The promise last week was that we will commence discussions on the five perversions of the mind this week. And as I had hinted, the five deadly perversions of the Mind are LUST, GREED, ANGER, ATTACHMENT AND EGO. I will try to make it devoid of any ambiguity that all these passions or attributes are not by themselves bad, if we understand and limit ourselves within their necessities. They become bad or perverse, only when we extend their imperatives beyond what the Creator intended them for.
Without the basic understanding of the mind or life itself, all sermons and homilies delivered by any preacher or priest will appeal only as long as we are within the confines of the four walls at which they were delivered. As soon as we depart such assembly, the very first gusty winds will blow whatever had been heard or leant away and we will once again be back to our worldly ways.
This is because all the people parroting the scriptures are not really striking at the root of the malady they are preaching against. Their motto is; JUST BELIEVE. What we fail to accept is that, to just believe anything offends humans homosapiens status. It is for this reason I am always delighted when readers pose questions to me on what is being discussed.
This is having made it very clear that I write not from any higher pedestal than anyone on the street, and the purpose is to challenge readers to offer us a better understanding,as we must continue to remind ourselves, the man with the repository of wisdom is unborn and may never be.
The truth is, among those claiming to be this or that as religious practitioners, hardly do they teach the real fundamentals of life. Save for the very few exceptions who are barely scratching on the surface. We can count these few on the fingers of one hand, among hundreds, if not thousands that abound.
If we don't know the cause of something how do we proffer appropriate solution? Even, if we attempt a remedy, there will always be a recurrence because we have not tackled matters at their roots. It is like teaching subjects meant for the University students to the primary school pupils. We wouldn't make much sense to them because they have not been prepared for such higher education or knowledge.
The attempt herein is to strike at the causes or fundamentals of all the challenges we face in the world. Upon that, all the effects we are daily contending with, will abate instantar.
In this regard, i make bold to say LUST to every human being is compulsory. The synonym of lust is aspiration or desire. Without lust, aspiration or desire, we would all vegitate. Mankind would have remained in the proverbial "Garden of Eden" and perhaps still covering their nakedness with leaves. There wouldn't be any development per se. We would have settled for whatever environment we found ourselves, as the animals did, and deemed it as the be-all-and-end-all of everything.
A good number of us have left our primary places of birth seeking greener pastures across the world. It is this same lust stimulating us to continually better our lot and not to stagnate.
It is therefore not rocket science for us to discern that everything we find around us has been brought about by lust or desire. Anything we can think of. All the advancement made in the world were a creation of lust. The last half-century has been outstanding with what we have been able to achieve not by anything else, but by the positive deployment of the lust attribute of the human mind.
With a simple reflection, we will agree that achievements or developments that are manifestly discernible across the world in the past half-century, paled all that had happened from eons of time past - in fact, since civilization.
We have particularly in the last fifty years or so made substantial improvements in the daily life of man, than in all the preceding centuries be it Anno Domini, Common Era or BC. Progress has been made to the airplane, energy, automobiles, information technology and all other things we find around us. The list, of course, includes the house we live in, the kind of food we eat, the clothes we put on. Just anything, our education, medicine, the study of humanity, we have tremendously improved in all these spheres of human endeavors.
Without lust, we wouldn't have aspired to be anything or improve our lot in this world. He who created lust in us knew why and it was for a purpose- TO GO YE AND MULTIPLY AND SUBDUE THE WORLD. Without lust, that charge of the Creator would have been meaningless, as it is to the animals and other species. The biblical story of the Talents is very clear on the nitty gritty of lust.
Although it could be argued that what we deem as new inventions are a build-upon of past scientists foundation, prior to the last century, the fact remains that the underlying factor behind all these achievements is nothing but lust in its true and natural concept.
We should therefore not blame lust or nature for our excesses.A glass of wine, even beer or any alcohol is good, provided we limit ourselves to its stimulating quantity. Therefore, instead of blaming lust or nature we should rather try to understand and obey her. Lust is our best friend if we can learn to decipher and work in close cooperation with it, to our great advantage.
