wholesome way to live with our sexuality in freedom?
Does this whole question about lust actually matter, or is the whole thing a distraction? In nature, in physics, there is said to be the strong force, and the weak force. Does it matter whether desire, or lust is immensely strong or powerful, the strongest force at work in the psyche, or actually quite weak? Is it simply that weak or strong it commands attention, and in so doing it serves to distract and keep thought engaged, and the brain occupied? And does that help keep reality on the rails and going forward as becoming? What would happen to my reality if I could not stay occupied? Is not the whole thing about desire, sex, relationship, as it is lived, staggeringly domestic, and all part and parcel of upholding the illusion of this all being living, and vital, when it may be nothing of the kind? Is it not simply the brain’s notion of something which is important? That what I am supposedly living is important, that I am what importance is?
Hi @Dominic - I couldn’t see what you share here. Is it about the ‘deep-fear’ about losing ‘I’?
If so - this ‘deep-fear’ is not a 'general principle’for all. It is just a trick played by the ‘I’ because of fragmented observation - to be safe from ‘nothingness’.
Just observe all (including cause,root,effects,people,society,birds,animals,universe - i.e. everything) - and in this observation you may see that - ‘deep-fear’ was just an ‘illusion/ignorance’ which acts to comfort to dwell in 'I’and blocked to see the beauty of ‘living’.
I don’t say ‘sexual act’ is good/bad - or to live with/ to eradicate. See - ‘Lust/want’ is a form of ‘thought’ and ‘sex/etc…’ are an action.
And, there is ‘lust/want’ not only for ‘sex’ but also for ‘objects and experience like car,bike,home,money,estate,picnic,outdoor,movie,friends,children,parents,partner,gathering knowledge,dialogues for intellectual pleasure,seeking for appreciation, deceive someone,etc…’
All this kind of ‘lust/want’ is ‘limited’ and a pleasure seeking method to run away from ‘what-is’. So is this ‘lust/want’ of anything/everything - is different from ‘I’/‘self’?
So whenever ‘lust/want’ arises - can one (without control/suppression/being fine with it/accept as nature) be choice-lessly aware of all these?
If so - then in this awareness - there is instant/immediate death of all these ‘lust/want’ (which is in form of ‘thoughts’) - whenever it arises.
There is no acceptable level as society says. In this awareness - no need to ‘ask/seduce’ even my wife/gf to have ‘sex’ within my house. But if she asks - no need to run away from ‘sex’ as it is not right/wrong and just go on to pleasure her - as she needs it - and so there is actual relationship with people/everthing.
Living always with ‘lust/want’ brings sufferings/etc… and one cannot eradicate all these desires - but one can be ‘aware’ of this arousal and there is ‘immediate death’ of this arousal.
Then there is compassion towards all (even for politicians,mis-managers,murderers,thief,etc…)- as they all are in just ‘ignorance’. Not like being a ‘boatman’ and laugh at others ‘ignorance’ - as we are psychologically ‘one’.
I also need to say that - i couldn’t stop in this ‘freedom/choice-less awareness’ - as I differ from K in two things,
-
He worried that - “no one couldn’t see what he said” - before his death. Here, though there is compassion - there is no need to worry - as everyone ‘shall/can’ live their own way of living - it’s upto them.
-
There may be ‘Karma,devotion,heaven,hell,purgatory’- but i can see his ‘belief’ in ‘karma(deeds),bhakti(devotion) as myths/imaginations’ because,
I’m also in search of ‘siddhis/powers to see one’s thoughts/karma - as did by spiritual beings who lived centuries before (like shirdi sai baba)’ (not for pride,money,business,etc…) - but it may ‘help’ to serve others - as in discussions/inquiry, i can see that ‘observations may/are not serious, may be because of ‘beliefs/ideas/attachments’ and so no immediate change’ in others (Even K felt this too).
Even these ‘search’ fails - there is nothing to worry about everyone/efforts as K did personally.
That’s all.
Thanks and Regards
Viswa 
I observe that ordinarily the reality or the world of humankind is one in which constant engagement in, and identification with, a whole series of norms and notions of what it is to be a human being, of what life is, and what living is, keeps the human brain preoccupied with gaining it, keeping it, or dealing with the conflict arising from the inherent contradictoriness of it all. Personal, private, security or salvation being the prime instance of this contradiction. But were that preoccupation to be undermined for any reason then the solidity it appears to offer, and the protection it affords would start to fail.
So the preoccupation of the brain helps to keep fears which are implicit in the fact of its behaviour from emerging into the light of day. It is easy for the brain to imagine it has no fear when it is preoccupied, or to turn fear into an idea, which it imagines it can bat away. It is only in being consciously aware of it that there is the awareness of the role reality is playing ordinarily, of how much dependence there is on everything.
By general principle I just mean common to humanity, just like thinking is.
Yes, the ability to listen, the capacity to observe are the tools which are not thinking, which cannot solve the problems of thought. So this is about the relationship between thinking, identification, fear, and the reality or world which thought has invented with it.
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The question arises why shouldn’t the brain be silent when it is not necessary for it to be engaged? Why should there be any psychological fear at all?..Why the desires for this and that, etc? Why the false divisive “reality” created by thought out of fear of this ‘silence’, this ‘nothingness’?
Is this the same as asking why thought and thinking have come to dominate? And also what the relationship between psychological thought and fear is?
The tendency can be to want to trace the origin of things which promotes thinking yet again as the tool, rather than observing the fact of them in action. This then functions as another form of preoccupation subtly aimed at trying to establish command and control.
Blockages to listening and observing exist, but the attempt to analyse them constitutes a further block, so can I question my need to analyse, my reliance on that?
I misunderstood the aim of your inquiry and was misled by your focus on sexual desire. If you are talking about lust as a thought-driven desire, then sexuality - in any form - in this instance is a disorder.
The wanting of “objects and experience” in the way you listed them, is not a problem. I will indulge myself to the fullest and chase them without restraint within the rule of law of the society in which I live.
Thought needs to be clear about all this it seems to me. Without the clarity of what it has done and what it is doing, the question of whether it can cease its own movement would never come up. So when it sees the trap that analysis or any movement at all, is only more of the same, it stops. It realizes that it can’t solve the problem because it is the problem itself! That realization is key. But the brain has been conditioned to have thought constantly ‘running’ in the waking state and even in the sleep state. So the depth of thought’s realization that it is the only “factor” that can bring itself to cease its misplaced activity in the psyche , is determined by what? Obviously not a ‘brilliant’ (or not so brilliant) analysis. 
Take a dull mind, deeply immersed in the reality humankind has brought about for itself, trapped in its own thought projections, by and large incapable of listening. What will enable a brain like that to be somewhat capable of seeing what it is swept up in? Is some initial work by thought in the form of analysis necessary, and what could kickstart that, or is it that all irrelevant? Can there always be listening, and can even the dullest brain find itself listening on occasion even if it is only conscious of it to the extent of being troubled by something.
The process of sensing, recording, and storing never ceases, and thinking never truly stops, yet a moment in which there is listening or observation can be enough to throw light on the process thinking is, which is not thought analysing itself, but which can inform the analysis thinking continues to be of itself, which in turn can bring about clarity in thinking. Once there is clarity in thinking then listening meets with less resistance, and as blockages in thinking are cleared, observation can operate as thinking and analysis becomes less important.
The emotional counterpart of this will be a sensitivity and awareness of fear, and the widespread evasion practiced by humankind as its everyday reality. In a sense it is like reality giving up its ghosts, but that reality which lies all around me will always be the main player, and not just my particular thought, since reality is what has bred me. It is what I am ordinarily separate from, and what I most fear.