15.5 – Divorcing our longest and worst life-partner

Lust is our longest life-partner. From the first hints of adolescence to the last gasps of old age, perhaps even to the death-bed; from the moment of waking to the moment of sleeping and, of course, into the sleep, lust occupies our mental bed.

Lust is also our worst life-partner: no one else promises so much and delivers so little. It paints its pleasures in the most glowing colors, yet the actual enjoyment is pathetically paltry, no matter how much we crave and scheme to increase it.

If any other normal life-partner had betrayed us so many times, we would have divorced that person long ago. But not lust; nothing breaks our trust in lust. Sometimes, when its deceptions land us in excessive trouble, we profess to banish it. But we still leave a secret place for it at the back of our mind; we still hope that somehow, someday it will keep its promises.

Why do we trust lust so naively?

Because we don’t know any alternative life-partner.

Gita wisdom presents us that missing alternative: Krishna. It introduces us to the higher happiness of loving Krishna; it explains that lust is a perversion of our original love for him; and it offers us experiences of a richer, deeper happiness.

If we want those experiences to last, we need to divorce lust, as the Bhagavad-gita (15.5: vinivrtta kamah) indicates. Why? Because lust doesn’t let our thoughts stay with Krishna.

Divorcing lust may seem a tall order. But it can be done one day at a time, even one moment at a time. If we offer Krishna just a fraction of the trust that we have offered lust, we will soon discover that he is a far better life-partner, in fact, the best life-partner that we can ever have – and have forever.