IS IT LUST OR LOVE? (Part 6)

AUDIENCE: What if a person wants to sort of serve the Supreme Person but he's not yet finished with trying to enjoy the world? What should he do?

JAGAD GURU: He should try to increase his desire to render service to the Supreme. In other words, he should not say, "Well, I'll get into that later. I'll just get into spiritual things when I'm finished trying to enjoy the world."

One time, a person asked whether or not he should try to develop spiritually while he still has material attachments and is not completely finished trying to be the enjoyer of the world. And the answer of the saintly persons and scripture is really quite clear. A person should immediately begin—no matter how advanced or not advanced spiritually he is—to engage in those spiritual processes by which lust can gradually and automatically be changed back into its natural condition of spiritual love.

You have to start from where you are. You don't become pure first. Don't think, "Well, I'm going to get pure first. Somehow I'm going to be purified by my materialistic activities or I'm going to be purified by my own will. Then when I get purified of lust, I'll go and find out about spiritual life and start engaging in spiritual activities." This is stupid.

You can't purify yourself and you're not going to get more purified by having more sensual activities. In other words, it's foolish to think, "Well, I'll get it out of my system by going to prostitutes every night." Forget it! The more you scratch, the more you itch. The more you have, the more you want. You're not going to get purified or somehow get it out of your system. You don't get lust out of your system. It’s just like you don't get rid of arsenic in your system by eating more arsenic. That's stupid.

The more you engage in hedonistic activity, the more attached to that activity you become. The more stuck you become. It's just like the story of the tar baby. Brer Rabbit punched the tar baby and got his hand stuck. He said, "Well, I'll just stick my other hand in there to get my hand out!" That obviously didn't work and both his hands got stuck. He used his feet and they got stuck too. So he ended up quite stuck from all angles.

Similarly, you don't fool around thinking, "Well, I'll try all these materialistic lifestyles, get purified later and then come find out about spiritual life." No, it will never work that way. You have to begin from where you are right now. And as you engage in spiritual activities (bhakti yoga), then you will find that gradually you are actually becoming spiritually purified and your lust is transformed into spiritual love. This is what's needed.