Remission is not elimination

When a serious disease such as cancer goes into remission, doctors warn patients that remission doesn’t imply elimination; the disease can relapse and they need to watch out for symptoms that might indicate a relapse.

Similarly, spiritual wisdom helps us understand that selfish drives such as lust, anger and greed are venomous for our souls – as is cancer for our body. The Bhagavad-gita (03.41) indicates that lust is the destroyer of knowledge and the urge for knowledge. When we are allured by lust, we lose our spiritual awareness and lose any interest in cultivating such awareness. Imagining that we will soon become happy at the material level if we just get the right sense objects, we perpetuate our miserable material existence, wherein we suffer repeated old age, disease, death and rebirth.

When we understand the gravity of lust, we seek measures to break its hold on us. If we start practicing spiritual disciplines seriously, we may experience a certain amount of remission in our sensual desires. We may even find ourselves resisting temptations that had earlier seemed irresistible. Such successes can boost our faith in bhakti’s healing potency. But if we let such successes make us complacent and self-congratulatory, imagining that we have already conquered lust, then we are dangerously mistaking remission to be elimination. Lust is still lurking in the background, waiting for the opportunity to entice and enslave us again.

While outlining how to battle lust, the Gita urges us to use our intelligence to situate ourselves on the spiritual platform (03.43). The most sustainable way to be spiritually situated is by learning to love Krishna and to become absorbed in the joy of rendering loving service to him. By such loving absorption alone will lust be exiled from our heart – when we constantly relish the joy of bhakti, we increasingly transcend worldly allurements.