Two aphorisms, one teaching. “Love is one way to conquer lust” — a claim Spinoza would recognize instantly: an emotion cannot be destroyed by reason alone, only by a stronger contrary emotion. Willpower against lust is thought fighting affect, a losing battle; love against lust is affect against affect. Augustine goes further — lust is not love’s opposite but love disordered, energy awaiting redirection. The Sufis made it doctrine: ishq-e-majāzī, human love, is the bridge to ishq-e-haqīqī, the divine. And the second aphorism — “to begin to understand love is to begin to understand the truth” — finds its natural home in Advaita, where ānanda is not an attribute of the real but its very nature. Every love, as Yājñavalkya taught Maitreyī, is love of the Self, misaddressed. To trace love to its source rather than its objects is vicāra itself. Love conquers lust because love is veridical and lust is hallucinatory — one sees, the other hallucinates its own hunger.
Tag: Lust
Love & Lust
“Love is one way to conquer lust. Actually, love is a good and pleasant way to conquer many evils in … More
The Longing of the Flesh
Every call of the fleshIs a call of the spiritIn every consummation of longingThere’s a transcendenceTranscendence of egoTranscendence of the … More
Love & Lust
“Love trumps lust.”
Greed & Lust
“Those who do not have Love for all in their hearts, fall prey to greed and lust. And, from greed … More