It may then be assumed that all pain and suffering, mental or physical which men are made to endure, have as their chief function to jolt us to learn to cooperate with nature. If only we could learn this lesson, it would save us many ruined life, many heartaches and many a wrecked body. But so long as as we do not obey nature, we must go on suffering endless ills.
With this brief explanation, we may accept that lust is a normal function of the mind and the chief purpose is to improve our wellbeing, to enable mankind to forge tools, instruments and all other things to cushion the effect of our sojourn in this earthly field. The energy we enjoy as electricity, the airplane we fly in, the automobile, the computer information technology, all that we enjoy and relish, particularly, the internet which has made the world a global village were all arrived at by this same lust.
The TROUBLE comes when we allow our lust to run out of control and into abnormal demand. At this stage, lust becomes destructive and degrading. Lust in its broader meaning includes all abnormal or let's call it excessive desires.This may include drugs, alcohol, tobacco, opposite sex or even tasty food, which we indulge in to satisfy the palate, and any other thing we embrace for the sake of pleasant sensation.
In some respects, inordinate lust is the strongest of the five perversions and most deadly. It is dominant over the vast majority of mankind. It leads to obsession, and day and night it haunts and taunts with its attractions, which appear in the most alluring garb. It blinds the mind and make man forget every moral obligation.
Last of all, when we have wasted vitality in sense indulgences, it tosses us upon the rubbish heap and coarses its victims to the level of the animal. With obsession borne of lust, perceptions are clouded and wits dulled.
In return for all the terrible loss, what have we gained beside a mad moment of delirium, which is a passing and fleeting freezy, that we doltishly term as having a good time. But barely an hour later, the victim sits alone in gathering darkness of guilty conscience, with new karmic chain forged around his neck. At this stage, he regrets and imagines why he was ever such a fool, not to have resisted the temptation of lust.
Worst of all indulgences is that of sex-the Creator's design for the legitimate purpose of perpetuation of the human species and bonding among couples. When sex controls an individual instead of the other way round, the degeneration of such is already accomplished. He is then simply a biped. How can someone who competes with the lower species regard himself as homo sapiens.
I had mention that one needs to write a volume to explain lust and that I will merely give an abridged illustration on it, since we still have other four perversions of the mind to discuss. For lack of space and time I will like to present the takeaway of this message on lust as follows:
All of us yearn to meet the Lord, but we have a formidable power to contend with. This power is known by several names and its chief purpose is to perpetuate the human species, by ensuring no unclean soul passes his domain and onward to the Abode of the Creator. The Supreme Lord Himself made it so at the outset in His Grand Design.
Our mind is an agent of the Negative Power, while our soul is part and parcel of the Divinity. Mind's antics is to make us extroverted and attached to transient things of the world. The objective is to keep us in the physical planes ad infinitum, by merely moving from one body to the other at different times.
Jesus acknowledged this Power and he referred to it as the Prince of the world. It was this same power that tempted Jesus all the way, before He triumphed over it. To get back to the Lord, we have to make our mind centripetal and put foot down against this power repeatedly, every moment.
If we listen to the dictates of the mind, we are offering an opportunity to an insidious enemy to defeat us, to deflect us away from the purpose of human life, and to deny us the unique opportunity offered by the human body to meet the Lord, from Whom we have been separated time immemorial, in our attempt to explore the created.
We are to live our life in constant consciousness of the antics of the mind and of the Negative Power. To do so, we are to imitate the boxers which we all are metaphorically. Our opponent is this same mind. A boxer in the ring needs 100% concentration; if he loses concentration for a split second, he would find himself flat on the floor.
This is food for thought for us all, including this writer of course. I can go on and on, but I have to pause this moment so as not to make a surfeit of this reminder on the advantages and disadvantages of lust
We will discuss ANGER next week.
Please let us continue to keep safe with the household and be assured, if it is not in our karma, we shall overcome the pandemic by God's grace only.